Alba Orbital

Alba Orbital is a Scottish aerospace company that designs and manufactures PocketQube satellites and satellite deployers.

History

The company was founded by Tom Walkinshaw in 2012. The company is headquartered in Glasgow, Scotland. In 2021, Alba Orbital participated in the startup accelerator program Y Combinator, located in Silicon Valley, United States. They raised US$3.4 million after completing the program.

Earth Observation

In 2025, Alba Orbital began releasing Earth observation imagery collected by its Unicorn-2 satellite constellation.

Products

The company has developed two satellite platforms. The Unicorn-1 platform is a 1P (5cm x 5cm x 5cm) PocketQube demonstration satellite. The Unicorn-2 platform, is a 3P Earth observation satellite (5cm x 5cm x 15cm). The company has also developed two spacecraft deployers. The Albapod 6P can carry up to 6 PocketQube satellites. The 96P deployer can carry up to 96 individual satellites supporting a Satellite constellation mission into orbit.

Launch Broker and Rideshare Services

Alba Orbital acts as a satellite launch broker, purchasing capacity from launch service providers, including SpaceX and Rocket Lab.to carry Albapod deployer clusters to space. The capacity within the clusters is then used to carry Alba Orbital satellites as well as other PocketQube payloads to space in a rideshare arrangement.

The company holds contracts with the European Space Agency for ARTES.

Interstellar Communication Holdings signed a rideshare agreement with Alba Orbital to assist in the launch of its icMercury PocketQube satellite via SpaceX to be launched in early 2025.

See also

• PocketQube – The satellite format Alba Orbital specializes in building

External links