A business founded by two Teesside University aerospace engineering students, which plans to launch the UK’s first civilian space mission, has won a major start-up competition.
StratoBooster (
www.stratobooster.com) was named as having the ‘highest growth potential’ and being ‘one to watch’ in the 2018 If We Can You Can (IWCYC) challenge.
The company, based at Teesside University’s start-up incubator Launchpad, was started by Andrew Dunn and Ben Massey, who are both in their final year.
It was originally spun out of a student-led space exploration project — TU2Space — and is working on designing and building a small satellite launch platform.
Its StratoBooster system will be lifted to 30km by a meteorological balloon before detaching and using a rocket booster to put its payload into orbit.
Its payload will include tiny satellites (known as femto-satellites) that can be used by researchers in businesses, schools and universities.
Now in its 10th year, the IWCYC Challenge aims to publicise start-up businesses and connect them with the wider North East business community.
As a result of winning the competition, the pair will be given support to grow their business, including mentoring and a trip to a European conference or expo.
Mr Dunn said: “It was fantastic to win this competition, and it’s a real vote of confidence to know that people are interested in what you are doing.”