S'pore tech in world's first commercial manned space station

Home-grown company's equipment will keep those in space in constant contact with earth

- Shabana Begum

Technology developed in Singapore will be part of the world's first commercial manned space station that could be orbiting the earth by August 2025 at the earliest.

The metallic space equipment by home-grown firm Addvalue Technologies functions like a Wi-Fi network between the spacecraft and earth, allowing constant communication between the astronauts and ground operators.

More than a dozen satellite operators globally are customers of Addvalue, which also produces equipment such as communication systems for ships. But this is the first time its technology will be installed on a manned mission.

The deal with US aerospace company Vast, which is building the private space station called Haven-1, was announced on the sidelines of the Global Space and Technology Convention at Sheraton Towers Singapore on Feb 15.

Currently, most commercial satellites and spacecraft connect with Earth for only about 4 per cent of their time in space, which makes it hard to respond to emergencies or gather timely data from the cosmos.

A space vehicle connects with earth when it flies directly over its ground station, and this happens every 90 minutes when it completes an orbit. Ground station operators only have 10 to 15 minutes to "talk" to the vehicle before it flies out of the radar, said Mr Tan Khai Pang, chief executive of Addvalue.