Two years ago, I received an email from European Space Agency - ESA saying that I was a finalist in the astronaut selection process 👨🚀. At that moment 🕑, I had no idea how the coming months of my life would unfold.
🌔 Held every 15 years, this selection process chose 5 astronauts from 23,000 applicants. I had a 1 in 8 chance of being the one who would go. Maybe go to the moon, actually. 1 in 8.
After almost two years of psychotechnical 🧠, psychological, medical tests, and incredible encounters (Arnaud, Raphaël, Katherine, Slawosz, Sara), it was the final sprint. The suspense lasted until November 2022.
Spoiler Alert 🚨: I wasn’t selected.
📖 Reflecting on the experience and moving on
Barely consoled by the touching messages from Thomas Pesquet or Jean-François Clervoy (Officiel) and others, I went walking in Italy for a week to reflect on this experience and to grieve this dream. “If you can’t think, walk; if you think too much, walk; if you think badly, walk again,” said Jean Giono.
🥾 “What to do now?”
This was the question that kept coming up on the Tuscan trails. Where could I turn my energy to? I reached Firenze, then returned to France without having completely answered this question. But knowing I was entering a new phase of my life.
👉 Getting back on track and moving forward
I returned to my position at Loft Orbital 🛰️, a provider of shared satellites, currently changing the market. Deep down, my true desire has always been to make space simple and accessible to everyone. European space remained behind in this new race, despite the amazing talents that we had.
💡 And one day, during a discussion of my trusted colleague Antonin Hirsch, we asked ourselves: “Why not change painful processes? Why not start something new?”
📡 On August 31, 2023, we had a final call together and decided to team up to launch Skynopy, to offer a shared ground antennas service to satellite operators.
✨ Less than 10 months later, we are happy to announce:
🚀 The formation of an incredible, ambitious, curious, and excellent team: Paul Victor, Stefano, Sree, ...
🚀 Our first contracts: HEMERIA Centre National d'Études Spatiales LEOBLUE ...
🚀 Our record-breaking fundraising of 3.1M€ euros in less than three weeks: a huge thank you for your trust to Yohan & Jimmy from , Jeanne and the entire team at Kima Ventures, Baptiste @ Nicolas at Better Angle, Thibaud Elziere and all of our other investors (Yohann, Benoit, Paul, Pauline, Maxime, Nicolas, Julien, Matthieu, Nicolas, Fabrice,...)
🚀 Promising partnerships to be soon announced ...
🚀 And a SpaceNews article covering that news, thanks Jason Rainbow for this highlight (link in comments below 👇)
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🙏 And a huge thank to Adrien Lelièvre for this spotlight in Les Echos (link in the comments 👇)
