TAMPA, Fla. — Swissto12, the Switzerland-based small geostationary satellite specialist, has signed a contract to build the first optical relay spacecraft using its washing machine-sized HummingSat platform.
The company announced the contract March 23 with Japanese data relay venture Space Compass, which plans to use the spacecraft to support near-real-time Earth observation services.
"Our HummingSat is the first commercial GEO optical relay satellite in the Smallsat class," Swissto12 CEO Emile de Rijk said via email, contrasting it with larger, government-backed systems in geostationary orbit such as Europe's EDRS and Japan's LUCAS.
