On Orbit

The very first On Orbit podcast episode of 2022 features a discussion about the possibilities and challenges related to our future in space with one of the most influential physicists in the world today. Dr. Michio Kaku, science correspondent for "CBS This Morning," and an international best selling author of 10 books, was recently awarded a lifetime achievement award by The Arthur C. Clarke Found...

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives are transforming the modern workplace culture to more accurately reflect the reality of its workforce. It hasn't been an easy transition for today's fast-paced, high-tech global industries, especially compacted with the impact of COVID-19 on business operations.  The increased focus on DEI is a natural result of the increasingly diverse modern wor...

On this episode of On Orbit, C5 Capital 's Rob Meyerson explains how private investors define "space infrastructure" both as physical constructs and investment opportunities. Meyerson was one of the first employees of Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin launch company, serving as its president until 2018. Since leaving the launch industry, he has built a broad space sector investment portfolio. He also serves...

On this episode of On Orbit, we are joined by the second of our two Startup Space 2021 entrepreneur pitch event winners, TMY Technologies (TMYTek) Co-Founder and Vice President Ethan Lin. TMYTek is a millimeter-wave total solution and ground systems provider based in Taiwan. Lin and his team at TMYTek are dedicated to solving millimeter-wave challenges in the 5G era. The company incorporates phase...

This past September at the SATELLITE show, leaders from the  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration  (NOAA) and the  National Weather Service  joined representatives from privately owned weather forecasting companies for a discussion titled "How State-of-the-Art Satellite Weather Forecasting Saves the World." The group outlined how advancements in satellite weather forecasting technology...

Hawkeye 360 sees itself as unique among space-based data services. Instead of collecting data through imagery, or Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), Hawkeye 360 maps Radio Frequency emissions to produce what they call space-based RF analytics. Unique solutions solve unique problems, and so, Hawkeye 360 has been able to carve out its own distinct business in a crowded field, while also partnering with...

On this episode of On Orbit, Via Satellite Managing Editor Rachel Jewett joins us to unpack what has been a whirlwind month for the space industry. Blue Origin just sent actor William Shatner, Blue Origin Vice President Audrey Powers, former NASA engineer Chris Boshuizen, and Medidata CEO Glen de Vries 347,539 feet above ground level into space and safely returned the crew to Earth. This was the J...

Adisesh Yeragudi just graduated from Rutgers University... and also became Startup Space's youngest-ever competition winner at SATELLITE 2021. His company, AV SpaceTech , is building a modular ion space propulsion engine — the Xe-1 — a disc composed of engine layers that can be added or removed to increase or decrease power. The concept image is stunning , but what's even more stunning is how and...

Computer software has been an integral part of our lives and the global economy for at least the last 35 years. Interestingly, the space environment, by comparison, has only recently become "software-defined" — with programmable satellites, robotics, AI, and machine learning becoming more commonplace in orbit. The demand for significant processing power, storage and better intelligence has simulta...

If you've purchased a new car in the last decade, you probably also own a mobile satellite antenna – albeit for satellite radio. These antennas became standard issue for new automobiles because they are small enough and cheap enough to mass produce. Delivering radio services one-way is a lot less complicated than delivering satellite internet, and yet, the goal for satellite broadband antenna deve...

With all the recent talk about space tourism and whether or not the "Overview Effect" — the personal change one experiences when seeing the Earth from space — is worth the money and risk of a ride to space, there is no better person to talk to than former NASA Astronaut and Air Force jet pilot Col. Ron Garan. He's written multiple books on the subject. For more than a quarter of a century, Garan f...

Recognizing the amount of change that the New Space movement delivered to the aerospace industry, ST Engineering iDirect wants to cultivate that same level of disruption in the complex world of ground systems. The company, which exists as the result of several merged legacy ground technology brands , is throwing its support behind a "New Ground" movement, which it hopes will catch on at the SATELL...

In this episode, On Orbit host Jeffrey Hill joins Via Satellite Editor-in-Chief Mark Holmes and Managing Editor Rachel Jewett to reveal and explain the team's picks for the magazine's ultra-popular 10 Hottest Satellite Companies for 2021. This list includes what we feel are 10 of the most buzzworthy companies with a lot to prove, and a lot riding on what happens over the next 12 months. Executives...

