Golden Reel Challenge
13.10.2025
XelerateVR: Revolutionary Omnidirectional Treadmills for Space Training and Virtual Reality
04.11.2025
The space industry is undergoing a rapid transformation. With the number of satellites in orbit growing exponentially, operators face an urgent challenge: reliable and affordable access to ground infrastructure. Communications costs are high, coverage is limited, and downlink opportunities are restricted to brief time windows. At the same time, valuable ground station infrastructure across universities, research institutes, and companies sits idle for significant portions of each day . This imbalance creates inefficiencies that slow down the development of the broader space economy.
Decen Space, now joining ESA BIC Northern Germany, was founded to address precisely this gap.
From bottleneck to opportunity
Founder and CEO Tristan Hundley first became aware of the problem while developing satellite simulation software and working with space data. His early research and conversations with industry experts revealed a structural bottleneck: it was costly to transmit data from space to Earth, and often possible only once every 90 minutes when a satellite happened to pass over a ground station. At the same time, valuable infrastructure remained idle and lacked a mechanism to be used more efficiently. From these observations emerged the idea of creating a system to connect satellite operators with unused or underused ground stations. Tristan explains that the challenge is not only about lowering costs but also about ensuring that communications infrastructure can keep pace with the massive increase in satellites being launched into orbit.
The Decen Space solution
Decen Space is building intelligent mission control software to coordinate across a complex, decentralized network of ground stations that integrates diverse infrastructure into a unified platform. The platform provides standardized interfaces, intelligent multi-provider scheduling, and link-quality prediction to optimize communications between satellites and available ground stations across the distributed network. By providing orchestration across multiple operators and sites, the system optimizes resource utilization and reduces downlink costs by as much as 60 percent. Ground station service providers gain access to new customers through the platform, while satellite operators’ mission control teams gain unprecedented flexibility in coordinating multiple ground station resources. The network is designed to be transparent and trustworthy, using distributed ledger technology to coordinate services across independent nodes. In this way, Decen Space lays the foundation for a more accessible and resilient global communications layer that integrates with existing providers’ systems, creating a coordination layer that benefits the entire ground segment ecosystem.
A European launchpad
Although the long-term vision is global, Decen Space is initially focusing on the European market. Europe is characterized by a complex ecosystem of national space agencies, established service providers, and university-based ground stations. The startup’s strategy is to enable straightforward integration for all of these players, thereby unlocking unused capacity and reducing costs for operators. The first phase concentrates on downlink services, which face fewer regulatory challenges and allow for quick implementation. Over time, the company aims to build hybrid networks that combine downlink and uplink capabilities, ultimately providing comprehensive communication coverage for satellite operators across sectors such as Earth observation, Internet of Things, and research.
Business model and growth trajectory
At its core, Decen Space positions itself as a marketplace for satellite connectivity. The company generates revenue by charging a transaction fee on network usage, while also offering premium services such as priority scheduling, AI-based planning tools, and dedicated capacity management. The growth trajectory is ambitious. In its first year, Decen Space plans to onboard a small group of European ground stations to test and refine the system, creating initial revenues and proving the model. The second year marks the transition to a global rollout with dozens of participating stations, significantly increasing turnover. By the third year, the company projects a network of more than one hundred nodes worldwide and to achieve multi-million-euro revenues with a clear path to profitability. Within five years, Decen Space envisions generating revenues in the double-digit million range while continuing to expand its portfolio of services.
The founding team of DecenSpace ltr. Andreas Neumann, Aarsho Chatterjee, Tristan Hundley, Galiya Bektimirova © 2025
A multidisciplinary team
Tristan leads a team that combines expertise from space engineering, physics, and software development with hands-on experience from major aerospace and technology companies such as Airbus and Telespazio. The team includes specialists in backend systems, ground-to-space modeling, and business development, complemented by an external advisor from the University of Illinois who brings deep research expertise on hybrid ground station networks. This combination of technical and business expertise allows Decen Space to address both the engineering challenges of building a distributed network and the market realities of the space communications sector.
Looking ahead
Decen Space’s ambition is clear. By 2030, the company envisions operating a robust global network that has become a standard platform for space-to-ground communications. Beyond this milestone, Tristan looks toward the longer horizon of interplanetary connectivity. In the decades to come, as humanity establishes a presence on the Moon and Mars, reliable and trustworthy communication networks will become indispensable for sustaining colonies and economic activity beyond Earth.
For now, the focus is on making space communications more efficient, affordable, and accessible here on Earth. By unlocking hidden capacity and connecting satellites with ground infrastructure in new ways, Decen Space is taking a decisive step toward enabling the space economy of the future.
About ESA BIC Northern Germany
The Incubation Centre of the European Space Agency in Northern Germany (ESA BIC Northern Germany) is headquartered jointly with the Bremen aeronautics and space industries association at the Bremer Innovations- und Technologiezentrum BITZ as well as the Digihub Industry – two of the largest innovation and technology centres for high-tech companies and startups in the German federal state of Bremen. The ESA BIC Northern Germany brings new startup opportunities to the region and thus strengthens the aeronautics and space sector in the German federal state of Bremen. AVIASPACE BREMEN e.V. supports the incubatees with its network, public relations work and targeted coaching not only during the incubation period, but also afterwards as alumni. STARTHAUS Bremen & Bremerhaven is the central point of contact in the Bremen startup ecosystem and supports the startups on all issues relating to business development and financing. The ESA BIC Northern Germany is managed by Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen (AZO), an international networking and branding company for the European space programmes that also manages ESA BIC Bavaria with three locations in southern Germany.
Since 2021, ESA BIC Northern Germany has also been offering its service to space-related startups in Schleswig-Holstein. The Technikzentrum Lübeck with GATEWAY49, AviaSpace Bremen and AZO jointly operate this extension of ESA BIC Northern Germany. As of June 2024, ESA BIC Northern Germany also offers its services to space-related startups in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The Innovation Port Wismar with AviaSpace Bremen and AZO jointly operate this extension of ESA BIC Northern Germany. There are also plans to extend ESA BIC Northern Germany to the northern German federal states of Hamburg, Lower Saxony, and Berlin-Brandenburg.
Technical support of the ESA BIC Northern Germany, is offered by Fraunhofer IFAM, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence DFKI, DLR-RY Institute for Space Systems, Alfred-Wegener Institute for Polar Research AWI, Universities in the State of Bremen incl. many institutes such as IUP Institute for Environmental Physics, Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity ZARM, TH Lübeck, University Lübeck, Life Science Nord, Airbus Group, ArianeGroup, AES Aircraft Elektro/Elektronik System, Dräger, DSI Aerospace, Possehl, and OHB.
