Now in its second edition, the accelerator is delivered by Starburst, who designs and runs the programme, connecting each startup with mentors, investors and industry partners worldwide.

The programme’s goal is to strengthen the Catalan space ecosystem by helping a small group of startups grow faster, expand internationally and connect with investors, corporations and experts from across the global space sector. This year we are joined in the cohort by EarthPulse, EMC Electromagnetic BCN and OSMIUM.

What the programme involves

Over the coming months, October 2026 to April 2027, each company follows a tailored acceleration roadmap. This includes one-to-one mentoring with international experts, direct introductions to space investors and corporates, business development opportunities across Europe and beyond, and access to international space events. The programme culminates in a high-visibility Demo Day, at MWC Barcelona 2027.

The four companies met for the first time at the programme’s kick-off, held at the IEEC’s headquarters.

What we bring to the cohort

At Zenithal Blue, we combine expertise in satellite instrumentation, calibration, remote sensing and AI to extract operational insight from large volumes of Earth observation data. The solution we are taking into the programme focuses on detecting, analysing and geolocating radio-frequency (RF) emissions. It helps our customers in delivering better quality data for the monitoring of the geophysical processes of our Earth and it has potential applications in surveillance and telecommunications. 

For us, this is a sign of confidence from the Government of Catalonia and the IEEC in what we are building, and in the role that Earth observation and RF intelligence can play in Catalonia’s growing space sector. Being chosen as one of just four companies in this edition reinforces our commitment to turning advanced science and engineering into solutions that are ready for real-world use, from Barcelona to international markets.

Looking ahead

We would like to thank the Government of Catalonia, the IEEC and Starburst for this opportunity. We look forward to working alongside the rest of the cohort and to sharing updates as the programme progresses.

You can learn more about the programme at accelerator.ieec.cat, or read the IEEC’s announcement.

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The decision follows the User Consultation Meeting held in Tallinn, Estonia, where four candidate missions were presented to the scientific community. CryoRad now moves forward alongside ECO and Keystone. One of the three will be selected in ESA’s next User Consultation Meeting, expected in 2028, for construction and launch around 2036.

A satellite to better understand the poles

CryoRad proposes a satellite carrying a broadband, low-frequency microwave radiometer operating between 0.4 and 2 GHz. This frequency range can penetrate the ice and reveal what is happening inside it, something current satellites cannot do.

It would focus on three aspects of the cryosphere:

• The temperature of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, from the surface down to the base.
• The thickness of Arctic sea ice.
• Ocean salinity in cold waters.

CryoRad would significantly improve the accuracy of existing measurements and add new parameters that cannot be observed from space today.

Our contribution

CryoRad is being developed by an international scientific consortium, led by the Italian Institute of Applied Physics (CNR-IFAC).

Within this consortium, our team develops the mission’s end-to-end simulator: a digital replica that reproduces how the satellite would work, from the way it captures the signal to the data it would send back to Earth. The simulator also includes the challenges the satellite would face in real conditions, such as noise from the instrument itself or radio-frequency interference from other sources, including radars and telecommunications.

This tool allows the CryoRad team to assess the mission’s scientific feasibility and validate design choices before moving on to more advanced and costly development phases.

“CryoRad would give us measurements of the poles that we either don’t have today or can only obtain with limited precision”, says Roger Oliva, Director of Zenithal Blue. “With the ice melting faster because of climate change, monitoring the polar regions means better predicting sea-level rise.”

What comes next

Over the coming phase, the three candidate missions will be studied in greater depth before ESA makes its final decision. We look forward to continuing our work with the CryoRad team and will keep sharing updates along the way.

Read ESA’s announcement: Three Earth Explorer candidates go forward
Learn more about our work on CryoRad: CryoRad project page

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The work carried out by our newest member, Andreu Melis, whilst studying for his Master’s degree at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), in collaboration with Professor Adriano Camps, has recently been published in IEEE Access. 

The article assesses whether that subsurface moisture can be estimated from multi-frequency microwave radiometry. It combines an information-content analysis with an algorithmic feasibility study, comparing two retrieval approaches built around a five-parameter model of the soil-moisture profile, and evaluates how multi-polarized observations and multiple incidence angles improve the estimation. The results characterise the conditions under which root-zone soil moisture can be recovered radiometrically, a question with direct relevance to hydrology, agriculture and climate monitoring.

