Originally established in 2021 with the goal of producing robotic satellite systems for refuelling satellites on orbit, ANT61 is a small Australian company that is achieving early success.
“Everyone knows space is hard,” Mikhail Asavkin, CEO and Founder of ANT61, said. “We need to establish credibility and demonstrate our robot systems working many times before prospective clients will consider allowing them near their satellites let alone refuelling them.”
To this end, ANT61 is working with Australian universities to qualify their equipment against NASA and JAXA standards for launch and orbital operations. These standards encapsulate the environmental lessons learned from decades of missions, including pressure, shock, vibration, radiation and temperature extremes.
“The ultimate test is always launching to space,” Asavkin said. “Nobody will ever believe that your system will work in space until it does. And for every company, this is a big milestone when they reach orbit and can demonstrate successful operations.”
For ANT61, the milestone was reached when their Beacon system was launched as part of a mission being operated by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), the Federal Republic of Germany’s aerospace research centre. Beacon is a system designed to allow monitoring of a satellite’s onboard systems, communicating with the ground via the Iridium constellation and helping satellites recover from failures, even if they’re tumbling out of control.
The first Beacon was attached to the third stage of DLR’s rocket, maintaining communications throughout the flight, even when the stage was spinning rapidly. It was also able to continue sending information during re-entry despite the plasma build-up around the rocket body.
“For us, it was really important to show that Beacon works and can maintain communication even when tumbling,” Asavkin said. “We were able to find the rocket stage after re-entry due to Beacon’s GPS unit. It was in the permafrost between Norway and Sweden, so we used a helicopter to bring it back to base. The Beacon unit was still working and is now on display in our office.”
Beacon units are now being sold to other organisations, with most being Earth observation satellite operators. The use of Iridium for communications is possible as those satellites are in medium orbits while Beacon is operating in Low Earth Orbit. Asavkin says that once SpaceX also provides Starlink in a MEO constellation, they will be able to consider offering Beacon users the option to communicate via that service in place of Iridium. He also notes that they are assessing Viasat’s Geosynchronous satellites to cover future any high orbit operations Beacon may be used on.
With the company’s focus on the goal of on orbit refuelling, Beacon is an important step along that path. The company is also helping to develop Australia’s space industry by giving students from universities, primarily in the greater Sydney area, a chance to work on equipment that goes into space, having run nine internship cohorts over the past four years.
“We believe that space is for everyone, and in Australia we have this great opportunity to build from scratch,” Asavkin said. “We are essentially the first generation of space companies, so we have to bring more people into the space industry as we’re going to need ten times the people in three years. Space is not for an elite group of people. You don’t have to be an exceptional engineer, you need passion for space and some skills, but a lot of the skills you need can be taught in the industry.”