• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • News
  • Featured
  • More News ⌄
    • SatNews
    • SatMagazine
    • MilSatMagazine
  • Events ⌄
    • MilSat Symposium
    • SmallSat Symposium
    • Satellite Innovation
  • Contacts
  • SUBSCRIPTION

SmallSat News

You are here: Home / News / Findus Venture and Spire Global To Collaborate On The Launch Of The ADLER-2 Smallsat To Tackle Space Debris

Findus Venture and Spire Global To Collaborate On The Launch Of The ADLER-2 Smallsat To Tackle Space Debris

April 20, 2021 by editorial

Findus Venture GMBH (“Findus Venture”) and Spire Global, Inc. (“Spire” or the “Company”) will collaborate on their launch of the ADLER-2 satellite in Q4 2022 in a bid to tackle the growing problem of space debris.

This new satellite aims to further enhance orbital debris monitoring in low earth orbit, and expand novel atmospheric sensing capabilities to study clouds and aerosols in the atmosphere. ADLER-2 will be a multi-payload satellite that uses Spire’s LEMUR 6U smallsat platform and will carry three customer payloads:

Artistic rendition of Spire Global’s Lemur-2 smallsat on-orbit. Image is courtesy of the company.
  • An enhanced version of an orbital debris tracking radar developed by Spire on behalf of Findus Venture
  • An Austrian Particle Impact Detector piezo-sensor developed by the Austrian Space Forum (OeWF), designed to detect debris particle impacts
  • The GRASP-Airphoton Multi-Angle Polarimeter (GAPMAP), a wide field-of-view imaging instrument optimised for cubesat technology and designed for accurate and comprehensive measurements of the microphysical properties of aerosol particles and clouds in the atmosphere.

These new observations will perform air quality measurements around the globe and will support estimates of climate change patterns on Earth.

This is the second satellite collaboration between Spire and Findus Venture, following the ADLER-1 mission, which is set to launch into space in December 2021. ADLER-2 is expected to help increase the debris detection rate thanks to use of a debris detection radar with a larger antenna and increased detection range, and also to double the number of observations logged.

Spire will build, launch and operate the satellite, leveraging its radio frequency CubeSat design and manufacturing capability with its satellite tasking, collection, processing, data dissemination, and command and control infrastructure. Spire will also provide the orbital debris radar to Findus, integrate the other sensors, and enable access to all of them via an easy-to-use application programming interface (API).

This agreement between Findus Venture and Spire is based on a flexible subscription model with a monthly payment plan. This model benefits Spire’s customers by reducing high upfront expenditures, enabling predictable service charges distribution, and allowing an easier extension of the service provision beyond the lifecycle of the hardware.

Christian Federspiel, CEO, Findus Venture, said, “It is essential to understand space debris in order to build and operate satellite-based commercial services with service-level agreements. The intention of the ADLER-x series of satellites is to contribute to a deeper knowledge of space debris.”

Theresa Condor, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Spire Space Services, said, “The rapid and substantial growth of space-based activity in recent decades presents us with many opportunities but also significant challenges. Space debris, and the increased risk of collisions between objects, is something we need to manage carefully and as a first step we need to improve our understanding of what is happening and when. The ADLER-2 will join the ADLER-1 in helping us better detect debris and understand what we need to do to solve this challenge. Our business subscription model, evidenced by this second successful partnership with Findus Venture, also means we can work faster and more efficiently, at a lower upfront cost for our clients.”

Spire is a global provider of space-based data and analytics that offers unique datasets and powerful insights about Earth from the ultimate vantage point so organizations can make decisions with confidence, accuracy, and speed. Spire uses a multi-purpose satellite constellation to source hard to acquire, valuable data and enriches it with predictive solutions. Spire then provides this data as a subscription to organizations around the world so they can improve business operations, decrease their environmental footprint, deploy resources for growth and competitive advantage, and mitigate risk. Spire gives commercial and government organizations the competitive advantage they seek to innovate and solve some of the world’s toughest problems with insights from space. Spire has offices in San Francisco, California, Boulder, Colorado, Washington DC, Glasgow, Luxembourg, and Singapore. On March 1, 2021, Spire Global, Inc. and NavSight Holdings, Inc. announced they had entered into a definitive merger agreement for a business combination that would result in Spire becoming a publicly listed company.

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

Archives

  • June 2025
  • May 2025
  • April 2025
  • March 2025
  • February 2025
  • January 2025
  • December 2024
  • November 2024
  • October 2024
  • September 2024
  • August 2024
  • July 2024
  • June 2024
  • May 2024
  • April 2024
  • March 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019

© 2019–2025 SatNews

x
Sign Up Now!

Enjoy a free weekly newsletter with recent headlines from the global SmallSat industry.

Invalid email address
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Thanks for subscribing! You will now receive weekly SmallSat News updates.
We love our advertisers.
And you will too!

Please disable Ad Blocker to continue... We promise to keep it unobtrusive.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address
Thanks for subscribing! Please check your email for further instructions.