Neurospace: How a Berlin space start-up landed contracts with Nasa and SpaceX

0:11Hello and welcome to The Entrepreneurs on Monocle Radio, the show all about inspiring people, innovative companies and fresh ideas in global business. On today's programme, we're heading to space and hitting the slopes. First, we'll meet the CEO of a German space startup that's already won contracts with both NASA and SpaceX. Putting something into space was so amazing. It was so crazy. And the Proton was one of the largest rockets and I was overwhelmed. And later, Slovenian ski jumpers rule the world and so do the skis they use to break records and win Olympic golds. Join me, Guy Delaunay, as I visit Slatnar, the family firm that flies higher and further than the rest.

0:54More from our man in the Balkans on the way. This is The Entrepreneurs with me, Tom Edwards.

1:04You're listening to The Entrepreneurs. Earlier this year, the Artemis II mission returned to Earth after its historic crude lunar flyby splashing down in the Pacific after delivering a small research satellite called Turalis. Built by Berlin startup Neurospace, the suitcase-sized satellite, tested electronics by repeatedly crossing the Van Allen radiation belts, technology the company hopes will power future lunar rovers and robots. With just 22 employees, Neurospace is the only German privately funded space startup to have secured contracts with both NASA and SpaceX. Berlin-based journalist Yegor Mostovchikov visited the company's headquarters in the German capital to meet its founder, electrical engineer Irene Selvanathan.

1:48He began by asking Irene about the start of her journey. I was born in Sri Lanka and this was 1980. By 85 we had to leave Sri Lanka because the war was getting really bad at that time and so my parents had friends in Germany and they just asked like you can come here. It was not easy as a foreigner. And especially at that time, Germany was totally different. Still, it was during the Cold War. Berlin was surrounded by the wall. Yes, it was really tough. But on the other hand, I learned a lot to, you know, get more confident with everything. even though I was a huge dreamer and small person and got always underestimated all my life.

2:41I loved electronics and I learned to work with tools and my parents were never like this is a male thing and so on. I was always allowed to work with tools, repair stuff and my sister was looking at me like why don't you study something like that? I was like what? Electronics! Like oh you can study this? Yeah, why not? And the next day, we were just going to the university to just help me, like, let's have a look. Electrical engineering, and it was still possible to just start. I was like, okay, let's become an engineer. My parents were really proud, especially my father. He was like, yes, that's great.

3:20Electrical engineer, that's good. What was that in space that got your attention and made you enter this career? I really loved science fiction. From childhood on, I wanted to build a starship. When I was finishing my studies, and I took a lot of time during when I was starting my father diet, and I got into some kind of crisis, and it took me a while to finish everything. So then it was like, okay, what shall I do? And I was like, I love to go to space. I really love to go to space. But it was like nearly impossible in Berlin. What to do? Where? And then I saw a notice for a job, you know, like offer.

4:08And there was the Soyuz rocket, like printed on that. It was just on a whiteboard somewhere at the university. And it was behind a lot of other papers, you know. And I was just ripping all these off. And it's like, why is the Soyuz on it? And then they were looking for an electrical engineer. It was a little startup. And then I was applying. And that company became quite popular. It's one of the largest in its field, actually, which is called ExoLaunch. So I worked there for five years and I had the opportunity to also be going directly to the launch site. At that time, it was Russia and Kazakhstan, so Baikonur.

4:50And so, yes, this was amazing. I remember still when during the interview, while they were telling me, yes, and then you need to build this device. This is an additional device for the launch vehicle to manage the satellite deployment. And then it is also important that you should go there and integrate and test. And they were telling it in a way that this was something really exhausting and bad. And I was like, is he talking about the Soyuz rocket? and I'm allowed to go there? Is he serious? And he's like, yes, and then you have to fly to Moscow. And there you have to get into something which looks like a plane and then it will get you to Baikonur.

5:38It will bring you there. And so on, I was like, what? Trying to still be very serious. Yes, sure, I can do it. And Tom was like, this is so crazy. and they allowed me to go to the rockets. So you saw how the rockets are launching into the space, right? How was that? Amazing. The first time it was in Baikonur, I saw the Proton launching. This was 2017. And then this was also our first launch. Yes, putting something into space was so amazing. It was so crazy. And the Proton was one of the largest rockets. and it was everything. It was like an earthquake and so loud and just I was overwhelmed. Do you dream of going to space yourself one day?

