Ibadan, 5 January 2023. – Sony has adopted Pale Blue’s water thruster for its new nanosatellite program, STAR SPHERE. The water thruster will prolong the satellite’s life by 2.5 years with the ability to enter and keep the orbit at 500-600 km altitude. Furthermore, Pale Blue will conduct its first space demonstration at the end of January 2023.
The Sony STAR SPHERE Project endeavors to liberate people’s perspective of space through the power of technology. The project aims to create opportunities for people to nurture their thoughts on the global environment and social issues by freely observing the Earth from outer space.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launched the project’s nanosatellite on January 3, 2023, on the transporter-6 mission marking Pale Blue’s first on-orbit space demonstration of a water vapor propulsion system. Going forward, Pale Blue will advance science and technology by innovating the safe water-based propulsion system to create the next generation of space mobility infrastructure.
“I am sure that STAR SPHERE, which enables everyone to discover perspectives from space and gain new inspiring experiences, is an unprecedented new use of space and a project with the potential to grow the space industry itself in a discontinuous manner,” said Jun Asakawa, CEO, and Co-Founder of Pale Blue. “I am very pleased that our safe, sustainable, and low-cost water thruster can contribute to this project, and we are committed to developing the space industry.”
More companies are working to reduce environmental impact and handling costs by adopting green propellants in the space industry. Accordingly, Pale Blue tackles environmental issues and growing demand by providing safe, sustainable, and low-cost propulsion systems that use water as a propellant.
