The Evolution of the Satellite Economy

The a16z Show

a16z

Software Eating The World, Science, Technology, Innovation, Culture, Disruption, Business, Entrepreneurship

4.2 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 19 September 2023

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The cost of launching payloads to orbit has dramatically dropped, igniting a space renaissance. In 2022, a record 186 rocket launches (41 more than the previous year!) underscores this shift. In Part 1 of our satellite economy mini-series, we sit down with John Gedmark, co-founder of Astranis, to reflect on today's innovations, who’s on the other side of the satellite market, the capabilities they’re looking for, competition, and their mission to provide internet access to 4 billion underserved people. Look out for Part 2, where we tackle the challenges of rapidly reusable rockets with Andy Lapsa from Stoke Space.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Space is really not for the thing of heart, but this is sort of hard squared.
0:06.0	The Moon will need its own GPS system.
0:08.0	You're on the lunar servers, you want to know where you are, same thing as on the Earth,
0:11.0	you want to be able to just pull up, you know, Google Maps,
0:15.3	now we get back to your lunar base. So people used to talk about the other three
0:20.2	billing that don't have access to the internet when you know the internet was
0:24.0	first really taking off now is the other 4 billion the problem actually got
0:28.6	worse you know we just figured okay there's got to be a win to do this better. It's like when you see that magnitude of opportunity and no one is doing it, you know, you just got to go and figure out why no one else is doing it.
0:44.8	One thing we love to talk about here on the A16C podcast is exponential trends and one such trend that is approaching
0:49.5	exponential is the price of shipping a kilogram to orbit.
0:54.0	Significant declines and cost have resulted in an absolute renaissance of activity.
0:59.0	In fact, 2022 was a record year for the space sector with 186 successful rocket
1:06.8	launches that was 41 more than 2021. So what are all these rockets bringing to orbit and who is on the other side of that market?
1:17.0	What entities public or private are buying the capabilities up there?
1:21.3	And how might this increasingly diverse computing shell around the Earth evolve?
1:26.1	If you know anything about exponential trends, then the idea of mining asteroids or
1:30.8	manufacturing drugs in space
1:33.0	actually no longer sounds crazy.
1:35.4	And that is why we bring you this mini series
1:38.1	on the satellite economy, together
1:40.5	with the founders of two companies trying to participate,
1:43.2	Astronus and Stoke Space.
	...

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