ESA recruits 'makers' for space tech

Hi and welcome to Space Cowboys. Hi Thijs. Hey, how's it going Herbert? Fine. Yeah? Fine, just fine. Summer is slowly coming. I'm not sure. You call that slowly? Well, okay, yeah. Here it was suddenly. Here it was suddenly. In the Netherlands. In the Netherlands it was suddenly here. But to our viewers is that this is slowly, we're slowly walking towards a summer where we're going to be bi-weekly. I'm not sure if we have to announce that. By the way, we do listeners, okay? Did I say viewers again? I say that all the time. I don't know. I have a YouTube channel too and that's, I come from television world. All right, no problem. Well, this is for the people that don't know us yet. This is a great introduction. Yeah. Hi, I'm confused. Hi, I'm Thijs and I'm always confused that I'm thinking that I'm in a television studio. That's the stuff you do without pictures. Yeah, exactly. And yes, we're going bi-weekly as of the 3rd of July. July. Yeah. So in about two weeks from now. Yes. And then, you know, people can take it slowly. In summer you can, we like to take things slowly. So if you miss us one week, we'll be back the next. The next, exactly. Because. Out of existence. Yeah. So I'm going to Asia for two months. That's the main reason. Good for you. Are you going anywhere? Yeah, I'll be in France for just one week. So nobody will notice. Nobody will notice. Exactly. I was in France a couple of months ago. I did a, we did a podcast with me being in France. Yeah. Then technology would sort of hamper. Technically that's possible. It's possible. Yeah. When I go on vacation, I go on vacation. Oh, okay. Good to know. And I'll be on my bike. I'll be climbing mountains. I'll be on my bike. Okay. Nice. And not podcasting. And I won't be podcasting. From the top of the mountain. No, that's right. Would you be, would you be so kind as to introduce our guest today? Yes. We have here Frank Zeppenfeld and he's from ESA. And I'm going to give you the mic. Thank you. Oh yeah. Oh, thanks. Yeah. Hi. Hi Frank. And he knows all about space makers. Space makers. What are we talking about? Space makers. Space makers. You know about the maker movement? Yes. Okay. Space makers is maker movement. That's applied to space. Can you explain? Can you? Yeah. And can you explain it for those who don't know? Yes, of course. No. Thanks a lot. First. Please stay in the vicinity of the microphone, please. Now, so we started a program in ESA. So that's the European Space Agency. And we are from the satellite communications group in the European Space Agency. A large part of that is here in the Netherlands, in Nordwijk. And we started a program to engage a bit with maybe with non-traditional people, the makers, the radio amateurs, individuals, crazy inventors. Tinkerers. Tinkerers, yeah. Exactly. The whole thing. Those who play. I think, yeah, that's a really great audience to address. And what we really try to do is to see what we could do with those people to have more innovation in the area of satellite communications. That's actually the sole area in which we focus. And for that, we started a few activities in different countries. Okay. We'll be talking about that. So let's have that as an introduction. Yeah. And now let's talk story of the week. Story of the week. What's yours? Yeah. Well, for one time, definitely it wasn't about any news going on. I saw Apollo 11, the IMAX version of the movie. Have you heard about that? Have you seen this? Heard, yes. Seen, no. Have you seen it? Not seen, but. Okay. Yeah. So this came out a few months ago, I think in January, March in the United States, but it wasn't available here yet. But I saw it in The Hague. Omni version, which is like this old, old school, but beautiful theater with a gigantic dome, a gigantic dome screen. I really love this. I thought it was amazing. So it's all this found footage from the Apollo 11 mission. Some of it is very well known, but some of it is just super high, high quality, 70 millimeter film that they, that they, that they found and that they, I guess they upped the quality and did all that stuff. Remastered. And did this all give you the impression of being on your way to the moon, being on the moon itself? Very good distinction because I, the, the lead up to the mission was fantastic. I thought it was brilliant and being in the, in the rocket and seeing it go up. And especially, I think that the wide, the wide angle shots of Florida and Cape Canaveral and the launch pad and seeing all these people and just the whole atmosphere. That was amazing. And, uh, the, just those moments on the moon, it was just really short. That's like the only thing I have is like, I really wanted this movie to, to take me to the moon and just be on the moon for a little bit. But they were there. Well, just, just not even 24 hours, I think. Not even 24 hours, but that's a lot of film. And in this, and in this case, it was just that they, they filled it up with pictures. I, I, I imagine that they did not bring a 70 millimeter camera up there. They did not. And so I guess. I guess that the footage that they had to choose from was just not available, but they, they tried it as best they could. Um, uh, and I, I really loved the film. I really loved the film, but for those who think that they're going to be on the moon, I would, uh, I would recommend, uh, first, first man from last year. Oh yeah. With Ryan Gosling. That I, I think I sort of hoped, which is fiction, but I sort of hoped, yeah, but there's this brilliant, brilliant shot. It always disappoints me. Oh really? It pretends to, yeah. Oh, but this was, oh, to me. I really loved it. I think I liked that even better than this. I started looking at the film and I, uh, I, I stopped it at some point. What? Yes. Yeah, you're crazy. Well, okay. Okay. Well, I really liked it because I thought it was going to be some sort of Neil Armstrong hero movie, but he's, he's kind of like a, an artistic almost, um, troubled man who, who gets to be the first man on the moon. And, and, and, and I don't know, I thought that the, that movie was really close to his character. I didn't, I didn't know the guy, but I mean, the, from a character standpoint, the, the camera was just always with him. It was always his small, narrow perspective almost. I got put off even by the, the, the first images. It's some launch. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. The launch. Yeah. The, the, the, I didn't look at it as historical for historical value. I looked at it, at it for more like who was this character. And then, and, and, and the release of that, of all that tension, I guess, with this character came when he landed on the moon. