The Russian company SR Space celebrates its fourth anniversary in July — since its foundation, the company has gone from a small startup to a full-fledged aerospace holding company. Oleg Mansurov, CEO of SR Space, spoke about plans to launch launch vehicles and demonstrator satellites, promising areas of work, as well as the new headquarters in an interview with TASS on the sidelines of SPIEF 2024.
— Good afternoon, Oleg Gennadievich! Tell us, what challenges have SR Space faced over the past year?
— The last year has been associated with the transformation of the business and the transition from a small startup to a corporate structure. First of all, we have completed the stage of legal registration of the entire holding: all directions have been created, companies have been registered, key teams have been formed in the directions. We have grown very much: between 2022 and 2023, our turnover increased sixfold. In many ways, this was dictated by the interest in our rocket and space sector, but the other subsidiaries also improved their performance in terms of revenue and profit. The SR Space team has grown very much — at the beginning of June 2024, the company employs 130 people, which shows an increase of more than two times compared to last year.
The main challenges were related to this transition. A startup lives by different rules, at different speeds. But it was important for us to build a system: we have been working for a long time on forming our new structure, including the structure of cooperation. Because it is clear that such complex projects as space rockets, satellites, and artificial intelligence are difficult to create just inside a company, no matter how cool or innovative it may be.
As for external challenges, they were less critical for us because we diversified our business. This was one of the main achievements in recent times. We expanded our premises, started working on the creation of our laboratory complex and pilot production, opened another representative office in Voronezh, where we located contract production. Everything in the holding company concerns communications, in particular within the framework of the SR NET project, is now based in Voronezh, because there is a good engineering school there.
— SR Space turns four years old in July, and during this time you have moved and changed offices more than once. Recently, if I'm not mistaken, you got a new headquarters. Tell me, how does it differ from the old one? What is planned to be placed in it, what capacities, what divisions?
— It is worth saying that over these four years, as a classic startup, we have grown from three people in the kitchen. After that, we moved to a coworking space, then to the office of one of our business angels, investors, where we were allocated places in the open space. In 2023, we moved into our office, but there were a little more than 50 jobs there, we simply outgrew it. Therefore, in February 2024, we had to move again. This time, we have taken the space "for growth": 5 thousand square meters, within which we will be able to accommodate up to 300 people, including our own mission control center, our own data processing center, the minimum necessary laboratory complex and pilot production of small spacecraft.
— How is the Nebo geophysical rocket? In October, I remember, the combustion chamber was tested — and what is the next stage we are waiting for and when? Maybe a flight sample is already ready?
— We still need to work on the flight model. Now we have moved on to the production of individual elements — dry compartments, tanks. We are also working on the engine: additional units of our liquid rocket engine, including the nozzle head, have already been manufactured.
Also in May of this year, aerodynamic tests of the Nebo rocket were conducted in cooperation with the Moscow Aviation Institute. We were able to test the model of our geophysical rocket and understand how our calculations correspond to experimental data. The experiment was a success, we confirmed the characteristics that we laid down at the design stage, and we can move on, move on to manufacturing mass-dimensional layouts for further testing.
— You said that the Nebo rocket is a kind of demonstrator of technologies that will be used in the Sosmos rocket. Is there any progress on it?
— We have completed a preliminary design for Cosmos. We have paralleled some processes with the Sky — in particular, work on dry compartments, on the head fairing, plus we have now contracted with a number of enterprises to produce control systems, communications and other on-board systems.
Perhaps it's worth mentioning about the market. Firstly, due to the development of other private companies — and we see rapid growth — services for launching small devices are becoming more and more in demand. That is, the relevance of ultralight and lightweight media is increasing.
— Have the plans regarding the launch site changed?
— We are now looking primarily at the infrastructure that has already been created, at those landfills and cosmodromes that already exist. Basically, of course, we consider Plesetsk rather — it suits us the most — but we also have calculated ballistics for the Vostochny and for the Kapustin Yar range.
— What about the plans to launch satellites? The first Earth remote Sensing satellite Are there still plans to launch this year? Or the next one?
