Berlin-based aerospace company PTS has been selected by the European Space Agency to fly the company’s Curium One Mission onboard the Ariane 6 maiden flight already as early as 2022.
Curium One will operate in earth orbit an innovative redundant GPU processing platform powering the ‘Major Tom’ project as well as the first Engineering Modell of the ASTRIS Kick Stage electronics and operating system.
Wolfram Simon-Schröter, CEO of the Zeitfracht Group: “We are very proud to be part of the innovative European Ariane 6 project with our satellite project ‘Major Tom’ and our partner company PTS. And this, already at the first launch of the newly developed launcher. We were very happy about the good news from ESA and are now very excited to see what kind of images our satellite might already deliver this year. To see how we can make space travels a much greater experience for all the people here on Earth. The true innovations of the near future lie beyond Earth, I’m certain of this.”
André Radloff, CEO of PTS: “This is an truly exciting opportunity to demonstrate the commercial possibilities of bringing cutting edge high-performance computing to space, bridging the gap from modern data center technologies right into our solar system.”
Curium One acts as a booster for all of PTS space development and we take the opportunity to test drive the first engineering model of the ASTRIS Kick Stage Avionics.
The ASTRIS Kick Stage will be an additional upper stage complementing the new European Ariane 6 launcher. The Kick Stage will further increase the versatility of Ariane 6 by providing higher payload capacities and enhanced performance for certain missions. Enabling new mission profiles, including the launch of satellite swarms, missions to the Moon or deep space, as it will make for reduction in spacecraft complexity and the risks inherent in orbit injection. This again strengthens Ariane 6’s chances on the market.
As ESA’s prime contractor, ArianeGroup is developing the Ariane 6 rocket and the ASTRIS Kick Stage. The development of both the Ariane 6 upper stage and the Kick Stage are being led by ArianeGroup Bremen. In July this year, ArianeGroup was awarded a €90 million contract by ESA for the ASTRIS Kick Stage program with the aim of further increasing the versatility of Ariane 6 and its performance in new types of missions. PTS is the largest subcontractor within the ASTRIS Kick Stage program and oversees the operating system and electronics.