The French startup aiming to "revolutionise" space travel
More than 400 hundred years in the making, famed German astronomer Johannes Kepler's vision of sailing effortlessly through space could soon become a reality, according to Gama, a Paris-based aerospace startup.
The company has just secured €2 million in funding to deploy a solar sail in space, which it claims will "revolutionise" space transportation.
Solar sails are a propulsion technology, essentially not unlike solar panels attached to a spacecraft, that the company claims can "enable speeds never reached before" to explore the Solar System and beyond.
This first round of funding is to finance a demonstration mission: the deployment of a solar sail from a satellite launched by SpaceX. Gama says that other missions are to follow.
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"Sailing" across space has long been a dream of many in the industry, from long before a space sector existed. In 1608, Kepler first theorised the possibility in a letter to his fellow Renaissance astronomer Galileo Galilei, and the idea of harnessing the Sun's energy to power a spacecraft was developed further in the 1970s.
Two of Gama's co-founders, Louis de Gouyon Matignon and Thibaud Elziere, met in 2020 after being connected by a research group, with a third, Andrew Nutter, as a self-described "space enthusiast and investor in numerous technology companies" joining later.
"In 1999, I wrote my school thesis on solar sails in partnership with French Space Agency (CNES) researchers. Since then, the passion has never left me and I had only one obsession, to go from theory to practice.
"In 2020, I contacted a research group in France, the U3P (Union pour la Promotion de la Propulsion Photonique), who put me in touch with Louis, a young entrepreneur with the same dream," said Thibaud Elziere.
Solar sails work using photonic propulsion - a form of propulsion that uses the pressure produced by photons when they bounce off a reflective surface. This force is weak, but when applied to large surfaces, especially in space, can still propel an object.
"In the void of space, with no air friction, a continuous force (even a small one) applied to a spacecraft induces a constant acceleration and continuously increases its speed," said Jordan Culeux, technical lead for the first mission.
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Similarly to maritime sailing, it is the position of the sail in relation to the rays of the Sun that will determine the trajectory of the craft. Also as with a conventional boa sail, it is possible to move away from the Sun but also to get closer by sailing “upwind”.
Unlike more conventional electric or chemical propulsion systems, which require fuel, photonic propulsion uses purely solar energy. This means that the spacecraft using such a propulsion system can be smaller and accelerated continuously with what the company describes as "a virtually infinite source of energy".
Gama claims that, as a result, its solar sails will bring down the cost of reaching more distant objects, and make it possible to envisage new commercial or scientific missions to explore and even exploit resources in our Solar System.
"This is an emerging technology and there have only been a handful of successful solar sail projects so far. It is attracting the interest of the major space agencies and we are aware that NASA and JAXA (the Japanese Space Agency) are working on similar projects," said Louis de Gouyon Matignon.
The €2 million in first-round funding came from the French Public Investment Bank, BPI, the French Space Agency (CNES) as well as several space investors and entrepreneurs such as Nicolas Pinto of Apple, Marie Outtier of Twitter, Possible Ventures, Kima Ventures and Romain Afflelou of Cosmo Connected.
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"Private companies are proving that space innovation can happen fast, unlocking vast commercial opportunities. We are delighted to have the support of the BPI, the CNES and some illustrious Business Angels to reach an important milestone," said Andrew Nutter.
"This mission will be followed by a second launch in 2024 at a higher altitude to deploy a larger sail and demonstrate control and the onboard navigation system. In 2025, we will become one of the very few to explore further, at significantly lower cost, with a mission to Venus."
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