Author: Tom Wilding

Harnessing Satellite Intelligence

Posted on by Tom Wilding

As satellite technology develops, we are seeing a huge change in the way that we use the data and intelligence it provides. On Episode 26 of The Satellite & NewSpace Matters Podcast we spoke to Kateryna Aheieva, the Head of Business Development at LuxSpace, about how these applications are being developed and the impact they could have on the wider world. Here are her insights: 

Satellite intelligence is becoming a hot topic. Every single day I see more and more companies discussing it. In my previous jobs, the main business was taking pictures from space and selling that data and value-added information to customers from that. Talking to clients and partners, we realised that the requirements on data are actually quite high. It’s not only about the resolution or the quality, but also about the amount of data that can be provided from the space system to the end user that is important. If you want to create a value added service, you have to utilise a lot of data points and have a powerful source of information. So the satellite or the space system itself should be very powerful. 

Constellations were having to get much bigger in order to perform. At LuxSpace, we’re building satellite platforms in the 50-250 kilogramme class, which is a completely different system. It’s a very capable platform for certain applications with very high resolution imagery for agriculture, thermal imagery, etc, which results in high density and very good quality data. Because the space world is occupied by engineers, we are often building systems that there isn’t currently demand for, just because we can push that boundary. So we have a lot of systems built, but not all of them are utilised in the proper way or maybe at the maximum capacity. So I truly believe that space systems could have a better use when they get more intelligent. 

There is a huge opportunity to utilise this intelligence from satellites. When multiple systems or subsystems are taking pictures and sending them to the ground station, when the space system has a diverse list of tasks, when you need less operational capability on the ground to perform that task, and when the space system itself is capable of making some decisions, and analysis to decrease the amount of work that needs to be done on the ground, it will be huge. The system itself is becoming more capable too. Intelligence is coming. 

And a couple of companies around the world are working in that direction. They have onboard computing capabilities, not only for close Earth spaces like low earth orbit, but even higher orbit and also interplanetary missions which could satisfy the needs of the system that is flying far away from Earth and has to be independent and tasking itself. We also see the potential in this market, and the contributions we can make to society by moving the direction of space intelligence instead of bringing the capacity of objects up to a certain level, because applications like communication from space or the internet from space still require certain coverage, but some applications, especially institutional technology demonstration, can be made more smart. 

To hear more from Kateryna, tune into Episode 26 of The Satellite & NewSpace Matters Podcast here. 

We sit down regularly with some of the biggest names in our industry, we dedicate our podcast to the stories of leaders in the technologies industries that bring us closer together. Follow the link here to see some of our latest episodes and don’t forget to subscribe.     

Speaking Up About Impostor Syndrome

Posted on by Tom Wilding

During the Women In Telco miniseries on The Connectivity Matters Podcast we’ve been putting a spotlight on diversity in the industry. That includes covering topics such as impostor syndrome, which we discussed with Richa Daga in the miniseries’ fourth episode. Richa is an Embedded Software Engineer at Cisco, and she is the winner of the 2022 WomenTech Global Conference Speaker of the Year Award. Here are her insights on the impostor syndrome and how to tackle it: 

“Impostor syndrome is a topic that is being talked about because people do feel it. That is a reality that occurs. A programme that I took part in at Cisco had a cohort of female leaders from different teams. As we talked about it, we all realised that most of the time it’s only in our head. Imposter syndrome is like wondering “Do we really belong here?” Once you start speaking up and sharing what is going on in your mind, you’ll discover that several other people in the room might also be feeling the same way. We all question “Should I say that thing or not? Is it right or not?”, but we don’t realise that other people wonder the same thing. 

If you waste time contemplating whether or not something is the right thing to say, someone else will say it and be recognised for their idea. These things keep happening. You have to have the courage to say what’s in your mind. That can be a difficult process, and it’s hard to get out of that thought process because we fear disagreements and rejection. We don’t want to disagree with what is happening in the room. That is why we don’t want to be our natural selves, because we want to feel accepted. 

When we build inclusive and equitable environments, people can share their perspectives at all levels of the business. We need to stop comparing ourselves to people who have 5 times more experience than us and take the opportunities we have in front of us. We also need to focus less on output and more on input, and value what people are contributing. We should be empowering, motivating and encouraging people to speak up, shed their inhibitions and come out of their shells. Courage is what helps us get rid of impostor syndrome. They’re all small changes, but we should try to do our bit to get rid of impostor syndrome.” 

To hear more from Richa, tune into Episode 16 of The Connectivity Matters Podcast here. 

We sit down regularly with some of the biggest names in our industry, we dedicate our podcast to the stories of leaders in the technologies industries that bring us closer together. Follow the link here to see some of our latest episodes and don’t forget to subscribe.     

The Future of Aerospacelab

Posted on by Tom Wilding

The satellite industry is a rapidly developing space, with new technology and applications emerging at a steady pace. On Episode 25 of The Satellite & NewSpace Matters Podcast we spoke to Benoît Deper, the CEO and founder of Aerospacelab, about how he sees the future of the industry unfolding. Aerospacelab was founded in 2018, with the aim of making geospatial intelligence both actionable and affordable, with its fully vertically integrated approach. Just last month, they launched their second satellite on a falcon nine rocket. Following these advancements, we asked Benoît about what we can expect to see from the company next. 

What’s the most exciting recent development that you’re working on now?

What we’re building is quite interesting. We are trying to find the right balance between custom and standardised satellite buses, and we are iterating on that. What we discovered so far is that fully standardised buses are not what the customer wants, because they want to feel special and have their particular needs and requirements met. But, at the same time, they like the standard price. The real challenge is to find something that looks like a customised product, but has a price tag that is more in line with the standardised product. It is quite exciting to oscillate between the two sides and find a path where we believe we can converge to create something that is exciting for our customers. 

