About Us

Small satellite company with big ambitions

A little background...

Founded in 2017

The SME S4 - Smart Small Satellite Systems GmbH (founded 2017) has focus on providing commercial, advanced pico- and nano-satellite products to the “New Space” market. Members of our team have extensive experience in the small satellite area: they designed, built and operated already 2005 the first German pico-satellite in orbit. Subsequently all crucial satellite functionalities were implemented and tested in orbit to realize leading edge advanced satellite systems.

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A marriage of hardware and software

In particular, the S4 combined hard-/software solutions address high-end performance at minimum mass and power needs. The offered spectrum of products ranges from high-end subsystems like the UNISEC standard baseplate or reliable miniature on-board data handling systems (including in one board full redundancy as well as innovative FDIR algorithms), to complete satellite systems.

Emphasis is on technologies for small satellite formations. Contributions to reference missions include NetSat (4 satellites demonstrating formation flight, to be launched August 2020), QUBE (a technology demonstration of key quantum key distribution techniques), CloudCT (a formation of 10 satellites using computed tomography to characterize the interior of clouds). S4 owns and operates advanced test equipment, in particular two high precision / high dynamics turntables with best performance properties in Europe.