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then suddenly he's, so he, he steps off that ladder, you know, one small step, et cetera. And then he, and then he's there. And then he suddenly sees that wide, there's this wide band, this wide expanse that he sees like, and it's almost like a moonscape, almost like, what the fuck is this mission? Like, like he's suddenly realizing like, where am I on God's earth? He wasn't on God's earth. And, um. Did I go to the freaking moon? He went to, yeah. Did I go to the moon? Did I go to the moon? And I, I, I, maybe. Maybe the movie wasn't that good until that shot. So I, I really, I, that shot is something every movie has, it's like takeaway. And that was, that shot was the takeaway. And maybe, um, I sort of went to Apollo 11, the IMAX version with that shot still in mind, like, oh, I'm also kind of going to go to the moon in IMAX. And then that didn't really happen. So I had to reset myself and look at it differently. And then I think if you get the chance, I love IMAX movies anyway. It's beautiful. It's, it's, as long as you know. What they expect. And I may give First Man another try. Yeah. Maybe. Or just that one. Think about it. Just that one shot. I think it's a pan of like a minute. So it's a minute of a moonscape. Okay. Yeah. It's probably on YouTube too. Oh yes. Yeah. I guess it is. So that was my story of Duke this weekend. Yeah. Frank, what's yours? Your story? Now my story is maybe, um, maybe it's a bit more current, let's say, not the moon time, but, um, um, let's say there's quite a lot of, uh, initiatives ongoing in the, in the area of, of internet of things and satellites and so on. And I believe you had even people at BNR radio, uh, telling about various networks that are being launched. And, um, uh, last week actually, it was quite an interesting event where the company Lacuna, it's a company that we also co-fund a bit by ISA, uh, managed to talk, let's say with very small sensors back to the satellite. And that is a real beginning of, let's say what you call the internet of things. Uh, not bound by any terrestrial connectivity. And it's a particular, I think I like it because it's, it's a bit from maybe in the spirit, uh, on this podcast from the maker movement. There's a few people who have been experimenting without any official framework, let's say. And now let's say it's getting into a more, let's say, professional satellite operator. And that's what I like quite a lot. That's my, uh, that's my story of the week. Okay. Great. Thank you. Um, I have a couple. You have a couple. Take you through them quickly. Okay. First from space.com, um, is a story that, um, NASA, uh, is going to test a green rocket fuel. Hmm. I saw that. Yes. Yeah. And I love that. But it was green in a sustainable sense or green in that it won't hurt anybody who touches it. It's that, um, it's, it's a fuel that you have to be just a little bit less careful with. Then with hydrozyne. Mm-hmm. And it's called, um, just in case you're going to go shopping. Yeah. Go, go, go shopping and remember. Yeah. Yeah. It's called, uh, hydroxyl, hydroxyl ammonium nitrate fuel oxidizer mix. And there's an, uh, there's a name for it as well. It's AF-M315E. That could be snappier. Yeah. Yes. Let's call it the green fuel. Yes. The, the, the green rocket fuel. Okay. But it's, it's going up on the 24th of June on a test satellite. It's the green propellant infusion mission. Mm-hmm. For short, GPIM. Okay. So they're just going to test. So they're going to test it in space. So it's not a, a, a rocket fuel. Launch. Uh, for launch. Okay. It's for steering purposes. Okay. That they use hydrozyne, hydrozyne for. And it's less toxic, I read. It's less toxic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it will also save space on a border satellite. Okay. And, and, and, and do you happen to know any of you how it, like when it comes to sustainability? Elon Musk has had this plan to shoot the BFR from one city to another city. And I was always thinking like, doesn't that take up way too much? Can't be very environmentally friendly. Exactly. That was, that was my first thought. And what do you think? No, no. I am a CIDO. So I don't see sustainability there. Yeah, we have to do a show on that. Sustainability in space. In space, yeah. So, good one. Let's launch our rockets with a mixture of wood and oxygen, maybe. Wood and oxygen. I must say that maybe the NASA is, of course, also going quite fast in propulsion research. But I think there's a few of these companies that they're really interested in. And one of them will be flying soon, I think, in water propulsion. Water. And, yeah, nothing sounds more sustainable than maybe using water. Shoot out a jet of water. Yeah, let's say with a certain process to make a kind of thrust. So, again, for propulsion. But there are people thinking of moving a satellite from a low Earth orbit to a geostationary orbit. Yeah, okay. Using those methodologies. Last week we talked about moving an orbit higher using a light sail. Mm-hmm. Now, that's sustainable. Yeah, that's sustainable. Yeah, I'm thinking if you can make hydrogen sustainably, then, you know, that will be… By electrolysis, solar panels. Yeah, but still, it hasn't really happened on that scale. No, it hasn't. But if you… So, if you mix hydrogen and oxygen, you shoot out water. So, isn't the hydrogen rocket by itself already pooping out water at the bottom? Yes, yes. That's a water rocket. It all depends on where you get the hydrogen from. Yeah, if it's sustainable or not. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, so… Okay. Maybe somebody's working on that. Yeah. The next story is OSIRIS-REx satellite is in the neighborhood of an asteroid called Bennu. Mm-hmm. We talked about it a couple of times. Yeah. Now, it has reached the closest ever orbit so far around Bennu. Bennu, yeah. And it's now at an altitude from Bennu of 0.4 miles, and that's about 650 meters. And it turns out that's the closest orbit that any spacecraft has ever achieved around any other space object. And sorry, how close is it? 0.4 miles. Okay, yeah, yeah. 650 meters. Okay. Yeah, that's… So, this is literally a stone's throw. Yeah, that's… Okay? Yeah, that's true. But how big is Bennu? Do we know? Just a couple hundred meters, if I'm correct. 262 meters. Yeah. It's not diameter. What's that? Half of diameter in English? It's about three times its own diameter. Yeah. Yeah. No, this is Straal. Straal in Dutch. So, that's… Radius. Radius, sorry. Yeah. Apologies, yes. Yeah. So, that's 262 meters. Yeah. It's super small. It's crazy that they got that thing in there anyway. It's now taking photographs that you can distinguish the boulders on. Really? Yeah. Yeah. This is the Verge. The Verge tells me that the OSIRIS-REx team was expecting a rather smooth asteroid. Lots of fine places to land on. Turns out that's not the case. Yeah. There's so many boulders that it's going to be difficult to find a place to land on and take that bucket of dirt to bring home. Yeah. Because that's what they're going to do. And it's going to return samples. But I remember from the Rosetta mission that Philae, the little lander, bounced off again because it tried to shoot a spear into… into the comet. How are they going to do this? I'm not quite sure. Well, we'll do… This is great. The stories of the week are great for like new show ideas. So, this is really great. We have to do OSIRIS-REx. Are there any mining prospects for that one? I'm not sure. There's not that much to mine. I mean, it's a pretty small asteroid. If you need more boulders in your backyard, maybe. But I know more places to mine. To get those. No. But I was also thinking about Rosetta. Because the lander, you say it bounced and it landed on a place where literally the sun didn't shine. Yeah, that's true. And it ran out of electricity, ran out of power. After like a year or so, they did spot it eventually. Finally, they found it. That is a problem that they want to avoid with OSIRIS-REx because it needs a good place to land and to do its work. It's so funny that there's boulders on these… Asteroids, even though… How did they land there? Yeah, they stick and they're still there, but it's… And there's hardly any gravity to keep them. You can blow at them and then they'll fly off. They discovered that Bennu is literally spitting out stones. What? Yeah. Read the piece in The Verge. The Verge. Snow Notes. It's spitting out stones. It is. Let me look at the headline that I got here. All the way back. NASA spacecraft discovered its target asteroid is spewing material and is much more rugged than expected. Wow. Spewing material. 