A space electronics company based in Harpenden has won two prestigious awards, one for the second year running.
Spacechips makes on-board processors for small satellites, Earth-observation payloads, a lunar rover, a sub-orbital, tourist space plane, electric propulsion avionics and launcher electronics.
It took home the new company of the year and high reliability product of 2017 accolades at the Elektra Awards in London.
Company founder and CEO - and real-life rocket scientist - Dr Rajan Bedi said: “We are over the moon!
“We are a small three-year-old company so we are very, very pleased and to have won new company of the year and have won high reliability product of the year for two years in a row, the first company ever to do so.”
The Northern Irish-born 49-year-old started Spacechips in 2014, and it now exports to 20 countries around the world.
“We are very innovative. We invented a number of products and services which the market really likes and people in this industry really like,” Dr Bedi said.
He explained how he came to set up the company: “I had a number of ideas I wanted to innovate. It was a risky thing to do, but so far, so good.
“We think 2018 is going to be an extremely busy year.”
Spacechips has also been shortlisted for an international company of the year award by Biz 4 Biz, a Hertfordshire-based business network.
They will find out in March if they have been successful, but Dr Bedi said: “We are a very young company and to be shortlisted is a great honour and achievement.”
He has worked in the space industry for 20 years, and started his own blog on space electronics, called Out of This World Design, in 2013. The blog attracts 12,000 views each month, which Dr Bedi puts down to its uniqueness.
“It was something I wanted to do as I am passionate about electronics and I realised the industry wanted something like it but no-one was offering it.”
Spacechips, in addition to producing technology, also offers business intelligence, consultancy, and training services.
In 2018, they will help train NASA, and the Japanese and Indian space agencies.
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