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01 Aug 2024
Starris to offer rapid deployment of space-qualified optical payloads for applications including Earth observation.
Optimax Systems, the precision optics manufacturer based near Rochester, New York, has launched a new company dedicated to applications in space.
Known as “Starris: Optimax Space Systems”, the spin-out aims to deliver agile, space-qualified optical payloads that will enable customers to go from idea to launch-ready within one year.
The plan is to integrate space-rated optics, sensors, and electronics into digital cameras and instruments using pre-engineered modular systems, thus reducing risk, cost, and time in delivering custom optical payloads for spaceflight.
Rapid deployment
Starris has already agreed a collaboration with sensor maker Teledyne Space Imaging that will focus on applications including Earth observation, space navigation, in-orbit servicing, in-situ resource ultilization, in-orbit manufacturing, and space domain awareness.
“Starris is powered by three decades of space-qualified innovation and precision optics from parent company Optimax,” announced the new company.
“Optics produced by Optimax have enabled a wide variety of space-flight missions, including NASA Mars Rovers and commercial space ventures. Optimax presently has optics on thousands of satellites orbiting the Earth.”
In a release announcing the company’s impending official launch, at the Small Satellite Conference taking place in Utah next week, Optimax CEO Joe Spilman said:
“The global space economy is at an inflection point, poised to nearly triple by 2025, reaching a staggering $1.8 trillion. To accelerate our pace, the industry must shift to a new norm where risk, cost, and time to orbit are significantly minimized.
“That is Starris’ mission - enable our customers to accelerate their pace. Starris will dramatically reduce the time required to go from concept to orbit with space-qualified optical payloads tailored for aggressive design cycles and rapid deployment.”
Eyes on Mars
Starris has determined that many new entrants to commercial space applications have similar mission requirements, so the company has created a pre-tested modular system that integrates lenses, telescopes, sensors, and electronic control systems, with the ability for customization according to individual customer preferences.
Company CTO Kevin Kearney explained: “Legacy space missions take years, if not decades, to get into orbit. We are compressing that multi-year cycle by assembling pre-tested modular payloads that, when launched, will be space-tolerant, reliable, and fulfill customer requirements.”
In a separate release outlining the Teledyne collaboration, which aims to develop space cameras for small satellites and lunar ecosystems, Antonino Spatola from the key provider of sensors and focal plane arrays noted:
“Our joint development of these compact camera payloads begins to address a growing and significant market as small-sat applications move beyond LEO [low-Earth orbit] into the cis-lunar economy, which is a stepping stone to Mars habitation.”
Spatola’s colleague Jack Mills, who heads up sales activity in the Americas region for Teledyne Space Imaging, added: “This partnership recognises the synergies between Optimax and Teledyne Space Imaging, bringing our complementary expertise in optics and sensors together to deliver market-leading products to our global customers.”
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