19 March. It's already an ancient news item here. So what's my third story? Oh, yeah. A new crater on Mars. How about that? Oh, I saw a picture of that. Something with like a super nice blueish thing. And they have this beautiful false color image. Oh, is that what I saw? Mind you, it's false color. So it's not very… Real, but it gives you a good picture anyway. What happened there? There's this meteoroid that came down and made a crater, but also lots of secondary effects. All kinds of radiant effects. Yeah. That turn up blue in the photograph. Yes, blue. It's completely blue. Really beautiful. Yeah, it's really beautiful. Insane. I would not like to be there. So that's an interesting story. And it was a boulder of about, I believe, I read something like 20, 30 meters or so? Less. Less even. I believe it was five or thereabouts. Okay. Let me see. Like relatively small, but then the impact is just gigantic. Quickly. Well, the actual space rock fragment I'm quoting here, responsible, looks to be about 1.5 meters wide. Whoa. The crater itself is much larger. So it was just… Just a meter and a half, five feet. Wow. Yeah. Nothing. And it gives you something that you can photograph from 255 kilometers altitude. Insane. The violence that is unleashed when a thing hits a planet. Yeah. So, and then the last one… Oh, you got four. Okay. Yeah. By the way, I read that Bennu is actually also a potentially hazardous object, which is interesting. So it's good that we're there. Again, please. Bennu, the previous asteroid that we talked about. It's actually a potentially hazardous object. It could… An Earth… Yeah. It could actually get exceptionally close to the Earth. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. If that would happen, that crater on Mars… Okay. And then we have a report by an American government watchdog called the GAO. GAO. I'm sorry. Government Accountability Office. And they decided that… Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, SLS, was already five years ago they were thinking that it was about to happen and uh and it wasn't happening and and then i'm not sure when they started talking about sls but this was way before the falcon 9 even even launched let alone the falcon heavy so now that the falcon heavy is actually in in operation um yeah i think the sls can it's very comparable it's nowhere to go yeah yeah and it's i i find especially if it turns out more expensive it's a political thing of course they don't want to cancel it now because they already pumped in so much money so you know it might it might be that eventually they will cancel it but we'll see if you cancel it you have to write off all the investment if you don't it'll be even more expensive yeah exactly they already um let's see so 2011 that's when they decided they were going to go for sls so this was way before not not not before elon musk was actually doing his thing or or jeff bezos but it's 2019 now we're eight years later and we're only talking about cost overruns and not about test launches yeah so yeah and you you could regard it as a strategic thing nasa needs to have its own launch capability or something or something like the united states government needs its own trains or needs its own taxi taxis it's just like yeah maybe back in the day but yeah yeah i mean i hope the best for nasa but i don't know i'm waiting for good news about sls sure yeah all right let's talk spacemakers yeah shall we talk spacemakers right about tinkering and hacking you gave a short introduction but um tell me exactly what is this initiative yeah we uh we started a small program and we call it maker spaces because it has various uh variants and it's a bit uh maker spaces for space makers yeah exactly and uh we we started in the area of internet of things machine to machine communication because there's there's quite a lot happening there in combination with internet of things and satellites to reach out to let's say sensors uh yeah whatever things which are not within the terrestrial reach we had hyber here the dutch space company that is creating an internet network of satellites um especially for iot devices on the earth's surface yeah and there's a number of those uh initiatives uh and hyber is is one of them and uh that's very nice to see their their progress and the company i mentioned quickly in the space story lacuna is let's say similar uh company and uh what is actually the purpose is to to maybe get out a bit of this this larger isa contracts where let's say we'll not compare ourselves with the sls but you can see maybe sometimes the pace of innovation is sometimes a bit hindered by paperwork to put it bluntly okay and we see organizations reacting less quickly than you might yeah and if you see the developments in the terrestrial world let's say we can never cope with or let's say match the r d budgets of a huawei or a qualcomm so let's say in the terrestrial world there is so much innovation happening at the moment uh in the area of internet of things and i had all 5g that is well known and there's enormous r d budgets and the whole intention is also to basically skim off what we can use for the satellite world we should not develop our own bespoke stuff which is sometimes maybe a bit happening because these worlds do not always talk to each other the terrestrial people and then even in particular the makers and the thinkers they would not even think of doing something with issa because issa is quite big too big hard to get into where is the entrance yeah exactly yeah so you need a guest pass and an invitation in order to get in so it's not not always that easy so what let's say that that's a bit born out of a lack of maybe innovation coming that we see from those people for the space satellite or for the satellite communications so what we we did we initiated basically a contract with somebody in this case we did it in ireland with the dublin city university there was like an incubator with it uh dcu dublin city university and what they did we gave them a few tasks and also maybe solicit ids from radio amateurs scientists thinkers they say come up with ids and we make very quick iterations to see what can we do here what can we do there make us a prototype and forget about the paperwork and that is a bit a novel approach and i think that sketches a bit what we try to reach and we are now expanding that in also a few other countries on other topics cool this is the first time that we actually have an Do you remember any of the sort of like ideas that they came up with? No, very nice idea, which I'm quite charmed of that is, for example, talking Bluetooth from a satellite straight to your device. Oh, Bluetooth. Bluetooth. It's supposed to have a reach of maybe 10 meters. Exactly. But of course, in the end, it's physics. So you crank up a bit the power in the satellite. But it's more whether the space environment, the fast moving satellite, for example, the still with a smaller antenna on your handheld. Can you still talk, send some Bluetooth advertisements? Now, that has