Alba Orbital

Alba Orbital is a Scottish company that specializes in building PocketQube satellites and Albapod satellite deployment systems. Alba Orbital is the developer and manufacturer of the Unicorn-1 and Unicorn-2 satellite platforms.

Overview
Alba Orbital specializes in designing and building PocketQube satellites. The company has developed two satellite platforms. The Unicorn-1 platform is a 1P (5cm x 5cm x 5cm) PocketQube satellite, while its larger counterpart, Unicorn-2, is a 2P satellite (5cm x 5cm x 10cm).

Launches
Alba Orbital is a launch broker and has purchased capacity with several space companies, including SpaceX and Rocket Lab, to launch PocketQube satellites into orbit. The company also hold contracts with the European Space Agency for ARTES. These launches harbor clusters containing space for PocketQubes that are sold to teams wanting to launch pods. Every Alba Orbital flight uses Albapod deployers to release the clusters. These deployers come in two sizes: 6P and 96P. As of December 2023, Alba Orbital has successfully launched seven missions into low Earth orbit, while one mission failed before deployment on the first flight of Orbiter SN1.

Funding
In 2021, Alba Orbital participated in the startup accelerator program Y Combinator, located in Silicon Valley, United States. They raised US$3.4 million after completing the program.