SAN FRANCISCO – Los Angeles startup Proteus Space plans to launch in 2025 what it says will be “the world’s first AI-designed” ESPA-class satellite.
The ESPA low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite is slated to carry four payloads. The University of California, Davis, and an undisclosed government research organization are providing some of the payloads.
“With 13 months until our launch window opens, we haven’t yet begun to design our ESPA-class satellite,” the company posted on LinkedIn. “We haven’t purchased or placed a deposit on a single subsystem. We don’t even know the [size, weight and power] of the payloads yet. Yes, this is a payload tailored, custom ESPA LEO bus & satellite/space vehicle.”
Proteus Space was founded in 2021 to speed up the process of getting payloads into orbit. David Kervin, Proteus Space CEO and co-founder, aim to do that with Mercury, an intelligent software orchestration system for custom satellite buses.
“We’ve created an intelligent software system that uses tools like MathWorks’ Matlab and Autodesk that regular engineers use to design satellites,” Kervin, a retired U.S. Marine and former vice president at SRI International and Kymeta Corp., told SpaceNews.
Proteus Space is paying for the 2025 demonstration flight with its own funding. The firm raised $4.2 million in a 2023 seed funding round.
AFRL AwardIn addition to the 2025 spaceflight demonstration, Proteus Space has won $3.3 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) awards in 2024.
Under a $1.8 million AFWERX STTR contract awarded in July, Proteus Space will work with the University of California, Davis, Center for Spaceflight Research to autonomously design, build and environmentally qualify a custom satellite bus.
The award follows a phase one SBIR award Proteus Space won in December and a direct to phase two SBIR contract award in February.
Proteus Space was established by Kervin and Andrew Shapiro, who worked at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory for 20 years, managing a portfolio of spacecraft technologies. Shapiro earned a PhD in materials science from the University of California, Irvine.
AI ComponentOnce Mercury knows what subsystems a satellite will need, it “explores the entire mission-closing trade space computationally,” Kervin said.
In a demonstration for potential customers, Mercury relied on generative design to evaluate 2,300 possible spaceflight configurations in about 10 minutes. Another benefit to Mercury, Kervin said, is its ability to modify designs if a payload’s size, weight or power demands change.
“Mercury can redesign that bus in the time that it takes you to add a calendar invite to get the engineers all together to discuss the engineering change proposal,” Kervin said.
Free DesignsTo attract new customers, Proteus Space plans to offer qualified customers free preliminary designs for ESPA LEO satellites.
“We do an initial technical call with the prospective customer under a non-disclosure agreement to see if we believe Mercury can solve for their particular mission, funding and timeline,” Kervin said.
If it’s a good fit, Proteus Space will deliver preliminary designs in 10 days. Proteus Space also “plans to offer physics, hardware, testing and flight-anchored models to customers in unlocked digital versions.”
ESPA is an acronym within an acronym. The E stands for Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle. The remaining letters mean Secondary Payload Adapter.