been proven by, let's say, three people for 6,000 euro. Now, I think that's the spirit that we have. Now, actually, that is now being pursued by that company as a future commercial opportunity. Yeah. To see where it lands and to see what you can do with it. And how is this arranged business-wise? I mean, if a university does this, you say they did it for 6,000 euros. Do they get compensated for expenses? Yeah. Hours, man hours. But we, that actually, that's the whole thing also. We would like to do things also on a basis of trust. It's almost a bit, maybe. With full respect, it's a bit like venture capitalism, but then in technology. Let's say 5,000 there, 10,000 there, 6,000 there. And a few will not bring anything. That's accepted risk. Yeah. And so we worked in that way. And that also means that we're not going to nitpick on accounting on man hours. It's also not the kind of people that do that. They work all night until it works. Because they love it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you could test it as if it was in space. So that helps. And what we like a lot is then you get the synergy of, let's say, maybe a few technical people from our side, a few technical people at the other side, and then they start talking. And first, completely different language. And then when they slowly start to understand each other, then nice things blossom up. That is very nice to see. What are the most popular things that people are working with now? Because there is a lot of innovation in the satellite world right now. Where is it moving? What do you see people interested in? Let's say in the area of, if we take it more by application, so let's talk about very low data rate stuff that is mostly in this Internet of Things area. Then I believe people are very much interested in making really small sensors that you could glue on something and still have. Connectivity to a satellite. And with that, I think that's part of the innovation, is the energy efficiency. So the combination, and that's very much where an area where we haven't worked on, but other people have worked a lot on energy harvesting, for example. Ah, energy harvesting. Energy, so you harvest. Getting energy out of thin air, so to speak. Vibration, or maybe from other radio signals, or maybe from completely different sources. Maybe one of the. Actually, we're exploring it now with one of the companies in, I think, associated with the Agricultural University in Netherlands. It's this plant E. So you have a plant that generates actually current and voltage power. Wow. Electricity plants. That's awesome. I think you can burn, let's say. Let's grow some power. Are we talking microjoules or micro-what-but? Okay. Let's say. That is for some of these use cases where every day you send 10 bits. It's okay for a lot of applications. Yeah, yeah. It can be sufficient. Yeah. And if you, suppose you would have your plant in the middle of the desert or whatever, and that you stick a sensor in, and that gets the electricity from the plant. Now, this is an example. Yeah. We see more and more that these things are being explored. Yeah. Efficient energy harvesting for low power systems. Yeah. Yeah. And if you have one kilobyte, that's a treasure trove of information. So anything. Yeah. And what's this on our show? I heard this guy working on sensors that you can stick on basically any sort of package there is, and it will monitor temperature, light, GPS location, just all these different things. Yeah. That's just great. And impact sensor so that any sort of package, the moment it gets lost, you can find it. The moment it gets broken, you can see where it happened. If it gets opened, the light sensor will detect that too. So it's like that you can track it. So it can track anything this way, right? And it can be so cheap. Yeah. And then you're saying so it could also generate its own electricity simply by maybe vibration or something like that. Yeah. That's an area. It needs more work. It needs more work, but that's where it's moving. Yeah. Micro. Let's talk about what this brings to everybody. So ESA lets people at a university, for instance, work for them. They love their work and they do some short project. Yeah. And they can go away and do something else. What exactly are the advantages this brings to ESA? Yeah. Now for ESA, I think we are exposed to a world that we sometimes don't know. So that opens up our eyes also. Like the regular world. Yeah. I think some of the, yeah, the, let's say, of course, people are working in the terrestrial. We are always looking into space communications. But there are a lot of people doing extremely fancy things in the terrestrial communications. In particular, maybe the radio amateurs. That's, I think, an underestimated, let's say, source of innovation. Really? Radio amateurs? Yeah. I got to say that they still exist in this day and age. Yeah. And I think that is quite a popular, maybe it's because of the advent of new technology, which is called the software defined radio. I think previously people, of course, a bit from the analog world. You were soldering your own, let's say, radio frequency from the antenna, the front ends, etc. That has disappeared a little bit because of the, let's say, the emergence of this software defined radio, which makes it a bit easier to play with radio signals and to see. What is it? Software defined. So you don't have to make the actual antenna anymore to get to a certain frequency. You can just. Yeah. It's basically. It's a program that does it for you. Yeah. So you can see that the digitalization of everything, that's digitization gets more and more towards the antenna. You could say, let's say here we have, let's say the iPhone or the Android, then a chip, then a front end. And then in the end we end up with analog electronics. Yeah. And that goes further and further to the antenna side. Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. When things are digital, then it means ones and zeros. So you can process it by software. Yeah. Or by hardware. Yeah. Hardware of course needed, but that makes it a very interesting, and that is done a lot in this amateur radio world. I think it has really got a boost. And I think it's a bit forgotten that, especially radio amateurs, they know they've flown the first CMOS chip. They had the first GPS receiver on board. Oh. And they had, I would say the first programmable computer on an amateur cell phone. Yeah. And they had the first satellite. It's not on a NASA satellite or an ESA satellite. Right. It's an amateur satellite. And that is, I think it's a bit, sometimes a bit forgotten. Yeah. I don't know anything about this. There was an amateur satellite? Yeah. We're talking 20, 25 years ago that these things started in that world of the amateur satellite. And so amateurs building satellites. And how did they get them up there? On an Ariane rocket? I believe I was at the launch of one of those. Please tell me. Please enlighten me. How did this go? One of the interesting stories that a few months ago, there has been a satellite launched which carries an amateur payload. It's a big fat communication satellite in geostationary orbit. But there is a part of it which is completely dedicated to radio amateurs. And coming back to your, the funding and how to get that. Mm-hmm. It's because this is a Qatari satellite. Yeah. Uh, so the government of Qatar, the Sheikh, responsible Sheikh, he's a radio amateur, decided there will