6:28Yes, sure. I would love to. So I'm having the zero gravity flight again. This is my second or third time. And we will fly this parable and it's amazing. When did you decide that you want to do your own thing? so I worked there for five years and got the possibility to change to an aviation company they were giving me a great offer and I was like why not trying out something a different field and so on but at the same time there was something like okay maybe you should also have your own company but it was very risky at that time but still I just registered named it Neurospace because there was an idea what we can do and so on.

7:14And I just let it run because it was just a side project because it was to 2020 and it was shortly before Corona. So there was no possibility to grow at all. We were not even allowed to rent a room because of the lockdown and no access to investors. So it was really hard. You talk a bit about the plans of the company. What is the ultimate goal that you envision, like the absolute dream that you want to achieve with the Neurospace? Land on Moon or Mars with our devices, of course, both would be great. And just like to explore all these things and being part of creating, you know, Moon and Mars, life and states and cities or whatever.

8:05And being like a major part of it. Supporting with unmanned vehicles and robotic applications, doing the maintenance. and of course I would love to see it on my own. Do you have some sort of an ideal timeline when those things are going to happen? So we hope in actually a few years, three or four years, to really get our rover on the moon. We are looking for missions, possibilities. It's not that big problem anymore from the technological perspective, but we of course have to see if the missions are available and if we are allowed to be part of it and how the financials will go there because it's not very cheap going to the moon.

8:52The Helis mission is not your first mission in space, right? You did the first one in 2025. Yes, this was also with SpaceX. So there is a European company named the Exploration Company and they are building capsules. So also for manned application, for example, to get to the ISS and also to the moon. and they were testing a smaller version of the capsule to see how it performs in space. So they had the opportunity to take some payloads and we booked a payload, which was like roughly about 20 by 30 centimeters, so not much. And we're thinking of how to test a rover within this small dimension. We said what we wanted to test in low gravity, zero gravity is actually we have designed our own mechanics for the rovers.

9:46We didn't copy anything from other usual rovers. We went a total different direction. So we were thinking like, OK, is it actually capable of starting with a rocket with all the forces, the impact of this, you know, start, all the vibration and shock and so on? can it handle it? And then in zero gravity, will all the deployment switches work? Will the motors start to work and turn? And how will they act in zero gravity? And will the suspension systems, will they go up and down and so on? So we have created this experiment within this box where we were then starting to turn the motors, the switches and all these things.

10:30How does a small startup from Berlin establish such partnerships like with SpaceX, for example? How did you manage to do that? So the German space agency was telling us we are not interested in Moon at that time. And we are talking about 2023. And so they then at a certain point promised us, OK, give us some application. We can manage something about maximum 200 ,000. And so we wrote down a whole proposal and everything, handed it in, and then they said, okay, no, we don't have money. But that guy, the responsible person, remembered us. And then NASA had given this possibility of being part of the Artemis II mission with satellites.

11:18That person remembered us and came back being like, okay, see, this is a tight mission. You just have a few months for everything. But you are the only company who is anyway dealing with the moon here in Germany. So we are focused on moon. And that's why I will give you the possibility. You will get the slot. And to build a satellite, you can write me a proposal, but you have to do it within 24 hours. um like a small abstract was not the full proposal but the whole project idea what I would do within a 12U satellite and we won't give you any money so it was still like okay small startup no money and no money for a satellite so how to build a satellite for for zero euros and so I was calling companies I knew and like oh do you have a camera or do you have a structure and so on it's like I don't have money for this it just like but therefore you get the opportunity for a NASA mission and some really few jumped in and I was just like okay I will apply for the mission even without money I would just write down and hand it in and let's see They accepted the abstract and wanted to have more.

12:43So we had about one month to write a full proposal. And the deadline was 31st of December. So we sat there on Sylvester. And yes, on January, suddenly everything started. Nessa accepted our proposal and we were in. And then all things started. All the discussion started. We had weekly meeting where like sometimes 20 to 30 people of NASA were in and also two people from DLR, so the German Space Agency. And then they all realized, I think for NASA, it was completely clear about the German side was like, OK, this is getting serious. They are talking about international agreements suddenly and this has to be done, all these things.

