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And that market is really choked.
In fact, its not a true market right now.
And so were blowing this wide open with some new hardware and a new approach to it.
To this end, the startup is developing two products.
Gravity distortion
Its funny, in a way.
But actually gravity is a pollutant.
And it stops us being able to see what the physics actually is, explains Adlard.
Microgravity is an absence of things that exist on Earth; buoyancy, hydrostatic pressure, and sedimentation.
The absence of those three things make everything function differently… and its really quite surprising what happens.
You couldnt really guess whats going to happen.
Even chemical reactions can occur differently in space.
Youre only doing chemistry until youre doing it in microgravity, and then youre doing physics, Adlard jokes.
The opportunities here include supporting academic research and the burgeoning satellite industry.
It involves heating up some material.
Thats quite a complicated thing to do on a spacecraft.
So weve got to spend quite a long time developing a payload making that into something which is flyable.
As for satellites, Adlard says the high failure rate of nanosatellites can be up to 50%.
There are 1,000 startups building new, innovative hardware thats never been flown before.
So theres a great need to get all that done.
Were in the supply chain for the space economy.
With a background in aeronautics and space engineering, he began to consider new applications for an existing technology.
I became very interested in what smaller rockets and suborbital rockets can do.
In the past, suborbital rockets used to be just technology demonstrators a stepping stone to something else.
I think its only recently theyve taken on this sort of different significance.
It took a lot longer to develop than expected, he says.
It took about 18 months for us to get permission to do a first flight with it.
And we needed to do the first flight so you can then develop all the rest of it.
The startups suborbital rocket, ISAAC, is a longer-term project.
As an early-stage startup in spacetech, Gravitilab has raised more than most startups we feature in PreSeed Now.
Theyve previously raised 2.2 million in investment.
Adlard says there is a pipeline of customers lined up.
Adlard wants Gravitilab to penetrate deeper into the microgravity market over time.
This will involve developing a larger vehicle to support larger payloads and longer periods of weightlessness.
But he also wants the company to tackle the environmental impact of the space industry.
There are a number of things that we could do with that propulsion technology.
We could do things with in-space propulsion.
Weve got some exciting plans for things that might happen in about five years time.
In a busy market of startups targeting the space economy, Gravitilab appears to largely stand alone.
Nobodys doing anything that is targeted at opening up this choked market, Adlard says.
And you cant really access that commercially.
You just cant do it.
The LOUIS UAV can be delivered to the customer, rather than the customer having to travel.
Meanwhile, a US-based company calledbluShift Aerospaceis offering to facilitate experiments in space in a rocket.
But again, Adlard says flexibility is Gravitilabs advantage here.
The UK lags behind a bit with national programmes and national ambition, Adlard says.
The US has got significant funding for researchers to use microgravity.
Germany has its own programme, and the UKs got nothing.
We cant pull up the EU programmes…
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