be a payload. You can imagine money is not an issue. And there have been a very enthusiastic community of German, Dutch and UK radio amateurs who have supported a bit that the Sheikh, let's say, say let's do it like that. Then, it's, uh, of interest, uh, to everybody. Uh-huh. So we have now since the last four months, I think, a complete geostationary amateur radio transponder that allows you to talk from Brazil to the whole of Africa. Awesome. That's fantastic. I can tell you this, Thijs. Yeah? The ham radio world did crowdfunding even before there was internet. What? I seem to remember that one of these first ham radio satellites was paid for by the community just with nickels and dimes, you know. Banknotes and by mail. Yeah. Yeah. That kind of stuff. Wow. So there's innovation going on. And at first, what Frank said surprised me too. But now that I start thinking about it, yeah, I know. This is a world where innovation takes place. And easily. The internet has found a way to tap into that. Yeah. And you are saying ownership, you say it goes on trust and there's sometimes some money going to these parties. But then who owns the technology? Yeah, we always do like that, that IPR, the intellectual property, stays always with the person who does it. Okay. It's not going to ESA. Yeah. Because that would not be fair. Yeah. And ESA will have benefits from the technology maybe one day. We are not in it for the commercial. No. We need to innovate and make sure. So that industry, let's say, stays competitive. Yeah. In the end, at least our focus to have European and Canadian industry competitive on the world market. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So, yeah. So IPR stays with them. And yeah, we give the necessary technical support to glue the satellites and the maker space. Yeah. But on what terms will you then maybe one day use the inventions that come out of this process? So far, it happens. Basically automatically by the companies and universities having done it. They are now, they have seen the interesting application of what they had with in the satellite communications area. And now they're pursuing their own commercial path, sometimes with a bit of additional funding from our side. Yeah. But that is very nice to see. Maybe one other example, we made a project which is a bit educational. And it's a bit of a purpose. It sounds maybe not very commercial, but there was an enormous market for educational kits for schools. Oh, yeah. Like robotic. What's it called? The BBC micro bit, that type of. Yeah. Robot sets. In this case, robot kits. There's an Irish company, Robotify. And they made a kit that you can then control also by satellite. Wow. It's to make people a bit aware of what does it mean to communicate with a satellite in the middle of the desert. And so they made a bit of gamification. So you can with a school class, you can put the robot out in the desert. Some people are going to search for it. It's a bit fox hunting type of application. While you learn quite a lot about a bit of programming, satellite communications. And that company actually found quite a lot of funding now in the US and is pursuing in Ireland still the path, but with some US investors. So in that way, things are being pursued. Yeah. It's a bit of a bit of a dormant. Yeah. Yeah. And if any product comes out of that, that ISA might be able to use in some space project, you're free to go back to the company and buy it. Yes, indeed. We would always have a bit like a license, but it would never be a commercial case for us. So we wouldn't disturb the market. Why did you choose to start in Ireland? Actually, I think it's a kind of like a competitive bit. So we tendered something. We make an announcement basically saying we're looking for that kind of company that can help us in Scout interesting stuff. And the Irish guys from Dublin City University came up at the best offer. And so what if you want to make your own maker, maker space for space things? Is that possible? Yeah. Yeah. We'll discuss with a few people. Yeah. How can you and so what do you do personally, but also how can you help these people? We would be able to basically collect the or call it. I make sure that the money would be there to actually do it. Yeah, we need funding. Yeah, that's quite clear. And and an ISA. There's quite a number of countries which are a member of ISA completely independent of European Commission. So there's a big pot of money. But the countries. That put money in that pot. They want to see of course a bit of return. Yeah. So we would talk to in this case the Dutch space office to see whether we could do this and some money could be made available and we would basically make sure that the technical content is okay and that the money is spent in a good way. So how does this maker space look like? What does it look like? What sort of facilities can you can you help out on or in Ireland? They built up their own physical room. Basically, so it's really an actual physical space where they work. Where people come people you need this this atmosphere of people having coffee and talking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And joking and like almost like a hackerspace. Exactly. Yeah. So they they have built that up and that's where people came on a daily basis for a few weeks to do their little experiment. We have one in Greece where there is already in the let's say the. Yeah. That's a bit more focused on this sort of defined radio. We have now one in Germany, which is also based on an established lab. So some of them are physical spaces and some of it we do are actually ourselves in in Northwark in our labs in Aztec. Okay, so there's a Dutch component as well. Yeah, it's mainly ourselves where we support maybe in communicating with a satellite. Yeah. All right. So how is your personal expertise? I mean you do satellite communications. Is it how can you help them? How can you we what have you been able to do? Yeah. So far we we have pushed quite a number of IDs that that we had ourselves and that we always wanted to see explored. Let's make an example. The Bluetooth from the base. We always thought this would be quite a nice ID if you could say you have this advertisements from Bluetooth. Yeah. For the shopping beacons. Yeah, if you could do that for from space would be as a Amber Alert or say general warning system asteroids incoming. Yeah, this is satellite is just a text. You got about five seconds with Bluetooth. Just automatic warning close. Yeah, so and these are typically of these things that the way you say somebody should spend a month on it. That that doesn't there's not always the opportunity for that in larger ESA frameworks. So you need then also kind of people that are experienced in Bluetooth have the facilities and then that's I think that's where we come in. We have often the ID and we also know quite well. I think the commercial Satcom market so we know where there are opportunities for that. Yes, it sounds maybe a bit strange to have no very small signal from space. But if for example, there's in Germany there is in the Aldi. Let's say the large-scale supermarket you can buy of these weather clocks a clock where you can also see the weather on LCD display. And that is the weather information is broadcasted also by means partly of satellite and that's it. That's an 11 million market. There was 11 million already sold of these gadgets. It's just a clock and then. And it gives