Electronics startup based on decades of scientific experience Eventech is moving its event timing technology to space, with support of European Space Agency. Meanwhile, on March 7-8 the team will be pitching in Munich finals of Starburst – the world’s top aerospace accelerator.
Eventech is producing event measurement equipment – devices that are used for satellite laser ranging. It works like this: a base device on Earth sends laser impulses to space that land on retro-reflector of a satellite or Moon surface, which then go back to an observatory on Earth that registers the reflection signal, makes an extremely precise recording of time travelled and calculates the location of each satellite up to a millimetre.
Eventech already operates Earth-based equipment that is able to record over 20 million events a second with several picosecond precision.
To put it in perspective: if you were a spaceship, Eventech could tell which one of your nails is growing fastest.
This is no trivial matter for spaceships: Event Timing technology allows calculating any time interval with very high, 2-3 picosecond (ps), precision (RMS resolution). Such detail is crucial for precise object positioning in space to avoid collision with other satellites and debris. It also ensures full data package information is transmitted between satellites and other spacecrafts, avoiding data losses.
Extreme accuracy plays an important role when measurement error has high impact, for example, in Earth monitoring and clock synchronization.
“Our multi-purpose event timer (MPET) will unite a variety of useful functions: it could precisely track each satellite for Geodesy research activities, sync atomic clocks between space missions and terrestrial stations, discover and monitor space debris, provide fast and secure data transmission and do LiDAR and 3D scans of terrestrial and space objects.”
The current project performed for European Space Agency in cooperation with Czech Space Research Center aims to enable the same technology to be used in space-based equipment to ensure intersatellite communication. The team is now working on hardening the design against heavy radiation, wide-range temperatures, vibrations and shocks that may appear within the space environment.
Eventech currently sells its products to NASA’s International Satellite Laser Ranging community worldwide and is actively engaged in R&D activities with national and international partners. The opportunity is exciting:
“Currently a range of communications between satellites is transferred through an intermediary station back on Earth. If we can enable this information to flow directly from satellite to satellite, we would make space communication faster, more accurate and more reliable. “
“We also use simpler electronics that are cheaper and more compact, while ensuring minimum accuracy loss and suitability for many space applications,” continues Adamovitch.
The founder of Eventech Yuri Artyukh has been working in the field in 1965. After Yuri passed away in 2012, his team of 3 researchers Eugene Boole, Vadim Vedin and Vladimir Bespalko, as well as 2 business experts Nikolai Adamovitch and Katrina Krivenko, continue to develop Eventech technology. Each technical co-founder has almost 40 years of relevant experience.
Besides the exciting work on ESA project, Eventech will be pitching in world’s #1 accelerator for aerospace startups – Starburst on March 7-8 in Munich.
The team is looking forward to showing their technology and obtaining feedback from large aerospace industry players like Thales Alenia Space, Boeing, Airbus Defence & Space, EADS Astrium, RUAG Space, Telespazio and others for integration of MPET into their flight systems and future space missions.
The company is developed at Commercialization Reactor, Baltic region’s biggest accelerator for science-based startups that has reviewed over 600 international IPs to date and helped over 30 promising scientists find entrepreneurial co-founders. Eventech will also be present at Commercialization Reactor Investors’ and Partners’ Day on April 12 in Riga.
