D-day for the launch of the French Kineis nanosatellite constellation

The Toulouse company Kinéis is a new space player which ultimately promises to deploy 25 machines in this surveillance network which takes over from the Argos system. The firm’s ambition is to be able to follow freight wagons live, or even the movement of a train, a boat or a herd from space. Born at the very end of the 1970s, the Argos location system was mainly used for monitoring animal populations such as bird migration.

A system that has become too heavy, too expensive and above all which is no longer adapted to new uses, according to the general director of Kineis, Alexandre Tisseran. “Argos allowed us to have data every 2 or 3 hours. There, we really spend less than 10 minutes and with a system that works in both directions, that is to say that you can both recover the data from the sensor and send the information to it.”

“And beyond that, since we have better technology, the capacity is greater and therefore the prices are lower. All of this allows us to have access to markets and services that were not previously available. accessible so far“, declares Alexandre Tisseran, general director of Kineis.

The new constellation made up of 25 small satellites weighing 30 kilos and a few tens of centimeters on each side will make it possible to track both animals and freight wagons. But it will also be able to track containers on board a cargo ship and even anticipate fire outbreaks thanks to sensors which can be placed in sensitive areas and capable of measuring the rise in CO levels.₂. The constellation must be fully operational in 2025.