— Work is currently underway on three spacecraft directly in the hardware. The first, SR OKO, is a satellite for remote sensing of the Earth in the optical range. This is just a 16U device (16 units of dimension of ultra—small CubeSat satellites, each of which has dimensions of 10x10x10 cm - approx. TASS) with a spatial resolution of 1.5 m per pixel and an orbit height of 500 km. The second device, SR CMS— is a satellite for the climate monitoring system. It will analyze primarily the levels of methane, as well as CO2. It is a satellite of dimension 3U. The third device is a communications satellite, just a demonstrator of the SR NET project.
Now we mostly live off revenue, so we have no clear obligations to external stakeholders (stakeholders — approx. TASS). Accordingly, everything will depend on financial resources. From a technical point of view, we are ready, the question is in the final assembly and in the launch resources.
We also design our own boards, that is, we completely go into our subsystems, since they are needed for all our directions — we have a lot of intersections both on rockets and on satellites. For example, an on-board machine, or on-board computer, was originally developed for spacecraft, but with certain modifications it is also suitable for launch vehicles.
Since last year, we have also been moving into providing communications and navigation for various types of drones, because our country is large and vast. If we are talking about monitoring large areas, forests, agriculture, and extended linear objects, then there is not reliable available communication everywhere, and we need to provide it — at least for flights in automatic mode.
— At the previous SPIEF, you said that at that time revenue accounted for about a quarter of the total financing of SR Space, and expressed the hope that by the end of the year more than half of the funds would come directly from the sale of services and products. How is the issue with money now?
— Now we live on about 80% of the revenue. Everything else is borrowed funds. In certain cases, we resort to using credit funds, but in order to fulfill our contractual obligations. We currently do not have an anchor investor in the company, but we are planning to enter the capital market and are actively preparing for this. We conducted a legal audit and communicate with the main brokers in the Russian market. I think we will be able to announce the details soon.
— We will look forward to it! What is the most promising financial direction and the most profitable one right now?
— Now the directions with data, with aerial photography, with space photography are the most profitable. We see the satellite sector as the most promising for the coming year in terms of revenue, because there is generally active growth both in Russia and abroad.
In addition, legislation on public-private partnerships is changing — a number of projects will be implemented in the format of concessions. The law on remote sensing of the Earth was also adopted, which actually forms the market.
— Speaking of him, how do you think he will affect the work of the holding?
— To answer briefly, it is clearly positive, because at least some market is better than its complete absence. We are now talking about the possibility of selling our data to government customers. But, of course, there is still a lot that is unclear: how much we, as private traders, will be limited in this kind of supply, how much competition there will be, whether there will be any regulatory barriers… There are none yet, but when a legal norm is introduced, it does not always work clearly from the very beginning. Here we count on the flexibility of departments, state corporations, and other stakeholders.
— Last year, you talked about extensive plans in terms of unmanned aircraft systems — do you produce anti-drone products?
— Yes, we are actively engaged in the protection of civilian objects — in particular, our anti-drone systems are popular. We make them in several modifications: these are stationary complexes, portable complexes, and automobile versions. We have developed our own boards, our own antennas, that is, this is not China — we have our own assembly, our own design of enclosures and antennas, most of them are localized in Russia, is our know-how.
We have mastered 17 frequencies depending on the customer's needs, which allows us to customize the necessary solutions. We are actively working with agricultural holdings here, working with firefighters, ambulances, and oil and gas.
— Are there any contracts already?
— We have several large contracts in this area, the largest for 42 million, for the supply of 120 such systems, but we plan that within this year we will be able to switch to large series. We have already mastered small-scale production, but, of course, we are interested in receiving orders for thousands of pieces and long-term contracts. Because then you can reinvest more money in R&D and provide more unique, more efficient complexes.
— Last year, you also planned an experiment to control an unmanned aerial vehicle from space — is it still in the plans?
— This experiment is still in the plans, but we will do it within the framework of the holding. Previously, we planned to implement it together with T1 IT holding, but our cooperation with them stopped last year due to a change in management and a change in their strategy.
Nevertheless, we understand that there is a demand for such services and technical solutions, and we continue to work in this direction. It has objectively slowed down without external funding, but it is underway, and we hope that such an experiment will be carried out within the framework of the Archipelago design and educational intensive in July. But so far we do not have clear dates — it rather depends not on my desire, but on the technical readiness of our products.
