The Orsen sports marketing agency has secured the contract to identify sports and entertainment sponsorship opportunities for Metavisionaries, the space research organisation staffed by former Nasa scientists, SportBusiness has learned.

Under the deal, the Swiss-based agency will seek to leverage the reach and influence of sports and entertainment industries to promote Metavisionaries’ mission to ‘democratise space’ and drive education and knowledge of space science and space technology as well as apply it to real-world applications.

The Oxford-based organisation is understood to be eager to examine sponsorship opportunities with sports right-holders and athletes to demonstrate how space research can act as a catalyst for medical breakthroughs and environmental conservation, as well as address humanitarian concerns, potentially paving the way for a new sponsorship segment in sport.

Metvisionaries’ chairman is American physicist and former Nasa chief scientist Jim Green, while the firm’s director of sciences, Dr Tara Ruttley held a similar role at Nasa, and also currently serves as the chief scientist for Orbital Reef, the low-orbit space station being built by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin organisation and other companies.

Ruttley said in statement: “This partnership will enable the creation of so many new types of problem solvers. The unique space environment is essentially a laboratory that enables discoveries in ways that can’t be done on Earth, resulting in new types of thinkers who can create new applications for humanity.”

Orsen chief executive, Sean O’Reilly, told SportBusiness: “Metavisionaries’ mission is to democratise education of space science and the positive role that space science will play in real world humanitarian and environmental issues.

“It has been fascinating working with the Metavisionaries team to develop a sports marketing strategy focused on utilising the power and reach of sports rights holders as agents of positive change.”

Orsen’s other clients include Swiss-based international freight forwarder the Fracht Group, which was announced as the new sleeve sponsor of Major League Soccer side Inter Miami this July, shortly before the team signed Argentine superstar Lionel Messi.