DATA CENTRES

INTELLIGENT TECHNOLOGY

Just one year after its first in-orbit mission, the company launches Out of the Box, its first fully owned and operated satellite.

This milestone marks its transition into the ranks of satellite operators, a domain historically dominated by legacy players such as Airbus, Thales and Eutelsat.

At the core of this breakthrough is a patented universal space port technology, comparable to a USB port for satellites. Plug-and-play and payload-agnostic, it transforms satellites into shared infrastructures capable of hosting multiple payloads simultaneously.

With Out of the Box, SpaceLocker deploys a 16U CubeSat weighing around twenty kilograms, carrying five European customers. This approach enables access to space without building a dedicated satellite. CEO and co-founder Théophile Lagraulet said the goal is to do for space what cloud computing did for IT – shifting from ownership to shared infrastructure. compared with traditional missions while cutting time-to-orbit roughly in half. It also lowers environmental impact through shared resources.

The mission carries five payloads from across Europe, demonstrating diverse nextgeneration applications. EDGX will showcase edge computing, allowing satellites to process data onboard and reduce reliance on ground systems. Fédération Open Space Makers will fly FOSM-1, supporting amateur radio and open communication experiments with CNES. Solar MEMS will operate a high-precision star tracker and Arcsec will test advanced systems for accurate attitude determination on small satellites.

SpaceLocker collaborates with partners including Thales Alenia Space for testing and Skynopy for communications.

Today, nearly one in five missions focuses on technology demonstration, yet these opportunities remain complex and costly.

By simplifying access, SpaceLocker aims to accelerate innovation. As orbit becomes increasingly congested, shared satellites provide economic and environmental advantages. Hosting multiple missions on one platform reduces costs, limits debris, and decreases total mass launched. It also strengthens Europe’ s strategic autonomy by adding a new French operator to a critical segment.

Founded in 2022, SpaceLocker exemplifies a new generation of New Space companies, completing an initial mission, securing around fifteen commercial contracts, signing multiple institutional agreements and generating more than four million euros in contracts within two years.

This momentum positions the company as a key enabler of more accessible, flexible, and sustainable space operations for the future. By combining standardization, shared infrastructure and rapid deployment, the model challenges traditional industry assumptions and opens new markets for startups, research institutions, and public agencies.

Ultimately, SpaceLocker seeks to make orbital access as simple as booking a service, reducing barriers and unlocking innovation across Europe and beyond, shaping a more connected and sustainable space ecosystem for all. •

Traditionally, sending technology to orbit required designing or procuring an entire satellite, a long, costly and inflexible process that has remained largely unchanged for decades.

SpaceLocker introduces a platform-based model. Customers develop payloads independently and integrate them into standardized containers using the universal port.

SpaceLocker manages the full orbital stack, from integration to operations. This model reduces costs by up to three times

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INTELLIGENT CIO EUROPE

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