— You also talked about plans to deploy infrastructure in the regions of the Russian Federation, including ground receiving stations.
— These plans were based on the fact that we will have investments from T1. They did not take place, so we had to abandon these plans. We are now entering the regions more in terms of production sites. In particular, Voronezh is one of such cases, because in June last year we had no plans to enter Voronezh.
— And Ryazan? There's also an aerospace valley...
— Yes, we work with the aerospace valley, we are its residents. We also understand all the opportunities that the Ryazan region provides for such production as ours. We are even considering a site near Protasov airport — this is a possible option for localizing our production, because it will obviously not be in Moscow. In Moscow, at our head office, we want to form an international-level R&D center in the field of aerospace, where the main developments will be. Namely, we will, of course, take the production processes to other regions, closer to our consumers and places where it is planned to launch our launch vehicles.
— Your climate company SR CMS has recently launched a service for monitoring greenhouse gases. Have you already registered any demand? How will the direction develop further?
— Yes, that's right, we launched the service in March. It received a very active response and a great response. It became clear that such a service is necessary and interesting for Russian companies (in particular, in the oil and gas sector) and government agencies. The main issue now is the availability of unique data. We do not have our own devices in orbit yet, we use data from foreign satellites. Somewhere we actually duplicate the information that is already on the Internet, but here we were able to create a more user-friendly interface, a more convenient software product for Russian users. We will saturate it with data, including unique data from spacecraft and ground-based measurement stations, in order to provide our customers with a unique product.
— By saying "unique data", do you mean that they will come from their own infrastructure, including in orbit? Or is it more about their own data processing methods to get valuable information from them?
— We are talking about both, and there is data not only from our spacecraft, but also from commercial vehicles that do not publish their information in open sources. For example, we are currently purchasing remote sensing images. We are also currently working on the possibility of purchasing climate data from foreign satellite groupings in parallel with the creation of our own.
In conclusion, I will say that SR CMS has successfully passed the expertise of the Moscow Innovation Agency for innovation, and we are now planning a pilot project with one of the major regions of the Central Federal District.
— Tell us, what promising developments do you have in the SR Data division?
— We are observing the following trend in the market: companies that are engaged in aerial photography are going into remote sensing, and those companies that were engaged only in space are going into aerial photography. And right now SR Data is developing its products, making a new version of SR Data 3.0, which will allow you to work not only with satellite images, but also with images obtained using drones. This is necessary for most of our clients, because for some tasks satellite images with a large area but small spatial resolution are needed, and for others - ultra—high resolution in a very limited area, and for this it is more correct to use drones. Therefore, here we are expanding the capabilities of our software. By the way, it has recently been included in the register of domestic software.
In addition, we have done a lot of work in legal terms this year, that is, we have obtained licenses for space activities for SR Rockets, SR Satellites and SR Data companies. We also received IT accreditation, and a number of our "daughters" were included in the list of small technology companies. In general, we see that the state creates very favorable conditions for the development of technologies and companies like ours.
— What are your plans for the coming year?
— First of all, we want to complete the test cycle of our rocket engine so that it becomes not just a prototype or the result of development work, but a full-fledged product. We also want to get full—fledged cryogenic high-pressure tanks during this time - to solve the main technological barriers in creating our own launch vehicle.
In the satellite direction, of course, we would like all these three [above-mentioned] devices to be successfully launched and they worked effectively as demonstrators, confirming the characteristics of the planned satellite groupings. In the direction of drones, we want to improve our facility protection characteristics and move on to comprehensive solutions. And in terms of working with data, we are interested in expanding the number of services and starting to fully sell data and analytics, because unlike other projects, SR Data completely goes out of the development cycle into the sales growth cycle. This is actually not a venture project, it's just a business: we offer the market a product that can be in massive demand.
Of course, it is important for us as a company to grow. Last year we grew six times, and by the end of this year we set ourselves an ambitious goal to accelerate growth and grow more than ten times. We have such opportunities — revenue for the first two quarters already exceeds the figures of the entire previous year.
