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Aerospacelab

Space · Mont-Saint-Guibert, Belgium · Founded 2018

Aerospacelab, founded in 2018 by CEO Benoît Deper, is a Belgian company that designs, manufactures, and operates satellites and their subsystems. Deper, an engineer with experience at NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), established the company to build satellites in volume by leveraging miniaturization and vertical integration. After working on large, slow-moving projects at ESA, he was inspired by the agile approach to small satellite development he witnessed in the US and aimed to bring a similar model to the European market. The company's business model is focused on the end-to-end production of satellite systems. Aerospacelab serves a diverse client base that includes space agencies, defense organizations, and commercial companies in sectors like telecommunications, agriculture, and physics. Its offerings include turnkey satellite solutions, individual platforms, and subsystems. Revenue is generated through engineering contracts, subsystem sales, and complete satellite sales, with a recent shift toward the latter two as the primary income sources. A key part of its strategy is vertical integration, with most components and payloads being developed in-house to ensure quality control, rapid delivery, and scalability. Aerospacelab produces a range of versatile satellite platforms (VSP) for various Low Earth Orbit (LEO) missions, including Earth observation, telecommunications, and technology demonstrations. These platforms are modular and can be adapted for different payloads and mission requirements, with satellite weights ranging from 50 kg to 1,000 kg. The company has proven capabilities in producing payloads for high-resolution optical imagery and radio frequency (RF) sensing. Aerospacelab is also developing its own constellations for geospatial intelligence, providing services that utilize artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze satellite data for customers. Since its inception, the company has grown significantly, with a workforce of over 350 employees and multiple successful satellite launches. Aerospacelab has secured substantial funding, including a Series B round that brought its total funding to over €100 million, with notable investors like Airbus Ventures and XAnge. To meet growing demand, the company is expanding its production capacity. It operates a facility in Louvain-la-Neuve with an annual capacity of 24 satellites and has established a US factory near Los Angeles to serve the U.S. government and military market. A new "Megafactory" under construction in Charleroi, Belgium, is expected to be one of Europe's largest satellite production facilities, with a projected annual capacity of up to 500 satellites upon becoming fully operational by 2027. Keywords: satellite manufacturing, geospatial intelligence, vertical integration, Earth observation, telecommunications, satellite platforms, LEO satellites, New Space, satellite constellations, radio frequency sensing, optical imagery, space systems, satellite operations, defense, aerospace, Belgium, Benoît Deper, VSP, Versatile Satellite Platform, Airbus Ventures, small satellites, agile space, mass production