A SCOTTISH space marketing agency has celebrated signing multiple contracts with private and public sector industry giants after an "emotionally challenging year" which included staff having to flee Ukraine.
AstroAgency, which has its headquarters in Haymarket in Edinburgh, will operate as the marketing branch for Space Scotland, an industry development body founded in 2016 to promote the space sector and create a collaborative effort across the UK.
The company successfully secured new contracts with Euroconsult, a global space and satellite consultancy firm.
AstroAgency will also enter the US product market, where it will be promoting the latest products of Earthwave, a space data research institute also based in Edinburgh.
Earthwave specialises in polar and glacier ice monitoring, data discovery and visualisation platforms.
Additionally, three further projects with the UK Space Agency have been obtained.
AstroAgency is currently working with the organisation to promote a ClearSpace procedure.
This mission involves Clearing the Low Earth Orbit Environment with Active Removal (CLEAR), which is a scheme aimingto extract inactive satellites and debris from the atmosphere.
The Natural History Museum has reported there are approximately 3000 dead satellites that have fallen out of orbit littering space, and more than 30,000 pieces of miscellaneous pieces of man-made "space junk".
These contracts mark the space strategy firm surpassing its 50th client project.
Senior project manager at AstroAgency Antonio Duduiano said: “This is a tremendous achievement following what was an emotionally challenging year for us and it sets us up well for our fourth year of operations and international expansion targets.”
The contract wins come after a difficult year in 2022, as many of the company’s staff based in Ukraine were affected by Russia’s invasion in February.
Chief operations officer Daria Filichkina was forced to flee her home in the country with her son in April.
AstroAgency was founded in 2019, helping to put Scotland on the map for the space industry as the world's first full-service marketing agency dedicated to space.
The company is in the process of appointing a five-member board of advisers, hoping to strengthen connections with the ever-growing market.
Dr Paul Bate, chief executive of the UK Space Agency, said: “Scotland is a vital part of the UK’s growing space sector, which employs 47,000 people and generates an annual income of £16.5 billion.”
The space sector is predicted to reach a value of $540 billion by 2026, as detailed in the Global Space Industry Report.
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