After years of refining this concept and culling for financial backers, LeCompte, who has a doctorate in astrophysics, as well as planetary and atmospheric sciences, finally scored. Recently, the company received $5 million in venture funding to set the wheels in motion.
"The $5 million, will get us set up," said AstroVision CEO Michael Hewins, who helped shepherd the concept into a viable business.
Hewins says the cash infusion will help with such things as negotiating with the Federal Communications Commission for licensing and with the yet-to-be announced satellite contractor.
But the company will need a lot more cash than $5 million to launch and operate its 5 geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) satellites. (Such satellites orbit some 22,300 miles, or 35,885 kilometers, hovering over a fixed location on Earth.) AstroVision is now negotiating its second round of financing which will help with the launch of its first two satellites in 2002.
Each satellite is about 660 pounds (300 kilograms) -- relatively lightweight for GEO orbit. Each spacecraft will be equipped with two sets of cameras: a wide-field camera with 7-kilometer (4.3-mile) resolution and a narrow-field camera with a one-half-kilometer (0.3-mile) resolution.
"They look like a big Nikon [camera]," Hewins said. "And cost about $50 million per satellite."
That would bring the total cost of the project to about $250 million when the last satellite is put into orbit in 2005. "We are very confident about the second round of financing," Hewins said.
The company’s CEO came on board in March 1998 after meeting with LeCompte. "I liked the concept and realized that you need a founder with vision to bring the idea forward," Hewins said.
What followed was a fleshing out of the financial and legal side of the business and meetings with potential investors to secure some funding.
Hewin also put together a business plan that begins with a focus on selling live weather information to broadcast and internet media outlets. Viewers will actually be able to watch storms approaching live on air and over the internet and television.
According to the company, its satellite system, called AvStar will deliver one frame every four seconds, compared to one frame every 15 to 20 minutes for current weather satellites. NASA has already signed a two-year, $9.4 million contract with AstroVision to study tornado formation in the United States.
Hewins noted that market demand for weather information is enormous. For example, The Weather Channel alone has more than 72 million subscribers. It’s website, weather.com, is ranked one of the top 10 sites for viewer traffic.
Meteorologists at the National Weather Service’s National Hurricane Center in Miami agree that continuous, real-time weather information is useful, but only for certain weather conditions.
"We can always use data in real-time," said hurricane specialist Stacy Stewart. "I am sure it would have some utility such as for thunderstorms in the Great Plains that can intensify in a few minutes."
But Stewart added that the satellite imagery the center now uses is sufficient for slower-moving storms such as hurricanes. "We now get the data every 15 minutes [for hurricane] and that’s sufficient," she said.
Another market that AstroVision is targeting consists of remote-sensing firms.
"We aren’t competing with them because we are providing live video, not just images," said Hewins. He said AstroVision would like to sell information on cloud coverage to imaging companies so that they can fill their orders to customers more efficiently.
"We can tell them where to better position their satellite," he said.
That’s an intriguing approach," said Clark Nelson, a spokesman for SpotImage, which operates remote -sensing satellites. "Anything that can help image efficiency, will help the industry."
Where AstroVision hopes to eventually make the bulk of their profit is in the business-to-business sector. For instance, companies such as The Discovery Channel, will be able to use the video stream for documentaries. Hollywood studios would also be able to buy the product to use as film footage.
Video boom
Video from space has attracted interest from a growing range of companies.
Washington, D.C.-based Space Media, a wholly owned subsidiary of space-module-company SpaceHab, has been looking to partner with media outlets to broadcast programming from a satellite studio 250 miles (400 kilometers) from Earth’s atmosphere at the International Space Station.
Also, internet start-up company Dreamtime Holdings will produce a wide array of space-related multimedia programming for NASA, including at least 30 hours weekly of high-definition television (HDTV) broadcasts from the International Space Station.
Hewins said that these ventures are not competition for AstroVision because they will be providing video of the International Space Station, whereas AstroVision’s focus will be on Earth.
Another possible rival is Triana, Vice President Al Gore’s brainchild satellite that would broadcast pictures of Earth for real-time display on the internet. Triana is slated for launch in December 2001.
However, Hewins noted that Triana will focus on the sunlit portion of the planet. "We will have nighttime cameras, too," he said. In addition, he pointed out, Triana is targeting the educational sector only.
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