Our contribution 

This paper is the published research of Andreu Melis, now a full-time member of the Zenithal Blue team. It originated during the Introduction to Research module of the MATT Master’s programme at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), in collaboration with Professor Adriano Camps. It reflects the radiometry and remote-sensing expertise Andreu brings to our work in Earth observation.

Medium 

IEEE Access (open access) · [Published on 1st September 2026] 

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11674113/

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Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), despite being an active microwave imaging sensor, is not immune to RFI, which can significantly compromise the integrity and reliability of acquired data. At the same time, the increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters driven by climate change reinforce the need for continuous, accurate monitoring of the Earth’s dynamic environment. SAR plays a key role here thanks to its ability to operate regardless of weather or lighting conditions. 

In this context, the detection, characterisation, and mitigation of RFI have become critical to ensuring reliable SAR data for disaster prediction, monitoring, and damage assessment.

The approach: a modular RFI simulator

To address this need, we developed a modular software framework that simulates multiple types of RFI at raw data level and injects them into clean Sentinel-1 acquisitions. The simulator serves two purposes.

First, it provides a controlled environment to evaluate the performance of conventional detection and mitigation techniques, identify their limitations, and explore potential improvements.

Second, and equally important, it enables the generation of a synthetically contaminated and accurately labelled dataset, which is essential for training Deep Learning models. Reliable labels are notoriously hard to obtain when working with real-world RFI, and a high-fidelity simulator helps achieve good generalisation while reducing the risk of domain shift when these models are later applied to operational data.

What the project delivered

The thesis combines three contributions in a single framework: a modular implementation of multiple RFI types at raw processing level, a set of detection and mitigation algorithms integrated under a common evaluation framework that enables fair comparison, and a labelled dataset designed to train Deep Learning models capable of detecting RFI before SAR focusing, where mitigation is most effective.

Making it possible at Zenithal Blue

The purpose of a master’s thesis is to push into the borders of knowledge in a specific field. Thanks to Zenithal Blue, I was able to do exactly that: explore new directions for the company while laying the foundation of my own career, at least for the coming years through a PhD. The trust the company placed in me was the main reason I stayed motivated and felt capable of taking the project on.

For a master’s student taking the first steps into the space sector, collaborating with highly skilled professionals is an invaluable experience. Being part of a company involved in top-tier projects and feeling like a real contributor rather than an observer is something not every student gets to experience, and it has made all the difference.

La entrada Simulating radio frequency interference in Sentinel-1 at raw data level se publicó primero en Zenithal Blue.

Our main client to date has been the European Space Agency (ESA), an organization with a clear scientific and industrial vocation and a well-defined goal: to transfer the knowledge generated in academia and specialized industry to a broader cross-section of society. That approach has worked so well that Europe is now home to some of the organizations with the deepest expertise in aerospace technology in the world.

Working in that environment forces you to think beyond the quarter. And that fits perfectly with who we are.

Small companies have something that can sometimes get diluted in large ones

Zenithal Blue is a relatively small company. And that’s an advantage in what matters most to us: the strength of conviction about what you do. In our case, we share that conviction as a team, which is the desire to work on projects that genuinely have an impact on society.

This isn’t an empty statement of intent. The kind of projects we seek out, and the ones we decide not to take on, prove it. We work on projects that provide vital information for better understanding the global climate and the impact of climate change. We work on the design of future missions to observe the Earth and solve problems that are critical for society. And we work on developing dual-use technologies to protect European interests and values.

These are areas of work that we actively pursue because we believe in them.

Economic profit is not the enemy of purpose

It’s important to make one thing clear: the pursuit of purpose isn’t incompatible with economic viability. Publicly traded companies have shareholders who expect a return on their investment, and that’s legitimate. But that doesn’t exhaust or define the full spirit and actions of a company, nor its purpose toward society.

At Zenithal Blue, economic sustainability is a necessary condition for being able to do the work we want to do. It isn’t the end goal. The end goal is impact.

A highly qualified team in service of what we believe matters

Every member of the team holds a very high level of academic qualification: PhDs and engineers, with experience accumulated across long-term projects. We put that experience in service of what we believe we can do best for society.

And in a sector as competitive and as oriented toward technical excellence as aerospace, that’s not a luxury. It’s a decision we make every time we choose a project.

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