temperature humidity and air pressure. I guess but it's a niche market. Yeah, and that is that's interesting to explore. Yeah, I mean especially interesting when it comes to space because I this was the playing field of only like the largest government undertakings until about 10 15 years ago. And that's when this all started right? But that's when it started getting smaller. That's when and now that even a hacker culture can can can join in but it still seems impossible. To me that you can just now from your own little shed or basement can really start working on space or is that something that you might see happening? I think I think we see it happening. Yeah, maybe it's maybe returning theme but this the satellites which are not just let's say only a block of fixed hardware but can be reconfigured makes it also of interest to some companies to. Launch a satellite. What do you mean? So you could make a satellite that you launch first and afterwards you can change it a bit software-defined satellites. Okay. Oh wow a bit according to maybe custom requirements in the ground which you maybe didn't know before. So you put any sort of like the camera or chip on there and any sort of communications device any sort of sensor and then you upload software so you can use it all in the specific way. It's not. It's so different from there is a service for example in in in Amazon. Let's say a typical example where you cannot only rent servers. That's a well-known thing but you can also rent for example chips. Let's say FPGAs programmable chips for extremely fast processing take financial world. I think we're talking about this kind of algorithms. Now there are people thinking of doing exactly the same in space. Yeah, so you you rent a satellite. Yeah, and you rent observation time or something in remote sensing. What have you and there you see often in the more the advanced ideas the combination with blockchain doing some payment scheme. Maybe you do an observation for that you pay some tokens. Okay, yeah deliver maybe data and for that you get tokens to be seen but it's an interesting field to space as a service. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Wow. Yeah, that's the limit. The sky's the limit. It seems like like a nice future like to build towards I think one of the companies in Scotland spire is actually using that mantra space as a server. You're kidding. No, I was not the first. Okay, that's too bad. Can't can't can't can't do it. I love these examples that you gave like Bluetooth is a did you see anything else that was like going on? Yeah, the old we thought also quite nice ID. It was that moment. I think it was still it's still a bit actual now with all the missing flights. Unfortunately, where you know, there's various alerting systems for planes that if there's a distress alert and so on like the Malaysia Airlines that went out down into the air France a long time ago where it takes endlessly to or not find it at all. Yeah, just and they just disappear and nobody knows what happened. Yeah. There seems to be still a bit of a gap in know the plane comes down basically on the water. Yeah, maybe this is aggregates or whatever it and then one of the guys in this maker space made it made a device where you know, the the alert system goes with the plane down maybe very deep. Yeah, but with a gyroscope traces the path because that might be in the water know where it goes down. But maybe. The plane is moving in three kilometer deep ocean. Yeah, and then that's the problem of finding it. Yeah. So actually the alert device is completely going down to the bottom and then detaches itself goes up connects to satellite and sense the path that the plane took in the ocean and as such you would have an exact location where the plane is. Yeah. No, there's a niche but but a very in this case. It would be very rewarding niche. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the I believe this will be pursued also typically here first things didn't work. The gyro was not accurate enough and so that's that's the whole purpose of finding out but any result of maker space work that has already reached orbit. I would say part of the be out. We talked about it is this new company. Like Kona using Laura standard for the intent of things. Some of the tests have been done also in in early maker spaces to see whether would this work at all a bit mitigation. Yeah. Can I say something about the Internet of Things is it you can I mean you as a as a tech journalist there Herbert. Do you see it really taking off because yes, there are of course I can name a couple of devices that connect to the internet. But yeah, my coffee machine is still not connected to the internet. Yeah. And that's I still have this vague idea of what it can be sort of of what it is or what it should be what it can be. I can see how cities can be, you know, full traffic flows and how that all works. Yeah, but but is there anything when it comes to space right now that you can see like oh, yeah, you have to think remote locations in the first place and you the difficult part is I believe you have to think devices that don't exist yet. Okay, you know, all kinds of sensors that have to do with well, weather or magnetism or, you know, maybe Frank has has better examples than I can think of right now. I believe also that the people are maybe triggered by the possibility of transfer a few bits from wherever. Yeah. And that that that spurs new ideas often a bit in there. Let's say the. Big data fashion and tracking and tracing of all kinds of stuff. You know, this Dutch computer security expert, Arjen Kamphuis who disappeared on the coast of Norway. I know. Yeah. He might have had IOT devices with him communicating by satellite and we might have never lost him or we might have been able to find him once he disappeared, you know, missing for a lot of campaigns. Yeah. And I guess that's what I was saying. You can always be tracked. Yeah. But if the GPS devices don't have that yet they don't send up. No, they only give you the location. Basically could say the GPS device received. Receive nation. Yeah. Then they had they never send it back. No. Okay. When not. There's a bit of you with this search-and-rescue devices quite professional yeah big fat and they send back some information. Oh really I would have never thought. I thought that that. that it was a normal thing already that you could, as a professional hiker, would bring one. You have, yeah. Yeah, but then they connect to the phone network and not to a satellite. Some of them do also satellite. Yeah. But then we're talking, you know, 300, 400 euro. Oh, yeah, okay. Yeah. And so this would make it normal. You could maybe put it on a kid and then a kid, every kid could be tracked. Oh, okay. I think there's a known market, I believe, in the professional maritime community where you have this system which every vessel has, the AIS. It sends always a beacon and this is my heading, this is my speed and so on. Yeah. And that has a bit disturbed that system because of people, they want to do sensors on their fishing nets. You can imagine in Asia. There you go. Millions of devices and they just, they set out the fishing net. The next morning they come back and they want to have sensors on the fishing nets to see where the fishing nets are. Oh, wow. And they use them now in the same frequency as these professional devices. So they need to be moved out and it will be a new market that could be served by satellite, for example. You know what I told you? I said just now, think stuff that doesn't exist yet. Yeah, exactly. Landmines with the GPS. You can put sensors on your dog and your cat and never lose them. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That'd be great. So it's my keys. Your keys. My keys. I'm communicating. I'm communicating with a satellite. Yeah, I won't find them in my house, but okay. Okay. It's cool because it's all these tiny examples where it's in space. It's always like bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger. But here you have to go back to earth and think small applications that can be extremely handy, actually. Yeah. Yeah, I think they're very nice niche applications. Also this combination of sending information. So the localization. So as you said a bit, this combination of GPS or Galileo with GPS. With data where there is a few of these small satellites which receive the data from Galileo or GPS and then resend it at higher power with additional accuracy. And as such, you could have, for example, good indoor navigation still via satellite because otherwise the radio signal is not strong enough. And that makes it very interesting and similar with... Maybe for blind people? Yep. Yeah. And then... Or factories, maybe automatic movement of things. Robots. Yeah, sure. And those advances make it also possible. I think in terrestrial, there have been some tests done where you have basically communication to things under the ground, 50 centimeters under the ground. And you can still receive a radio signal. And I think it's all by the advancements which have been made in modulation and radio technology. Yeah. Where was your job going before all this? I'm interested. Like, where did you come from, so to speak, before you landed up at tinkering and hacking? I was working in NATO in the military. Oh, okay. That part. Yeah. So, space communications, military part. Yeah. Okay. Also, a specific application of space technology. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But that doesn't... I'm not sure how much hacking and tinkering goes on in the military. Yeah, less because I think it needs to be extremely reliable. Yeah. So, there's a lot of... And you don't want to involve the public very much, I guess. The way you do it. In the military, yeah. Defense makers. I'm not sure that would work. No, but you see a bit this trend in DARPA, I find, quite open to solicit IDs. Yeah. That's the Pentagon Weird Projects Department, right? Yeah. And so, eventually, what I said... Well, they invented the internet, by the way. Sorry? The defense. Yeah, of course. Yeah, of course. And they had the men who stare at goats. So, that's two extremes. True. There's still that barrier of going to space. So, access to space is eventually the only limiting factor, I guess. Would there ever be a possibility that if enough of these sort of like space as a service things are up there, that you can have open source software there and that it can become... almost like a public network that you can just sort of use? Is that... Really look far into the future? Yeah. Like the internet, almost? I believe maybe some of the people who are a bit more in the IT world, they know about dockers and containers and that kind of mechanisms to install third-party applications on, let's say, in a kind of universal framework. And that is happening also with satellites. So, there will be the first satellites that understand how to install a kind of a docker, maybe with... You, your own e-commerce application in space. Yeah. You don't care about the satellite. No. You have an environment. Yeah. And it will likely be... It's being looked at with a few commercial parties. You have an application, you run it on the ground and then click, click, click. It's actually running in space. Yeah. Really, I think that's... Interesting. It's just like GPS, which by all intents and purposes nowadays is like a public, publicly accessible thing. Yeah. That, you know, you need a GPS in order for Uber and Tinder to exist. Sure. So... Yeah, it's interesting that you see there's all these people who... Let's say, either they add value or they try to insert themselves somewhere in a value chain. Last week, it was also announced there is another company in Lithuania and they want to offer for all these smaller satellites a kind of a relay layer. Okay. So you could imagine we are talking... Let's talk... Let's say KPN. KPN also... Big Dutch telecom provider. ...leases itself again capacity from big oceanic cables. So that way, so you have a bit like an outer layer and then you have maybe people that do other things in the layer beneath that. Could be Earth observation, blockchain, IoT, whatever, gaming. But they need continuous connectivity. And there's a few people who are interested to provide that layer around that. A few satellites are up already. And now, recently, there is also other initiatives announced in Europe. And those satellites will go up in the next year, I believe. Wow. Okay. It's a brief new space. Yeah. Yeah. If this is all possible. These grants that you're giving out are about, say, €5,000. What do you need to qualify in order to... What do people need... Can we apply? Yeah. What's the checklist people have to go through before they should call you? We say that now we had the topic a little bit of this IoT. We already do one now in this so-called software-defined radio. We are... Just started one on 5G. And that is basically to see how we can reuse it. And that is basically to see how we can reuse it. And we can reuse things also from this... All this 5G R&D. An interesting opportunity also to qualify is one that we will do on spectrum. Because spectrum is also a bit... Radio spectrum. Radio spectrum. It's a bit also underestimated. So, we'll say all this satellite communications, it's nice. But without spectrum, there will be no communication at all. It's a very scarce resource. So, what kind of inventions do you need in that respect? In that field? So, you need new maps. New maps. New maps. New maps. New maps. New maps. New maps. New maps. New maps. New maps. New maps. New maps. New maps. New maps. New maps. New maps. New maps. And we need new methods to be able to share the spectrum. Okay. We need new methods that combine maybe intelligent listening to the spectrum, for example, knowing that, ah, below me is a WiFi network. A WiFi network normally has this kind of signature. In that case, I can pitch my data just here in between. Oh yeah. Because I know it's WiFi. So, we need more intelligence in that regard. Yeah. And sharing the spectrum between satellite, mobile and other. Okay, but that's an example of technology you might need. But are these space maker ideas, are they location bound? I mean, if I'm a company or a department of a university working on Wi-Fi and spectrum stuff, can I apply regardless of where I'm located? Or do I need to be in the vicinity of a place where you have this maker space devoted to that technology? Yeah, we do it now locally also because we find that people need to talk to each other. That's true. That's why I'm asking. It's so much use to have that. So where the next one will be, in this case, a bit focused on efficient radio spectrum use, we don't know yet to be chosen. There's one in Ireland. Is there one in Ireland or was there one in Ireland? Is it still functioning? It's almost finished. Finished? So it's no longer there? Yeah. So now there's one in Germany, one in Greece, you said? One in Switzerland. One in Switzerland. Oh, wow. And a couple more on the way, right? A couple more on the way. And one of them very much on open source. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Oh. Do they all get themes? Sorry? Do they all get themes or like a specific area? Yeah, we chose the themes because we think more work needs to happen. Okay. Particularly in the open source area. So then you pick a location, you pick a theme? Yeah. Yeah, as mentioned, we make a proposal and we see who comes up with the best. Oh, yeah. Okay. And it's best value for money. But it is like a restriction that if you pick a location and it's devoted to a certain theme, let's say it's in Spain. Okay. So now I'm a technology guy in Denmark. Yeah. I can't go there with my ideas because it's location bound. You're right. Yeah. Yeah. Indeed. That's a practical limitation also. Okay. But still, otherwise there would not be too much synergy. No, but it's a... Right. That's a sacrifice you make because there's gains also in having a location and being there and talking to people. Yeah. So, space makers, which themes are there? So we have now, as we finished a bit, there's all the Internet of Things. Yeah. We are doing software defined radio. Soft and defined radio? Software defined radio. Oh, software. Software defined radio. Yeah. We are doing one on five generation communication, 5G. Yeah. We have another software defined radio in Switzerland. And then we will tender out, so publish a bit in the area of spectrum. On spectrum. That one's coming. So that one's coming. So if I'm at a university, I can now make a proposal, send it to you, and you will consider my candidacy. We will publish. We will publish, indeed, the proposal, or let's say, the tender, and then we wait for responses. Oh, interesting. Sounds beautiful. Yeah, good luck. Well, I guess that's a shout out to anybody listening and working on spectrum. Hope it works. Exactly. Yeah, awesome. I think I went through all my questions. So have I. Yeah. So let's... Did we miss anything, Frank? No, I think we... Yeah, we got it down, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's hope it takes off more. And... That we see also a bit of maybe companies emerging from... Right, that is just us individuals. Yeah. And we're all going to be makerspace cowboys. Yeah. Yeah. Makerspace cowboys. Yeah. About, I think, five years ago, I saw one of the first... I think it was a motherboard that went with a video camera just through a... Like this old dilapidated building somewhere in Silicon Valley. And it was like the first time, like, hey, space is coming out of these, like, large, scale government buildings into these... And it was all individuals sometimes, maybe two people working together, especially on all these little things. And it's great to see that it's already moving so quickly, actually, from, wow, this is a brand new idea that anybody can sort of work on space-related things. It's coming down to, oh, it's actually being supported now. And it can be an economy that grows, like you said, maybe into companies. Yep. Yeah, new companies. And you get used to technology so quickly. Right. One day you... Ask yourself, hey, was there ever a time that we didn't have that? Yeah. Like GPS? Yeah. I remember how mind-blown I was with augmented reality or any... No, just the fact that the phone had a gyroscope. I was like, wow, not only GPS, so you know where it is, but you also know what it's looking at or how it's looking at something. That just blew my mind. Yeah, how about Google Maps? Yeah, Google Maps. Yeah. Yeah. It's... Thank you, Herbert. Every now and then we should... You're welcome. Yes. We should re-appreciate. We should re-appreciate. It's going quickly. I remember my parents didn't have a phone. We had no phone in our home. I was at my old high school today and everybody was working on iPads. And I also realized I did not have an iPad when I was young. No, no. I mean, look at this. We're ending this show on nostalgia. I love it. When I was young, there was no Tinder. You mentioned Tinder just a couple of minutes ago. When I did not have my girlfriend... We had to talk. We had to talk to girls. Yeah. We had to talk to girls. Yeah. No, before my current relationship, there was no Tinder. And I consider myself young. Yeah. But I mean... What I like a lot of it is mobile phones. It's now that... Yeah, it's not so known maybe because it's at the moment still a bit far from the consumer, basically. But you maybe know that all this mobile communications is being standardized in the so-called 3GPP organization, which is enormous... Yeah, I did not know. It's a standardization circus traveling around the world. But they work. It's like hell. And they define the features that we have in the next two years. Really? If we can do group calls, if we have different quality of service, how much megabits per second go in. All within the GSM standard. Yeah. All within the GSM standard. So now we are entering this so-called 5G standard. So more bandwidth, maybe ultra-reliable communication within factory, etc. And it has been recently. It will be officially decided in December. But satellite will be part of that, which means that... Oh, now wait. ...in the end, when it gets a complete integration, you will be roaming from a satellite network as easy to a trustable network, as easy as you do now between, let's say, 4G and 3G. And Wi-Fi or whatever. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And that is quite a novelty. And actually, we are putting quite a lot of effort in that from the ESA side. Yeah. So this will be 5G. Satellite. That sounds like a possible nail in the coffin of GSM towers. It will... I think we are realistic and modest. We know that it's unlikely that here in this kind of urban canyon, you're going to use the satellite. Yeah. Okay. Okay. That's going to be 5G. Remote. Also, the overlay for maybe broadcast content, which is a bit silly to send in 10 towers the same content. Why not use an overlay via satellite? Yeah. For... The soccer game that 90% of the people in that environment look at. So there are certain applications where the satellite for sure has a role. But the whole intention is to be integrated with that whole 3GPP, 5G ecosystem and basically have one chip with multiple antennas, but the chip also talks satellite. Now, that will be the ultimate goal. And actually, that is likely to happen then in 2021. Yeah. 2021. 2021. That's very soon. That's very soon. 10 years ago, I did not have a smartphone. That's what I realized. Thank you, Frank, so much for being here. Yes. This was interesting. This is a... Every week, my mind gets blown. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. That's why we started this. Yes. Like you said, let's not act like it's normal. No. Let's not act like this is a normal thing. Things are moving quickly. They are. They are. Yeah. So are we. Shall we see each other next week? We will. Our guest may be canceled. So we can't announce yet what we're going to do next week. We're going to discuss what we're going to do. Yeah, exactly. Watch out on your feed. Just be there next week and we'll have solved the problem and have a podcast. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Thank you all for listening. Dear listeners, not viewers. Thank you, Thijs. Thank you, Herbert. Thank you, Frank. Thank you.