New Space: Astronomical Opportunities from Suborbital and Beyond

Javier Romualdez
CEO, Starspec Technologies

Abstract

Access to space-based instrumentation has unquestioned value for a wide variety of astronomical applications, not only in the fundamental research that is clearly enabled, but in the technologies developed that complement state-of-the-art advances in engineering and data science. As tech giants around the world continue to pave the way towards increasingly more accessible launches, StarSpec Technologies is pioneering an approach to space that enables fast, plug-and-play, cost-effective, and generally more accessible satellite technologies in support of high-performance and highly-stabilized space-based imaging applications. Leveraging 30+ years of flight heritage, StarSpec strives to provide easy access to well-established balloon-borne technologies as a stepping stone to a new class of LEO SmallSat missions, supporting a wide variety of applications from high fidelity mapping reconstruction used in CMB research and the early universe to diffraction-limited optical-to-UV imaging employed for weak lensing and gravitational wave follow-ups.