LONDON — United Kingdom-based space surveillance company Spaceflux hopes to introduce a catalog of space objects next year, one that could rival data kept by the United States Space Force and provide satellite conjunction warnings if Europe’s relations with the U.S. were to deteriorate in the future.
The company, which launched in 2022 is developing a global network of optical and infrared telescopes to monitor the movement of satellites and space debris fragments around Earth to ensure safe usage of space at a time of increasing reliance on space technologies.
The company announced July 24 that it had secured £5.4 million ($7.3 million) in funding from the U.K. Innovation & Science Seed Fund to expand its global telescope network, according to Sky News. This is in addition to previously announced £5 million ($6.7 million) worth of contracts with the governments of the U.K. and Italy where Spaceflux recently opened a branch.
Space situational awareness has long been an area where Europe relies heavily on the United States. Although a few European countries, including the U.K., Germany, France and Italy, have built space monitoring radars, European satellite operators mostly rely on conjunction warnings provided by the U.S. Space Command.
“We understood that there is a gap in the market in Europe and that enabled us to grow very fast,” Marco Rocchetto, Spaceflux CEO and co-founder, told SpaceNews. “There is a strong dependency on the U.S. [space object] catalog today and we absolutely need to create redundancy against losing access to that catalog.”
The U.S. Space Force’s space-track.org monitors about 48,000 objects that circle Earth including all operational satellites and pieces of space debris down to the size of about 10 centimeters (3 inches).
Spaceflux operates 15 optical and infrared telescopes across the globe that detect satellites and space debris objects from low Earth orbit all the way up to the cis-lunar space. An AI-powered platform called Cortex crunches the data in real time, spotting objects as small as one inch (2.5 centimeters) in low Earth orbit and around four inches (10 cm) in geostationary orbit. In the past, Spaceflux has contributed data to the U.S. catalog, and will continue to do so as it builds up its own to ensure satellite operators have the most accurate information.
The company is hoping to install an additional 10 telescopes by 2026.
“We scan the sky and detect and monitor objects that include satellites and space debris across all orbital regimes,” Rocchetto said.
While space situational awareness traditionally relies on radar measurements, which provide an immediate estimate of an object’s distance, Rochetto said the optical technology allows the company to build up a space-monitoring network at a much lower cost.
The addition of short-wave infrared sensors enables imaging during daytime, which is not possible in the optical spectrum. In addition, by using different filters, the telescope data can help characterize unknown objects and assess their nature.
“It allows us to do spectral fingerprinting, so that we can also identify objects and understand whether it’s a piece of debris or a satellite that might be a part of a constellation,” Rocchetto said.
In October 2024, the company was the first to characterize and announce the sudden fragmentation of the geostationary Intelsat 33E satellite.
In April, Spaceflux analyzed the behavior of Cosmos 2533 — a mysterious satellite believed to be part of Russia’s nuclear anti-satellite weapon program — which began to spin uncontrollably in April.
“With a growing number of satellites in orbit, relying on goodwill for critical data and depending on the U.S. for situational awareness is no longer a sound strategy for Europe,” Julia Balm, a research associate at the Freeman Air and Space Institute at Kings College London, told SpaceNews.
“Understanding the space environment and possessing timely situational awareness data is foundational to exercising space power. Without reliable, autonomous space domain awareness, Europe risks operational blind spots and over-reliance on non-European data sources in times of crisis.”
This capability gap proved a boon for Spaceflux. The company, which spun out of a venture building telescopes for amateur astronomers and astrophotographers, has so far secured contracts worth a combined 5 million pounds from the U.K Space Agency and the Ministry of Defense and recently opened a branch in Italy.
Spaceflux is not the only company in Europe hoping to play a role in space situational awareness. Portugal’s Neuraspace has recently installed two satellite-watching telescopes in Chile and Portugal, and has raised over $27.6 million in funding from the European Union and private venture funds.