Smaller launch followed by bigger launch, page-37

Kleos Space from Bonneweg is currently building a fleet of microsatellites for monitoring the earth. The company wants to make money as early as next year. About an idea, the Luxembourg location and the space industry away from space mining. Pirates who want to pursue their craft. Floating factories that plunder the fish stocks of another country. A merchant fleet that wants to get goods out of the country despite an existing embargo. They all depend on people not to see them. To hide a ship on the open sea is impossible. Making it invisible for a while, however, is not. Ships, whether they are cruise ships or container ship s, use an automatic identification system (AIS) with which they permanently transmit their position and other relevant data. The system has been mandatory for all ships engaged in international voyages since 2000. However, if a crew does not want to reveal their position, they switch off their AIS. This illegal navigation without AIS is called "going dark" or "dark shipping" in the jargon. The ships can thus move relatively unobtrusively under the starry sky in the vastness of the oceans and pursue their illegal activities. While fishing, smuggling and boarding are carried out on the oceans, things are a little more peaceful in space. Telescopes scour the galaxy for new worlds, rovers search the solar system. The ISS, mankind's only space station, sprints around the Earth at breathtaking speed. Mankind is pushing it further and further out into space to satisfy its thirst for knowledge. First Billionaire Not everyone searches for knowledge in space. Some see it as a business model. Space mining, it is said, will produce the first billionaire. But before that happens, others are already making profits in space or are about to do so. The satellite operator SES, for example, which has long since ceased to transmit only television images with its now huge satellite fleet. The company's antenna park in Betzdorf is a widely visible sign of the size and success of the company and its subsidiaries. Over the past decades, the complex has spread out more and more into woods and fields in the industrial park on the greenfield site between Betzdorf and Olingen, which was created especially for technology companies. The Kleos company in Bonneweg is more inconspicuous. No antenna park and no guard house. Instead the side entrance of an office building and a modern, bright office under the roof, where young people work on their computers. And a conference room with a huge world map hanging on the wall. Andrew Bowyer, CEO and co-founder of Kleos Space, is casual. No sign of a strict boss. Start-up atmosphere. The company is at home here in Luxembourg, Bowyer points out. This is where the company was founded and this is where it's growing. Kleos is part of a group of companies called New Space. A new generation of innovative and very fast-acting companies that are expanding into space and Luxembourg. Also because of the just passed Minister of Economy Etienne Schneider (LSAP), who had just recognized this sector as a future industry. Schneider's predecessor Jeannot Krecké (LSAP) had already identified a number of future-oriented sectors (information and communication technology, biotech, ecotech, logistics) and Schneider had added space to these. In Luxembourg, these companies find an environment in which they can thrive, with a ministry that is well disposed towards them, high-profile conferences and access to private and public funding. Earth observation If you don't want to wait until the first drilling rigs on an asteroid hit platinum, there are roughly two options. He operates either communication or observation satellites. Kleos Space is dedicated to Earth observation. The company is currently preparing to launch a first constellation of four satellites into space. According to Bowyer, the industry is divided according to the electromagnetic spectrum covered by the satellites of the different companies. Some companies are taking pictures in the visible light range. Others take infrared pictures. Kleos wants to use its satellites to cover a special range of radio waves - ultra-short waves - which is used by walkie-talkies, for example. The company does not want to and cannot use these satellites to eavesdrop on conversations, but it can find out where such devices are being used. In this way, Kleos is giving the authorities a new trump card in the game of hide-and-seek on the open sea. Smugglers, pirates and poaching fishing fleets use radios in their activities. "When smugglers move goods from one ship to another or ashore, they coordinate by ultra-short wave. This is very secure.