Very few people understand the realities of space like former NASA Astronaut Dr. Sandra Magnus. After all, she spent more than 150 days — nearly half a year of her life — living in space. Her perspective on what is and isn't possible with space and satellite technology is uniquely grounded in experience.  Dr. Magnus is optimistic about the future of human spaceflight and satellite communications,...

When it comes to science influencers, Emily Calandrelli is a household name for a new generation of space enthusiasts. If you have kids, you may know her from "Emily's Wonder Lab" on  Netflix , which brought DIY science experiments into viewers' homes during the pandemic lockdown. She's also the long-running host of "Xploration Outer Space," and a speaker and the author of the Ada Lace children's...

Before it became known as "Rocket City," Huntsville, Alabama was more of a one stop-sign town. Things changed after World War II, when the U.S. Army recruited German scientists and other leaders to move to the area and develop rocket technology. Over the next 60 years, Huntsville would grow into the state's second largest city, and home to a new generation of innovative space companies like Aevum...

By investing in cities, the commercial space industry can work wonders for local economies by creating new jobs, attracting new talent, and establishing long-term, future-facing tech hubs. That's exactly what Canadian satellite operator  Telesat  plans to do for the province of Quebec.  This past February,  the government of Québec agreed to invest 400 million Canadian dollars  ($316 million) in T...

Our latest episode of the On Orbit podcast is all about design. Not spacecraft design, or satellite engineering, but graphic design in the space industry. Visual and graphic design elements play an important, yet often overlooked role in our community's ability to communicate. For an industry that basically lives at the cutting edge, the look and feel of it can sometimes be a little stagnant — lot...

Eric Berger, a soft-spoken Ars Technica journalist, meteorologist , and lover of all things space-related, has spent a lot of time with Elon Musk during the past few years. While watching the billionaire SpaceX founder closely as he sat in on board meetings and gathering with his family on flights to Texas, Berger discovered the formula behind the company's two-decade ascension to space industry d...

Betty Bonnardel and I share a unique connection to the Alps. In 2015, I traveled to Northern Italy's Dolomites to research my family history. Before coming to the United States, my ancestors tended small apple orchards and vineyards carved into the side of steep mountains. At the same time I was conducting this research, Betty Bonnardel was visiting apple orchards on the French side of the Alps —...

Space vacations are a real thing! If you want to see the Earth from a brand new perspective, and experience weightlessness like a real astronaut, and you have a few million dollars to spare, you can sign up right now! Space Adventures will take you to Low Earth Orbit and beyond on a SpaceX Falcon 9. Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin will also start opening up space tourism lines in the near future....

Satellite builders form a unique bond with their spacecraft. In-Space CEO Doug Liddle described his start-up's first satellite, Faraday-1, as a 'precious child' that he raised for 18 months before turning it over to the launch gods. This past July, the gods proved to be especially cruel to Liddle and the In-Space team, as the satellite was lost during a failed launch on Rocket Lab 's Electron rock...

Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne spacecraft is like a Russian matryoshka doll. A plane takes off carrying a rocket, which is carrying a satellite payload. Once in air, the rocket then takes off from the plane and flies toward space. When it reaches orbit, the rocket dispenses its satellites to their intended destinations… Watching this all happen on the ground is Kendall Russell, Virgin Orbit's communic...

Khristian Jones is a senior aerospace engineering student at Wichita State University, and one of the co-founders of the Patti Grace Smith Fellowship. The Patti Grace Smith Fellowship, an official spin-off of the Brooke Owens Fellowship, provides Black undergraduate students with paid summer internships at aerospace companies and nonprofits. The fellowship was launched in 2020, and is named after...

In this episode, Maxime Puteaux, principal advisor at  Euroconsult , gives us the rundown of satellite trends in 2020, as well as what he sees happening in the decade ahead. Puteaux reviews a forecast of satellite manufacturing and launch services, pegged to a  recent Euroconsult report  on the subject. Looking back at 2020, Puteaux notes it was the first time in a single year that more than 1,000...