Solestial, which is taking solar energy to space, raised $10 million in a seed funding round. Stanislau Herasimenka, co-founder & CEO of Solestial, joined Cheddar News to discuss the company’s plans for expansion.

Solestial, which is taking solar energy to space, raised $10 million in a seed funding round. Stanislau Herasimenka, co-founder &amp; CEO of Solestial, joined Cheddar News to discuss the company’s plans for expansion. “People started developing really large projects in space, for example, to…deliver global broadband, Internet connectivity or direct-to-cell phone connectivity. So at some point in the future, we're going to have iPhones talking directly to satellites from anywhere on the globe.”

Space Solar Panel Maker Solestial Raises $10M

up solar energy company for space celestial raising 10 million in a seed round led by Airbus Ventures celestial saying its core technology is an ultra thin solar cell and that it's on a mission to become the solar energy company for space company also says economic solar panels like the ones it's offering are critical to meeting the demands of the satellite industry. So joining me now is Stanislaw Harris America co founder and Ceo of celestial, thank you so much for coming on. I want you to share some more details about what your company offers in the space industry. Sure, thanks for having me. Uh you know, you should think about all the satellites that we have out there. They are all powered by solar panels and uh solar panels usually like one quarter of the satellite costs. So it's very important component uh and today people started developing really large projects in space to for example, You know deliver global broadband, Internet connectivity or direct to cell phone connectivity. So at some point in the future we're going to have iPhones talking directly to satellites from anywhere on the globe. So all these cool things will need 10 of thousands of new satellites. So we will need a lot of solar panels in space and it turns out that we will actually need hundreds times more than the existing space solar panel companies can even produce. And yeah and then you know it's really hard for them to scale manufacturing too because they have multiple bottlenecks in the supply chain. And also it's really hard for them to ultimate their production. And this is where celestial comes in. So we're have developed a manufacturer herbal and affordable solar technology that is optimized for the use in space. And that will enable all these cool projects and also will become a foundation of the future energy infrastructure in space. Let me ask you this Stanislaw. So you're right. The supply chain is in focus more than ever and space of course highly complex brand new frontier um that's gonna need a lot of resources to make further experimentation, development business opportunities actually work. So how is it that you're able to do this at scale? What is the secret sauce in that method? Right. Sure. Actually what people using space and I have here here little show and tell materials, uh it's uh special technology that is very expensive. So this little piece would be $1000. What people use here on earth. Is this silicon panels, that is just $1 per piece. Okay, so we start with terrestrial silicon technology and then make it more stable in Space. So we can leverage the entire materials and equipment and workforce supply chain that is already in place for terrestrial silicon. And by upgrading this technology to better working space, we can deliver kind of more affordable and more manufacturing product horse space. You just raised 10 million in a seed round, congratulations. How are you going to use that money to expand? Right? You know, it's a seed stage. So the main kind of goal for us right now is to do a full technology validation as well as continue our market validation efforts and on attack validation side, you know, there is no question Whether solar panels will work in space or not. So they will, they will work. The question is can they last for 10 years in space and how um fast they're gonna degrade and because we cannot just go in space and stay there for 10 years in washing. Uh you know the performance of our solar panels, it's too long. That's why people do something called accelerated stress testing here on Earth. So we try to emulate 10 years of life in space uh in just several months of ground testing and then that will be our major proof points on the tax side. Um can I just jump in really quickly? We don't have a ton of time left but I do want to get to demand right. Some of the agencies companies interested in your company. I mean do you have inbounds from Nasa? Is that an agency for instance that you plan to work with? Yeah, absolutely. And Nasa is really interested in more affordable solar panels. Also we have, you know a couple of research contracts with Nasa. And uh the interesting thing that today, Nasa is really big about the moon. There is Artemis program going and they are planning to go to the lunar poles to mind wider eyes and you know, establish human uh, settlements there. And the oldest things will need tremendous amount of power and going to the moon. It's not only about the cost but also about the mass. So this is where celestial also brings value because our solar panels are extremely lightweight so we can save not a lot of dollars on delivery costs too. So cool. I love the name to celestial Stanislaw Harris America, co founder and Ceo at celestial. Thank you.