A German startup developing advanced pieces of space hardware has picked Albuquerque as the headquarters of its wholly owned U.S. subsidiary, with customer and employee growth expected in the Duke City after rolling out a new product offering.
iBOSS GmbH, founded in 2017 in Aachen, Germany, has spent the past half-decade developing a space technology called ISSI, or Intelligent Space System Interface. Thomas Schervan, the startup's co-founder and CEO, described the technology as a sort of "USB for space."
Schervan explained it allows pairs of space systems — such as configuration, coupling or robotics technologies — to connect and share power and data. The goal of the connector, he said, is to add more flexibility to companies or agencies' operations in space, particularly in the area of in-space servicing, assembly and manufacturing, known as ISAM.
The German company tested that technology in space on an experimental mission run by Santa Clara, California-based Skycorp Inc., an orbital logistics company, throughout 2022. The months-long Intelligent Space Systems Interface Flight Qualification Experiment tested ISSI alongside a Skycorp computer and a radiation sensor, Space News reported in March 2022.
During the State of the Space Industrial Base Conference, hosted by Albuquerque nonprofit NewSpace Nexus last week, iBOSS unveiled the company's second product, called the Intelligent Fuel Exchanger, or IFEX. Similar to its ISSI connector product, the IFEX product is designed as a universal "refueling interface," Schervan said, for various types of space propellants.
Around the same time iBOSS announced its follow-on space servicing product, the German company established a wholly owned U.S. subsidiary.
The startup's U.S. subsidiary, iBOSS.space US LLC, operates out of Q Station, an aerospace-focused collaborative workspace at 3225 Central Ave. NE supported by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and the New Mexico International Trade Alliance.
It was named to Q Station's 2024 Space Tech Cohort accelerator program, aimed at helping early stage aerospace startups scale, in December. Four other companies are part of the 2024 cohort.
Selection into the Q Station cohort is one factor that made Schervan and Joerg Kreisel, iBOSS' co-founder and chairman, pick Albuquerque for iBOSS' U.S. base.
Kreisel called it a "soft landing" — with the cohort helping the startup connect with more stakeholders throughout Albuquerque's aerospace ecosystem, including government players like AFRL and private industry partners.
"There are other areas of space, and depending on what you do maybe Albuquerque's not the best," Kreisel said. "But having AFRL and the Space Force, the responsibility for the tech for space logistics, under which falls ISAM, is here.
"There are many companies going in and out of Albuquerque for that," he added. "That is nice."
The "density" of research centers around Albuquerque, including AFRL, is another boon, Schervan said. And Albuquerque's central location in the "space valley," which stretches from Texas up through New Mexico and into Colorado, is another reason iBOSS settled in the Duke City.
iBOSS has 15 customers for its ISSI product currently, Kreisel said, and it started generating revenue in 2018. Currently, he said the company is eyeing various "co-development and collaboration" partners, including academic institutions, private companies or government customers that would test its products in laboratory environments or via missions in space, eventually developing what it calls "modular architectures" for future space infrastructure and logistics.
That's the first stage of iBOSS's business model, Kreisel said — getting its technology "out to as many players as there are." More formal testing will allow the company to develop its final commercial products and associated services; it could then sell the connector products as single units and services as recurring fees.
Eventually, Schervan said he wants iBOSS' ISSI and IFEX products, for in-space systems and propellant connections, to become a "standard" in the global space community.
iBOSS currently has eight employees, all based in Germany. Schervan and Kreisel travel back and forth between the company's German headquarters and the U.S. subsidiary office.
And while iBOSS doesn't employ anyone in the U.S. at the moment, Kreisel said the startup plans to hire several people in Albuquerque as it brings on more customers and finds more partnerships.
