Craft Prospect

Craft Prospect is a Glasgow, Scotland-based satellite operations software company founded in 2018, developing AI-powered autonomous mission management systems that enable satellites to operate with greater autonomy — making real-time onboard decisions about observation tasking, anomaly response, and data downlink prioritization without requiring constant ground controller intervention. The company emerges from Glasgow's thriving NewSpace cluster anchored by Spire Global's Glasgow factory (one of the world's highest-volume satellite manufacturing facilities), Clyde Space (AAC Clyde Space), and the University of Strathclyde's space engineering research group.

Craft Prospect's core technology is autonomous satellite operations software that reduces the ground operator burden — currently, each satellite typically requires dedicated mission control time for tasking, health monitoring, anomaly response, and download scheduling. As constellation sizes grow from dozens to hundreds to thousands of satellites, the traditional one-operator-per-satellite or even per-few-satellites model becomes economically untenable.

Craft Prospect's system uses machine learning models to automate routine health monitoring (flagging anomalies only when action is needed), optimize observation scheduling against competing priorities automatically, and enable satellites to respond to onboard-detected events (e.g., detecting a storm system from onboard image analysis and immediately scheduling a targeted re-observation) without ground-in-the-loop latency.

The autonomous decision-making capability is particularly valuable for constellation operators with many satellites crossing the coverage horizon of any given ground station for only minutes per orbit — windows too short for manual intervention on every contact. Craft Prospect's system manages the scheduling and decision pipeline during these brief contacts, enabling small operations teams to oversee large satellite fleets.

Craft Prospect has participated in UKSA programs and ESA's BASS (Business Applications and Space Solutions) program funding autonomous space operations R&D. The company competes with D-Orbit (ION satellite carrier with onboard AI), Cognitive Space (AI tasking), Kayhan Space (autonomous conjunction), and Slingshot Aerospace for the autonomous satellite operations software market.