NorthStar Raises IDR 310 Billion in Funds to Build a Constellation of Object Monitoring Satellites in Orbit

NorthStar received funds from three investors to launch an object monitoring satellite (photo: dock. NorthStar)

JAKARTA – NorthStar Earth and Space, a Canadian commercial space company, announced that it has raised additional funding worth 20 million US dollars or around IDR 310 billion.

According to the NorthStar release, this Fund is part of the investment from Telesystem Space, the Quebec government represented by affiliate Investissement Québec, and the Luxembourg Future Fund in the Series D funding round.

All of these investment funds will be used to launch NorthStar's first four satellites. The company plans to build a constellation in orbit to track and monitor objects in space.

In addition, NorthStar also plans to start a Space Situational Awareness (SSA) service and build a data processing center in the city of Montreal to analyze data received from four satellites.

“NorthStar's unique space-based services will provide coverage over significant gaps previously inaccessible from ground-based systems. This represents a significant contribution to the sustainability of the space environment,” said NorthStar Earth and Space CEO Stewart Bain.

NorthStar claims that the company will have the first constellation of satellites for monitoring objects in space. This satellite is an effort to manage traffic so that objects in space avoid the risk of collisions.

Currently, there are more than 11,000 satellites and more than 128 million pieces of debris in orbit. All of these objects vary in size, from small fragments weighing one gram to floating spent rockets weighing 2 tonnes.

Despite its size, NorthStar considers this debris a threat. All assets such as satellites, rockets and telescopes worth hundreds of billions of dollars could potentially be damaged if they hit this debris.