[SatNews] Clyde Space is expanding and moving to larger premises in Scotland to meet increased demand for its products.
The company announced the move after revealing record turnover for the last financial year and the confirmation of two major new orders. Clyde Space founder and chief executive officer, Craig Clark, said, “We’ve had our best year to date and we expect next year’s results to show a further step change in revenue and profit. Our growth is due to the investment we made in product development over the last few years starting to pay off as our market continues to expand. Our market has grown at an average of 40 percent per year for the last five years and this is set to continue.”
The move to the top-floor of the Skypark building in Glasgow, Scotland, will occur on November 28th and will triple the floor space available to the company to 10,000 square feet. Clean Room capacity and laboratory space will increase threefold, and a ground station is being installed to track satellites on behalf of customers. The new headquarters will also allow the company to increase the number of staff from its current level of 40.
Craig added, “We’re growing pretty fast just now and have literally run out of space for new recruits, so our move to our new premises can’t come soon enough. Our office move is not only desk space, we are significantly expanding our manufacturing facility to give us more room for assembly and test as we prepare ourselves for greater volumes of product sales.”
Craig also revealed turnover for the last financial year had increased by 100 percent to £2 million, profits were “significantly up,” and he was confident of further growth with two new contracts worth more than £2m that are already under way. The first, worth 1.4million euros (£1.2m), is to provide power systems for Europe’s third largest European space company, Luxembourg-based Lux Space. These will be used in two satellites Lux is building for the European Space Agency (ESA). The second project, worth $1.5m (£0.94m), is for US-based Spire Inc., with Clyde Space becoming Spire’s biggest sub-contractor.
The company is also currently producing the most advanced CubeSat ever built for the Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-ISAB) for its Picasso project. The Institute specialises in the physics and chemistry of the atmosphere of the earth and other planets and outer space. UKube-1, Scotland’s first satellite, was designed and built by Clyde Space in Glasgow and was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, in July. Craig said its payload commissioning was almost complete and the satellite was performing well.
Craig said, “Our first satellite, UKube-1, allowed us not only to prove a bunch of new technologies in space, it also puts us on the map as a proven spacecraft provider not just in the UK, but globally. We’re building on this experience and success to deliver even more capable spacecraft. I’m also really pleased to be winning more business from the European Space Agency (ESA) as this indicates that we have matured into an established European spacecraft manufacturer and we are aiming to increase our activities with ESA over the coming years.”
Craig also announced that the Clyde Space board had been strengthened by the addition of Coralinn’s Investment Director John Wardlaw. Clyde Space is backed by private equity company Coralinn LLP, the investment vehicle of leading Scottish entrepreneur Hugh Stewart OBE, and Nevis Capital.
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