Estonia has about 11 months to find space technology related business and science projects worth at least EUR 1 million. That was the deal when Estonia signed PECS (Plan for European Cooperating State) agreement with European Space Agency (ESA) about three weeks ago.

Estonia aims to become a full member of ESA by 2016, but like Madis Võõras, Space Advisor from Enterprise Estonia says „ESA doesn’t need countries that have nothing to offer.“

So what exactly do we have to offer – that was the question I asked from Estonian entrepreneurs.

Two front-runners

There seem to be at least to companies in Estonia with clear betterment for ESA. One of them is Regio – one of the leading mobile positsioning technology provider in Europe. Thanks to the long term partnership with Ericsson, Regio’s mobile services are avalible for about 200 million subscribers worldwide. Among other nationals, people from Argentina, Sudan and Pakistan are using Regio’s services through their mobile operators.

Regio is already cooperating with Telespazio, one of the leading space tech companies in Italy, in an EU framework project IMSK (Integrated Mobile Security Kit) aiming to reduce the terror threats during large events.

Already in

The other Estonian company expected to add value to ESA activities is Modesat Communications. Its PilotSync modem solution offers bigger and more intensive data  transmission through existing communication channels. 

Peep Põldsamm, CEO of Modesat says that they are already involved in space activities. „In the area of fixed satellite communication we are already in talks with a military-related company from Israel. And if we manage to find time, we will also launch products for high-speed terminals, such as jet airplanes,“ he says.

In consortium or alone?

Some other Estonian companies are still considering their chances in space area. The founder of a software company Apprise, Alari Aho believes that it is easier to get involved in ESA programmes as part of a consortium of companies rather than alone.   

Erki Saluveer from Positium LBS is interested in possibilities offered by earth observation and satellite navigation. „We are currently using log files of mobile operators to understand the mobility of people. But this data has its flaws, so we need to complement it with other information sources. I wonder if satellite data can fix this problem,“ he says.

Tackling famine

Relatively more interesting idea regarding space comes from a young Estonian start-up Nycosat, owned by Veiki Kolk. The company wants to establish a social-network-like web platform, that would be used to register and map the global sources of natural food. And by doing so reduce the worldwide famine. All this could be done using earth observation and satellite navigation, complemented by exchange of observations by people (users).

Some other ideas of possible space business are presented in the video.

Estonia + Italy = successful Space Business cooperation? from Toivo Tänavsuu on Vimeo.