Brighter than Jupiter!
Anton Ossovsky, the Head of Avant Space.
I’m Anton Ossovsky. I’m the founder and head of Avant Space. Our company is developing micro-satellites to broadcast advertising from space. We’ve been the resident of the Skolkovo Space Cluster since 2016.
Space advertising and brand marketing in general turned out to be a very attractive area to promote. All brands and global companies are somehow seeking something which is difficult to achieve. Space is a good example of that aspiration. Coca Cola and Pepsi made their space flights, Pizza Hut placed its logo on the Proton vehicle launcher, ISS crew members tried baking Hilton cookies at the ISS, and the Arabica coffee drink from the Moscow Coffee Shop was introduced into the astronauts' diet. Even Elon Musk had a PR campaign in the space: he sent his Tesla Roadster there. Today Sberbank is going to have its logo placed on the rocket launched to commemorate the bank’s 180th anniversary. Even movies are being made in the space, so we should expect space advertising - coming soon.
About the company
Our core idea was to build an energy-saving engine for micro-satellites which would enable controlling space vehicles with high precision. Now we’re planning to send our micro-satellites into space. By means of their engines, they will line up in the orbit and form a certain image. For these maneuvers, an accurate electric rocket engine with very high precision characteristics is needed. That’s what we have been working on in Skolkovo for the last three years.
Among our team members we have 10 aerospace engineers with impressive job records at various space enterprises, who used to be graduates from the Bauman State Technical University and Moscow State Aviation Institute.
Our current goal is to send the first satellite to the Earth orbit in 2022. It must become the brightest star in the night sky! After the flight tests and confirmation of all systems operability, we’ll be ready to launch a full-scale system of 20-30 vehicles in 2024.
Recently we took part in Dubai Expo 2020 where we presented our project. And there we took a chance to have a look at the Arabian sky. There are almost no visible stars in the sky above Dubai, not a single one. The only seen space object was Jupiter, and this is minus three stellar magnitude. It appears that we’re going to shine brighter than Jupiter. Thus, people in Dubai will be able to see Jupiter, Venus and our “Constellation”. The same will be true for other large cities on Earth with high level of urban luminosity. Talking in general, space advertising is a cool thing. We’ll be able to display any image in the sky!
About our work with Skolkovo
Skolkovo is everything for us. Skolkovo today is a true ecosystem. For final assembly of our satellite to be sent into space next year, we’re planning to use the Technopark infrastructure. Trial run will be held at Skoltech.
There was a period when we were making the digital twin of the engine together with Skoltech. At Skoltech there is a department of concurrent engineering. We made the digital twin of our engine to allow us to calculate all characteristics and parameters of the propulsion unit for any satellite within 10 minutes, in the earlier days it would have taken years!
About our plans
After having launched our satellites to the orbit in 2024, we are going to prepare the satellite show in the space. Then we want to teach our satellites to communicate. And that’s going to be the cherry on the cake! Imagine: you point your smartphone camera at the image in the sky and get a link to a website. Over one billion people will be able to use this functionality.
About life in Skolkovo
I love living in Skolkovo. There is a magnificent Meshchersky Park nearby, a golf club, and the Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO. For me all of these make one Big Skolkovo.
And, of course, people! They share common interests - in innovations, business development and startups. This is a kind of culture you won’t see anywhere.
We live in the Miro block of apartments which was built for the participants of the ecosystem. This housing is offered for rent, but it is beautiful and of high quality, as if it were built not for rent but for living. The rent rates are comparable to those in Moscow.
The children go to one of the best schools in Moscow - the Skolkovo International Gymnasium which is among the top 30 schools in Moscow.
Skolkovo is rapidly growing. It is night and day, if we compare now and the past. Ten years ago there was just a heath here. The construction intensity can be compared to building the Sochi Olympic infrastructure. I see that in Skolkovo people prefer to keep on moving and opening new facilities. They open parks, new residential districts, new infrastructure facilities: a tremendous fitness center, a tennis school, a surfing center with artificial wave. Among the projects under construction are: a school, a kindergarten, a medical clinic etc.
There are lots of various communities in Skolkovo. I’m a member of the Skolkovo directors community, the Skolkovo Community Council, I take part in different cross-institutional events. We are open to any communications, to anybody who shows interest in us.
When we’re talking about the existing ecosystem: any of the Skolkovo participants can freely share information. Cross-communications are omnipresent in all areas of everyday life.
For example, recently I talked to the guys from Orange, the largest telecom operator. They have their hub here. They are working on the pilot projects, get them to the final stage here and then launch into the global market. When we needed some advisory support, they helped us a lot. It took 30 minutes for professionals to tell us how to enter the international market. And that’s the biggest advantage of this ecosystem.
It always offers an opportunity to communicate with different people who are concentrated at the same location. It is vital, as 90% of time can be effectively used for business processes without leaving the Skolkovo territory!