Space DOTS

Making on-orbit qualification of advanced materials and small components, faster, cheaper, and simpler.

Created: 2023-02-23

Updated: 2024-05-18

Company - Space DOTS

Founded
Country: 2021; UK

Funding: $1.7M

Website: https://space-dots.com/

Social

Product/Service - BARNACLE DOT, INDY DOT

Classification: Miscellaneous

Category: Microgravity Flight Service (LEO)
Microgravity Research Payloads

Fields: Automated Microgravity Laboratory

Status: Development

First launch: 2025

Currently the development of new materials, electronics, or coatings suffers high development costs and expensive failures late in the development.

And once a development is complete there is still a barrier to successful commercialization, as customers are not keen to fly first a new unproven product.

Using our Pico-sat active testing labs and independent platforms, Space DOTS® offers a route to first-flight heritage and product confidence at low TRL levels.

BARNACLE DOT

A Pico-sat with active testing labs for samples in a 0.1U volume, hosted on existing commercial Smallsats and ridesharing services to LEO, GEO and Cislunar orbits. The product line consists of a first generation of 4x active test labs: Pull test lab, Torsion test lab, Thermo-optical properties test lab, Thermal conductivity test lab.

Space DOTS solution is the Barnacle DOT, a materials testing payload the size of a phone that can test the tensile strength and other properties of materials in space. The company is aiming to sell a full materials testing service from ground to results for under $500K, an order of magnitude less than what Cefalo says it costs today.

Space DOTS plans to have a working product by the end of 2024 and its first flight in 2025.

INDY DOT

The modular components used by the Barnacle DOTS can be reconfigured with a Pico-sat structure, modular add-ons and shared launch adaptor to provide a new class of flat-sat with either 0.07U or 0.15U payload volume, and moderate power capability. This satellite will be able to be launched in groups of either 4x in 0.5U or 8x in a 1U Cubesat volume, enabling miniaturized payloads to access space at a greatly reduced cost.

“What we do is a smartphone-sized version of a testing lab that anyone would use on ground to test materials’ properties before actually going into space. We have shrunk everything down so that it can be launched very quickly and easily at a lower cost, directly into orbit,” explains co-founder and CEO Bianca Cefalo.

Status Comment / Notes

Connecting the Dots | New tools for space qualification, SpaceNews, 2024-02-23.

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