Craft Prospect

Company Overview

Craft Prospect is a space engineering practice dedicated to making satellite technology smarter, more secure, and more sustainable. Their work includes NewSpace Mission Design and Systems Engineering, novel solutions for Quantum secure communications and onboard autonomy to enable Responsive Operations.

The Challenge

The exponential growth of Earth Observation data applications has created a bottleneck in transferring vast quantities of information from satellite to Earth. Current small satellite systems struggle with limited storage and downlink capacity, high costs, and delays, which reduce the availability of valuable data for time-sensitive applications.

Craft Prospect, in partnership with a leading hyperspectral imaging company sought to demonstrate how AI-enabled onboard processing could resolve these issues by identifying, filtering, and prioritising high-value satellite data for transmission.

Project Aims

Craft Prospect wanted to develop and demonstrate an end-to-end system for AI-powered onboard processing of hyperspectral data. The aim was to integrate their hardware and software solutions with their Challenge partner’s imaging technology and showcase how the prioritisation of high-value data can overcome the data transmission bottleneck and reduce latency. Additionally, they wanted to provide development opportunities for engineers and commercial staff, deepening expertise across the team and building stronger strategic and technical relationships with key industry partners.

Key Outcomes

• Delivered a working hardware and software demonstration of AI-enabled onboard hyperspectral data processing.
• Demonstrated successful onboard prioritisation of high-value data, reducing latency and optimising downlink budgets.
• Opened new commercial opportunities with their Challenge partner and other potential customers.
• Positioned to generate customer cost savings by enabling value-based data transmission.
• They achieved recognition through Wired Magazine coverage and the ESA Rising Stars award.
• Strengthened staff skills in project management and interdisciplinary collaboration.