Russian Avant Space plans to reach one billion people with advertising in space

Berlin, 21 September 2020. – The Russian company Avant Space plans to project so-called space banners, commercial advertising from micro satellites in space.

Avant Space proposes to use a group of microsatellites equipped with a laser system to project images in the night sky and thus cover more than 130 cities and reach over a billion people with the celestial advertising, the company said on its website.

The space banner system would allow major brands and blue chips to reach mass audiences less costly than with TV advertising, U.S. media reports speculated.

“The Russian company explains that their plan is to permit companies and individuals to brand the sky with logos, initials, or other symbols,” the U.S.-based space lawyer Michelle L.D. Hanlon explained in a LinkedIn post.

Avant Space claims on its website that the Outer Space Treaty from 1967 provides free access to space and therefore “space advertising is not subject to global prohibition”.

“Its an example of so called obtrusive space advertising. It’s forbidden under US Federal Law,” the Polish civil, commercial and space law professor Mariusz T. Kloda commented on LinkedIn.