13:30And my plan was like, I let it run. I will take care of the money as soon as it gets important. and then it got important and they had a lot of requirements then somehow the government jumped in and said this is actually a very interesting and important project because being part of this NASA mission and Germany in addition to Orion having more experiments on this board for the first manned mission to the moon and so yeah they gave us then money it was like starting also negotiating was a low amount at the beginning but then they saw okay this is really much the whole requirement were crazy we just took an open source satellite bus but when we rebuilt everything because it didn't match that much so we have redesigned all these things and did it actually at the end how long did it take the moment where we started to build our own satellite was nine months before handover.

14:33Yes, there we started to design our own satellite very fast. They were all not believing, especially also the German space agency and so on. I don't think you will manage it. This is nearly impossible. They also said they kept the expectation very low so the goal of the mission for that proposal was okay you have to manage to hand over a working satellite and this has to be launched by NASA so this is more or less the level how where everything ends and where the money was put in and they said if you manage to make it beep then we are impressed so this was how they were putting in the money and defining the goals of the mission and how did the mission go itself so the mission was for us not that much satisfying even though we have fulfilled all the goals of the proposal so we did everything we had the handover and we had the launch and it was successful and the satellite has beeped the thing was that we got informed a few days before the launch that our major ground station is not available because it didn't get the commissioning so we didn't have access to the satellite for more than a half orbit of the satellite and this mission is quite tough so you only have a high one high elliptical orbit which started so our satellite got deployed at 42 roughly 42 000 kilometers away from earth which is really far away it's farer than geostationary satellites and then the satellite will reach 77 000 kilometers within that time we have to find the satellite and it's just like a tiny little sand grain in the ocean you know so we had to find it and then we had to start to steer it the thing was that even the other two ground station said it was the same provider They cannot get a good signal from a satellite.

16:43So this made us a bit desperate. We were already in this mission. We just had eight hours to contact the satellite. And they said no contact possible currently. And then I was at the launch site at that time and talking to the Argentinian team, who were also part of the Artemis 2 mission with their satellite. And they were jumping in. And they were like, OK, let's take our ground station. And at least we can record everything, which Tacheles, this is the name of the satellite. And they did it. They found the satellite was crystal clear signal, actually. And everything was working fine. We could even see that it was so it had the command, like as soon as you got deployed, you have to turn 360 every 12 minutes.

17:24And it was doing it and it was pinging us. And so we could even see that the signals which we sent from our mission control to the ground station, the satellite was receiving it. So this part was everything working and was responding all the time and waiting for our commands, actually. And so this was just amazing. And to also see that actually this whole satellite was working really good from the beginning on. This is amazing. So what's next for Neurospace? So, of course, we are now talking with the German Space Agency and also with NASA already for Artemis 3 and 4. and so 3 is not very interesting from a neural space perspective because it's low Earth orbit but we will build the satellite bus so this is the idea but offering the payloads for every other company who wants to have an experiment on board so to share this mission with other companies and for Artemis 4 we will just see if it's again Tacheles, the same mission or even now because we now know how to do it going far maybe in the direction of the moon or something.

18:35That was Irene Selvanathan, the founder and CEO of Neurospace, in conversation with Yegor Motsovchikov. You can find out more about the business by heading to neuro-space.de.

18:56You're listening to The Entrepreneurs. Now, the snow may have melted on the mountains, but Slovenia is still basking in the glow of a spectacular ski jumping season. Their athletes dominated the World Cup, with Domen Prejic claiming the men's title and his sister Nika winning the women's prize for the third season in a row. They also picked up a hatful of medals at the Winter Olympics, including three golds between them. And they achieved all that on skis made by a small family firm based in a village at the foot of the Julian Alps. But Slatnar didn't start out as a ski manufacturer. It was making parts for the auto industry before CEO Peter Slatnar decided to match his engineering expertise with his passion for ski jumping.

19:39He told Monocle's guide Lorne how this tiny player has soared to the top of the sports equipment world. If you watched any ski jumping in the past season, you'll know the two names were inescapable, both of them from Slovenia.

19:59One was Preutz, the name of the all-conquering siblings who simultaneously hold the men's and women's world records, plus world and Olympic titles. The other was Slatnar, the logo boldly emblazoned in blue on their otherwise white skis. Oddly enough, Chief Executive Peter Slatnar wasn't always in the sports equipment business. Originally, the family firm made parts for the auto industry, but Peter found that was all pressure and no passion. So, 20 years ago, he made a switch. I was ex-ski jumper and I have a lot of contact with coaches, the athletes. They say, we need some bindings, we need some equipment, because this equipment, what we use now, is not enough good.

