24/05/2024
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Spacemanic, a Slovak and Czech startup company, won this year’s Prix Bulles Cardin award of €20 000 on 17 May for its ocean WaterCube.
This device, which is based on space hardware, has sensors which measure pollution levels in sea water allowing the identification of pollution hotspots. With this data, action can be taken to safeguard habitats and species critical for the long-term sustainability of marine ecosystems and fisheries.
Oceans cover 71% of Earth’s surface and are vital to our survival. Detecting pollution is one way of protecting this important ecosystem. The WaterCube project will focus first on the Adriatic Sea and its islands, which are popular tourist destinations.
By detecting and monitoring pollution sources such as sewage water, oily ballast water, bilge water, and engine effluent, the WaterCube initiative raises awareness about the environmental impact of unsustainable maritime practices. It also supports regulatory compliance, ensuring adherence to international conventions and national laws, and deterring illegal discharges. By identifying the sources of pollution, the initiative also mitigates economic losses associated with marine pollution and protects tourists, fisheries and coastal communities.
WaterCube is based on Spacemanic’s flight-proven CubeSat architecture featuring all the standard CubeSat subsystems.
Its suite of specialised marine sensors can detect oil and record measurements of water quality and the presence of ammonia nitrogen. It also measures chemical oxygen demand (COD) to gauge the short-term impact of wastewater effluents on the oxygen levels in the sea water.
An anchor will hold the WaterCube in place during measurements and after the data is collected the device will be removed from the sea.
“Spacemanic is thrilled about this opportunity from ESA and immensely grateful to Pierre Cardin for their active participation in furthering of scientific research. This award will enable us to further develop our WaterCube concept, which we believe has great potential and could one day assist with keeping our oceans, lakes and other bodies of water clean, safe and teeming with diverse life,” said Daniela Jovic, CCO at Spacemanic.
For the second time, fashion house Pierre Cardin collaborated with ESA on its Prix Bulles, an esteemed award which has been presented to a startup whose project and initiatives promote and advance the emergence of an ecological space economy in service to Earth. This year, the focus was on the ‘Space for Oceans and Oceans for Space’ and what one can do for the other.
In the ‘space’ category, ESA’s Commercialisation services department helped Pierre Cardin by publishing an open call for entries mainly among its network of Business Incubation Centres (ESA BICs) around Europe, which received 27 applications from startup companies across 12 ESA Member States.
Applicants described how their space-based system, service, or technology contributed to the sustainable development of an ‘ecological economy of the oceans’ and how they would use the prize money. ESA experts and Pierre Cardin Group shortlisted four proposals.
Chair of the jury, Rodrigo Basilicati-Cardin (President of the Groupe Pierre Cardin) announced the winner at an event hosted at the fashion label’s Palais Bulles or ‘Bubble Palace’ in Théoule-sur-Mer, France saying: “Spacemanic for Maison Cardin is the perfect example of a startup which, through its innovative project, establishes a virtuous interrelation between space and the oceans. Innovation and the business models that result from it are building the future of our planet…the new frontiers that are the oceans and space constitute the future of our societies…I created the Cardin Bubble Prize to highlight a new language…Design and art must be vectors of a vision of the future for humanity. We have a duty, through fashion, to raise awareness among humanity of this vision of the future of our planet.”
Environmental advocates Olivier Poivre d’Arvor and Bertrand Piccard, with Géraldine Naja, ESA Director of Commercialisation, Industry and Competitiveness were also on the jury.
“The Prix Bulles is recognising promising entrepreneurs and the crucial impact that space and space technologies can have on the protection of the environment, in particular of the oceans. Our Business Incubation Centres around Europe provided a rich source of talents for this competition, and we are pleased that this prize goes to Spacemanic, a Slovak and Czech startup, for its WaterCube project to develop a sea pollution detection system based on the CubeSat satellite concept,” commented Géraldine Naja.
This year ESA celebrates the 20-year anniversary of its first Business Incubation Centre. What started as an initiative from ESA to help start-up companies with promising ideas for space has become a support network of 29 centres of technology and business expertise across 21 European Participating States.
Three other outstanding nominees in the ‘space’ category: Solmeyea, Samudra Oceans and Toqua networked during the event. At the same event were startups involved in non-space ocean conservation: SEADS, Tide Ocean, AW-Energy and ECOncrete.