~ Establishing a Spacecraft Manufacturing Alliance with partner companies ~
Today Axelspace Corporation announces the launch of a new service, AxelLiner. Building on the outcome of an ongoing project supported by a grant from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, AxelLiner intends to become Japan’s first one-stop service for microsatellite missions. The launch of the first satellite for AxelLiner is scheduled for 2023.
In partnership with MISUMI Group Inc. and YUKI Holdings Inc., Axelspace will establish the Spacecraft Manufacturing Alliance for mass production of microsatellites. With these experts from the fields of procurement and manufacturing, Axelspace will bring innovation to the conventional process of satellite manufacturing by incorporating the latest trends and knowledge of manufacturing across other industries.
To fulfill our societal responsibilities as a company, Axelspace has established a set of exacting standards, called the Axelspace Green Spacecraft Standards, that will be applied to all future satellites and require environmentally friendly approaches through the whole life cycle of satellite projects. This includes, but is not limited to, procurement of resources for spacecraft manufacturing, on-orbit operation, and post-mission disposal. The details of the standards will be announced once they are finalized.
About the new service “AxelLiner”
Conventionally, it has been challenging for businesses outside the space industry to own satellites. This is due to the challenges involved in fully understanding the technologies, constraints, mechanisms, laws, and systems related to satellite development and space utilization, in addition to procuring and retrieving licenses from authorities to own and use the satellites.
With AxelLiner, customers have access to a unified interface called the AxelLiner Terminal, providing a complete suite of tools for navigating and managing the long and complicated processes involved in satellite projects. Through the AxelLiner Terminal, customers can perform various tasks such as business studies, cost estimation, mission instrument development and operation data acquisition. For more information
About the Spacecraft Manufacturing Alliance
Recently, various businesses and missions using microsatellites, including satellite constellations, have been proposed worldwide, which has increased the demand for mass production of satellites applicable to a wide variety of missions. To quickly meet these various expectations and requirements, Axelspace is partnering with MISUMI Group Inc. and YUKI Holdings Inc. to establish the Spacecraft Manufacturing Alliance.
The Spacecraft Manufacturing Alliance will promote simultaneous, transparent, and collaborative information-sharing among the alliance partners, eliminating unnecessary margins, actively implementing digital transformations, and applying non-space industry expertise for total optimization. This will ensure high-quality, speedy satellite development, enabling AxelLiner to support customers’ fast-paced business developments.
“Axelspace has designed, manufactured, and operated nine small/micro satellites to date,” says Naoki Miyashita, Chief Technology Officer of Axelspace. “In particular, four of them were simultaneously manufactured as AxelGlobe “GRUS” satellites, initiating our foundation in mass production of microsatellites and identifying issues towards future mass production. This alliance will work closely together to solve these issues and bring innovation to global satellite manufacturing by going beyond the parent-subcontractor relationship to leverage the technological capabilities, experiences, and strengths of each company.”
Mitsunobu Yoshida, President of Industrial Digital Manufacturing Company, MISUMI Group Inc., says “MISUMI's digital parts procurement service, meviy, is an innovative service that enables digital transformation in the manufacturing domain. meviy makes it possible to significantly reduce the time required for satellite manufacturing. We share Axelspace's philosophy, and through this alliance, we will contribute to the realization of the world's top class satellite manufacturing speed.”
Masato Otsubo, CEO of YUKI Holdings Inc., says “YUKI Holdings Inc. is the group of SMEs with specific skills in element technologies for manufacturing. Our first step in the space industry was the supply of precision machined parts to AXELSPACE WNISAT-1 about 10 years ago. Today, we are very excited about our group being a part of AxelLiner. We will do our best to contribute to this innovative mission by using manufacturing technologies of our group companies.”
