Microspace Rapid

Microspace Rapid Pte Ltd (trading as Microspace) is a creative engineering and exploration company specializing in nanosatellites and the proprietary subsystems that power them. The company was founded to solve the core problem limiting small-satellite performance: propulsion. Its engineers developed some of the world's first micromachined silicon microthrusters, packaged into modular units small enough to fit in any corner of a nanosatellite while still delivering controllable, high-efficiency thrust for attitude control, formation flight, orbital correction, collision avoidance and de-orbiting.

Microspace has designed, built and operated two satellites of its own from scratch to orbit. POPSAT-HIP1 launched on 19 June 2014 aboard a Dnepr rocket from Yasny, Russia, into a Low Earth Sun-Synchronous Orbit, where it demonstrated the company's micropropulsion system through a 9-month mission using eight onboard thrusters, bringing the technology to TRL9. ATHENOXAT-1, developed for a client in Singapore, launched on 16 December 2015 aboard a PSLV rocket from Sriharikota, India, into an equatorial LEO. It carries five imaging payloads including a pioneering high-resolution night-vision camera in a 3U cubesat, along with in-house reaction wheels, deployable solar panels and imaging/scheduling software, and remains operational years after launch.

Beyond flight-proven nanosatellites, Microspace's technology portfolio spans micropropulsion and propellantless propulsion systems, high-resolution optical imaging payloads, reflectarray antennas (over 20dB gain, X-band, dual polarization) suited to deep-space missions to the Moon and Mars, micropower turbogenerators, and in-house manufactured photovoltaic panels with more than six years of demonstrated on-orbit performance. The company describes over 20 years of engineering experience, more than 100 projects completed, and over 10 satellites studied or developed.

Outside of space applications, Microspace also applies its systems-engineering capability to terrestrial technologies, including high-voltage laboratory instruments, wireless non-contact sensing instrumentation, mechanical watch design, and fluid-dynamics devices ranging from large bladed compressors to microturbines and nanovalves.