Vyoma Awarded Two European Defence Fund Contracts to Enhance Space Security
by Robert Schreiber
Berlin, Germany (SPX) Jul 03, 2024

Vyoma, a Germany-based company providing Space Domain Awareness capabilities, has been awarded two contracts by the European Defence Fund (EDF) programme of the European Commission. Specifically, the EMISSARY and STAALION projects seek to augment European intelligence sovereignty and enhance threat response capabilities. These contracts represent a significant milestone in Vyoma's mission to empower the defence sector with independent space domain awareness capabilities, thereby contributing to European geostrategic autonomy and the protection of critical infrastructure security in the continent.

EMISSARY proposes to develop a network of ground- and space-based sensors that feed a European Space Command and Control (SC2) centre. The SC2 processes the data and disseminates it to national defence entities with the sole purpose of generating a harmonised picture of threats in space across participating Member States. Among others, Vyoma's contribution includes the development and testing of the scheduling module for space-based sensors. The scheduling strategy shall consider, for instance, operational processes to improve the efficacy of onboard operations and data retrieval by the SC2 centre EMISSARY will demonstrate and qualify technologies of predecessor projects (incl. INTEGRAL, where Vyoma was also a participant) completed in the frame of the European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP) calls, in 2020. Leonardo will lead this 100 million EMISSARY project, which will span 4 years and involve over 40 partners from 13 EU countries, including diverse SMEs and major enterprises.

STAALION, headed by Nurjana Technologies, is backed by a 6 million budget spanning 2 years and aims to design a system that protects strategic European assets via in-situ detection and characterisation of threats, from LEO to GEO. Ultimately, the system shall be designed to provide a fast and reliable detection-to-action process, through a decentralised onboard processing network and an optimised communication architecture. Crucially, Vyoma is responsible for developing the LEO space segment of the constellation (orbital design, pointing strategy and operations concept, mission analysis, etc.) and implementing the detection and identification software.

Vyoma's involvement in both EMISSARY and STAALION underscores its dedication to fortifying European defence capabilities by providing cutting-edge space domain awareness and management systems. The award of these projects highlights Vyoma's expertise and leadership in advancing space technologies that align with European strategic and security goals. Vyoma is honoured to continue contributing to the safeguarding of Europe's autonomy and sovereignty in space intelligence.

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