20:50It's too much plastic and broke and we have a lot of problems. They say, please try to make something. And this was the start. What makes your bindings different? Because you, as I understand it, within a year of starting to make these bindings, almost all of the world-class ski jumpers were using them on our skis. Easier to count the jumpers who didn't jump with our equipment. and this is only two Germans in this, all others used more or less our equipment, our ski jumping bindings. Yeah, this was quite fast. It's incredible that the small family company dominates the elite level at ski jumping.

21:35Yeah, because the ski jumping sport is quite small. This is a small family and we know each other around the world and the alpine ski, there is another business because this is more you see the big companies big concern here is more or less niche work one to one especially in the World Cup and we find here a very good solution and try with simple bindings in the high quality less problem you then took over the ski jumping ski production from elan i think this was 10 years ago and for a small family company which is having success with the bindings was that a bit of a risk for you to then start doing the skis as well this was uh we even not imagine how big step is this in in how big shoes we step We think this shoes is, we know this shoes is big, but not so big than it was later.

22:49We figured out we are a small company. We cannot pay a lot of money bonus to the athletes. We say we can produce the skis. We can try to produce the best skis for you, especially custom made, but no bonuses. We have a lot of jumpers who jump in our skis and nobody gets no money, support or something.

23:21That hasn't stopped elite competitors clamouring for Slatnar skis. At the Winter Olympics, jumpers representing every country from Japan to Bulgaria were using the Slovenian-made equipment. And it's the personal connection that's valuable to athletes like Andrzej Laneszek, who won Olympic gold in the mixed team event. We are working with Peter, with his team. We go through some videos which we have from training, and then we try to communicate which ski, which model we should use. It's a lot of work behind the scenes. Peter is with a heart in ski jumping. It's really nice to have his equipment.

24:03I'm really privileged to be jumping here with his equipment and I'm really grateful for all the work he has done.

24:15Of course, it's the ski jumping equivalent of a two-way street. Peter Slatnar is happy to credit the feedback from elite competitors for the continuous development of his world-beating equipment. We have people who were the ex-jumper. They were both in the world championships and they have a lot of experience. And I was also the ex-ski jumper. And this is the base. A lot of experience, a lot of knowledge and also good connection with coaches, with athletes. and the best idea maker, the athletes themselves. And we get really, really good technology results from these athletes, a lot of information.

25:04And probably nobody's giving more information than the reigning World Olympic and World Cup champion Domen Preutz. Unsurprisingly, he views Slatnar and its staff as key members of his winning team. You know, I compare Slovenian ski jumping to NASA. Like in Slovenia, we have everything so close. You go to test and then you go develop. And I imagine NASA works the same way. They have a laboratory, they have testing facilities, and when they test something, they go back straight to the laboratory. And we can do the same. We can do testing on a ski jumping hill, and 15 minutes away you have Slatner who produces skis, and he produces also the bindings.

25:44Not every jumper reaches the global elite and Slatnar is keen to service them as well because sales to ski jumping clubs is what keeps the company profitable. We sell between 1 ,200 to 1 ,800 pairs of ski per year produced and most of them we sell. Who are you selling to? We sell to all the world, all clubs, all nations. Where is the snow is also our skis. so there's a lot that goes to the ski jumping clubs the ski jumping schools in essence yes yes a lot of and they love our skis because it's light price is the the cheapest from the compare with other producer and also our delivery is really fast because we have everything on the stock and we can deliver the skis every minute or really really fast how does it feel to see your family name and also the ski jumpers from Slovenia being so successful as they have been over this past year to see this in tv on these newspapers and everywhere is this nice feeling but this is not not our goal our goal is work good hard and harder because good results from the athletes this is just one stamp you are in the right way keep this way make better faster and even more precise

27:19that was peter slatnar the ceo of the business and you can find out more about it by heading to

27:34And that's all for this episode of The Entrepreneurs. We'll be back at the same time next week. The programme's produced by Laura Kramer with audio editing by Elliot Greenfield and Steph Chungu. Listen again and find out more about the show at monocle.com. That's where you can subscribe to Monocle magazine and ensure you're reading more about better businesses every month. You can also follow us and catch up with the archive wherever you get your podcasts. If you'd like to get in touch with the team, do email me or message Laura on lrk at monocle.com. I'm Tom Edwards goodbye and thanks for listening to The Entrepreneurs