A startup wants to be "Booking.com for rocket launches"
May 19, 2023
Hong Kong, May 19 An Abu Dhabi startup wants to help entrepreneurs and researchers plan their payload launches with ease and contribute to expansion of humanity's presence in space, CNN Business reported.
Precious Payload wants to be the "Booking.com for rocket launches," said Andrey Maksimov, the company's Russian-born chief executive officer and founder.
"Similar to looking at the search results of a booking engine, you can view all the commercially available rocket launches around the planet," said Maksimov. He adds that the platform, which launched in 2021, enables businesses to plan and manage space missions on a single interface.
Maksimov hopes Precious Payload can simplify a complex, time-consuming process, helping entrepreneurs and researchers plan their payload launches with ease and contributing to "the expansion of humanity's presence in space," he said.
Space missions typically require large teams and costly consultation from industry experts to ensure missions meet strict specifications, said Maksimov.
Precious Payload streamlines the process by gathering data from space agencies and rocket launches across the globe, according to CNN Business. Maksimov said his team has analysed the engineering standards and regulatory protocols between international space agencies like NASA and the European Space Agency, and created its own list of specifications that ensure launches will comply with regulations wherever they take off from.
This approach has enabled the company to cut six to 10 months off the average mission's time-to-launch, said Maksimov, adding that his goal is to achieve launches within "one year and USD 1 million."
Connecting customers around the globe to commercial and government launches, Maksimov says the company has received bookings from 30 clients across 12 countries.
In addition to satellites, Maksimov said that Precious Payload is working with a range of cargo, including manufacturing, biological, and even art and marketing payloads, such as the space selfie stick by German company DCubeD, which helps companies get photos of their satellites in space.
