New human-made shooting star satellite is first step towards multi-billion-dollar space entertainment market
Press release 4月 26, 2023
Japanese space tech pioneer, ALE announces plans to launch next SKY CANVAS satellite into orbit and invites science enthusiasts to the new SKY CANVAS Community Club
APRIL 26, 2023 – LONDON, UK – Space technology company ALE today announced its plans to launch the next SKY CANVAS satellite into orbit, a major step forward in the world’s first human-made shooting star project. And the first step towards ALE realising its ambition to usher in a new era of sustainable space entertainment over the next decade, boosting the global space business, and advancing essential climate science research and education.
The new ALE-3 satellite scheduled to launch in 2024 will gather climate information in the mesosphere, the layer of the Earth’s atmosphere directly above the stratosphere and below the thermosphere. Atmospheric data gathered in the mesosphere has the potential to provide valuable new insights into Earth’s climate and weather.
The latest news about ALE-3 follows the launch of ALE’s SKY CANVAS Community Club, a dynamic platform dedicated to fostering the exchange of knowledge and actively sharing ideas around space, astronomy, and science. The SKY CANVAS Community Club
will provide a place for members to be kept informed about exciting developments at ALE, including the human-made shooting star experience, with lots more exciting benefits to be announced in due course.
“The mesosphere represents a critical part of Earth’s climate system. Indeed, the mesosphere is where the ozone protecting us from harmful ultraviolet radiations is produced and where atmospheric tides occur shaping the large-scale atmospheric movement,” explained Dr Gilles Bailet, Research Associate in Emerging Space Technologies at University of Glasgow.
“Investigating the mesosphere is of utter importance to combat climate change and SKY CANVAS is uniquely capable to bring very valuable large multi-point measurements with its human-made meteor shower. SKY CANVAS represents an amazing outreach opportunity to inspire the next generation of STEM students and bring a novel and mesmerising experience for people on Earth, allowing ’space entertainment’ to be fully entwined with high-level space and Earth’s climate science.”
ALE has already completed two successful SKY CANVAS satellite launches (ALE-1 and ALE-2), putting two satellites into orbit in January and December 2019. The next SKY CANVAS satellite launch (ALE-3) will take place in 2024, and the first commercial service of SKY CANVAS is scheduled to take place in 2025, when ALE hopes to inspire a new generation of space and science enthusiasts across the world by giving them the opportunity to view the world’s first live human-made meteor shower.
“Our purpose and our strategic goal at ALE is to create a space entertainment market by the 2030s that supports fundamental science, and to become a pioneer in this market,” explained Dr. Lena Okajima, founder and CEO of ALE. “Fundamental science is a source of innovation and contributes to social and economic development through the accumulation and sustained creation of new knowledge, findings, inventions, and other research results. ALE’s values are the fundamental sciences themselves, and we believe that their promotion is extremely important. ALE embodies the power of fundamental science in our three core values: curiosity, pathfinder and evolution.”*
The SKY CANVAS Community Club is an edutainment project where space enthusiasts can:
• Meet likeminded space fanatics in ALE’s online Discord community
• Get access to interesting educational content in the form of interviews, presentations, and AMAs with space industry experts and thought leaders
• Follow the journey of SKY CANVAS as ALE prepares to deliver the first-ever human-made shooting star experience
• Find out about other exciting space-related news and events
• Obtain lots of member-only benefits as VIP Pass holders
For further information on SKY CANVAS go to www.skycanvasglobal.com.
Join the SKY CANVAS conversation on Discord at https://discord.com/invite/T763uufZ9J
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PR contact:
SKY CANVAS PR team
T: 44 (0)207 388 9988
How does SKY CANVAS work?
ALE’s proprietary technology recreates natural shooting stars. Natural shooting stars, or meteors, emit light due to the aerodynamic heating of small dust particles when they travel through Earth’s atmosphere at very high speed. ALE recreate this phenomenon by accurately releasing particles that become shooting stars from its satellites when they enter Earth’s atmosphere.
First, meteor-replicating particles are installed into one of its satellites. Then, by controlling the position, speed, and timing of the meteor particles, the human-made shooting stars emit light in the sky at a designated location anywhere in the world. Allowing people all over the earth to enjoy this rare, beautiful, celestial experience.
How does SKY CANVAS enable sustainable climate and environment science?
Climate change action is the most urgent issue facing humanity today. Climate-related disasters have doubled in 20 years, with various other environmental problems emerging such as the impact of climate change on ecosystems. Currently, there are limitations on the area of atmospheric data that can be acquired. The basis of climate research is global environmental data, but the ‘mesosphere’ has not been adequately observed, to date, in atmospheric data. This is because the mesosphere is too high for airplanes and balloons, yet too low for satellites.
Studying the path and light emission of SKY CANVAS’s human-made shooting stars will enable ALE to collect new atmospheric data (including wind speed, atmospheric composition and more), with a view to addressing climate change and contributing to weather models. Atmospheric data in the mesosphere from shooting star orbits and emissions have the potential to provide valuable insights into the unknowns of climate and weather. Although it is difficult to acquire data with existing observation methods, with human-made shooting stars, the location and timing of their flow can be determined in advance, and SKY CANVAS will acquire and provide data through observation.
About Dr. Lena Okajima
Dr. Lena Okajima is the founder and CEO of ALE, which she founded in 2011. Prior to ALE, Lena worked at Goldman Sachs Japan. Before Goldman Sachs Japan, she established a science and entertainment company while attending the University of Tokyo and served as its CEO. Lena holds a Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Tokyo.
About ALE Co, Ltd.
ALE’s mission is to “Make space closer. For all of us. Together.”
ALE is a space startup company started by Dr. Lena Okajima in 2011 to create the world’s first human-made shooting star. One of the driving forces of ALE is the passion to contribute towards the development of science.
Address: 2-11-8 Shibadaimon, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105-0012, Japan
CEO: Dr. Lena Okajima
Established: 1st September 2011
Nature of Business: Space Entertainment (SKY CANVAS), Atmospheric Data