What are you most excited to see Aerospacelab achieve in the next 3-5 years? 

Now it’s a matter of scaling and being profitable. So again, it’s quite interesting to see what our technology will look like after the first couple of years. We have started to see some territory that would allow us to do that. Not everything is going according to plan, because as Napoleon said, ‘the plan is only valid until the first shot is fired’. However, we’re on track to meet our KPIs. Not that far in the future we hope to be profitable. For a NewSpace company that is huge, because it’s a small world where we have many brands, and we talk to each other quite often. Not that many NewSpace companies are actually profitable out there, so we’re excited to reach that goal. 

To hear more from Benoît about the future of the industry, tune into The Satellite & NewSpace Matters Podcast here. 

We sit down regularly with some of the biggest names in our industry, we dedicate our podcast to the stories of leaders in the technologies industries that bring us closer together. Follow the link here to see some of our latest episodes and don’t forget to subscribe.     

How Can the Satellite and NewSpace Industry Engaged With External Talent?

Posted on by Tom Wilding

At neuco, we’re experts at sourcing talent for the Satellite & NewSpace industry. We recently spoke to Tamara Bond Williams, the Director of Engagement at Space and Satellite Professionals International, on Episode 24 of The Satellite & NewSpace Matters Podcast about how the industry can attract talent from other sectors to improve the diversity of skills within it. Tamara works to expand and enhance the professional lives of SSPI members, giving her valuable insights into the working lives of those within the Satellite & NewSpace industry. Read on for her insights on the topic. 

How have things changed around attracting people from outside STEM into the Satellite industry?

I think the only big change that I can really speak to is the awareness. There have always been people in the industry who came from outside of STEM. That has been true the entire time, but we are becoming increasingly aware of that fact. This is largely because of the rate of expansion in our industry, the number of startup companies and the way that legacy companies are diversifying how they engage. There’s just so much happening, and it puts pressure on the industry to think about ‘Where’s all this talent coming from to manage all this expansion?’ We’re now looking at it, not because it’s new, but because we now have competitive pressure to meet a need.

What other industries could people enter the satellite industry from?

There are several. For example, there is a specific investment community that has specialised in investing in space and satellite. We have insurance companies that are specialised in the same way. We have legal companies that do space law. There are so many companies that already exist whose niches fit our industry. The question is not ‘Are they out there?’ The question is, ‘Have we done enough to promote participation in the space industry itself?’ 

We should be saying ‘Hey, we’re going to the moon again. Where can you fit in?’. We need to advertise the career paths around lunar exploration. Our conversations should be around ‘We need more colloquiums around the legal ramifications of going to space. What are the international ramifications? What is the investment opportunity?’ We haven’t explored the opportunities enough, and we haven’t yet communicated outside of our bubble that there are plenty of opportunities here and that we want people to be a part of them.

What can companies do to proactively find talent outside the industry?

I think that companies need to be having the conversation themselves. SSPI is working to expand that conversation through our various webinars and roundtables. We had this conversation recently to talk about the idea of what I called ‘outside in’. That means people who are outside companies themselves need to be proactive to have the conversation. 

One of the things that would be super beneficial is for them to create a path. Let’s say ‘If you have these skills, here’s how it maps to what we need in our company, this is how you get in and this would be your growth opportunity’. It’s all about giving people who are outside the industry a clear view of how they can get into it. If companies don’t know where those paths are, they can work with a recruitment company to articulate those pathways. You’ve got to do the groundwork of figuring out where people with these skills fit in, and then find ways to keep that talent once you’ve attracted it. 

To hear more from Tamara, tune into Episode 24 of The Satellite & NewSpace Matters Podcast here. 

We sit down regularly with some of the biggest names in our industry, we dedicate our podcast to the stories of leaders in the technologies industries that bring us closer together. Follow the link here to see some of our latest episodes and don’t forget to subscribe.     

Addressing Human Behaviour in Cyber Security

Posted on by Tom Wilding

In the Cyber Security industry, one of the biggest risk factors is human behaviour. On Episode 23 of The Cyber Security Matters Podcast we were joined by Ira Winkler, the Field CISO and VP at CYE. He shared his insights on the risks of human behaviour, as well as some great anecdotes from writing multiple books on cyber security. Read on to learn from his experience. 

How have you seen cyber risk progress over your career?

When I do speaking events, I always ask people ‘how many of you are security professionals?’ Most of the audience raises their hands and I go, ‘Okay, you’re all failures, because there is no such thing as security. The definition of security is being free from risk, and you’re never going to be free from risk. So technically, we’re all cyber risk managers.’ If we’re all risk managers, how are we mitigating those risks? I do what I call cyber risk optimization, where we’re quantifying and mapping out the risks according to actual attack paths and vulnerabilities. That allows us to determine how we optimise risk by taking your potential assets, mapping them to vulnerabilities to get an actual cost, and then figuring out which are the best vulnerabilities to theoretically mitigate. 

Now, we’re at a point where machine learning is actually able to start doing things we were not able to do before. Everybody thinks machine learning is this really fancy thing, but it’s taking big data and putting it through mathematical calculations that were not available to us 10 years ago. Now we’re actually able to crunch data, look at trends, and come up with actual calculations of how to optimise risk. I’m finally able to take the concepts I wrote about in 1996-97 and implement them today. 

How do you balance user responsibility and the responsibility of the operating system? 

The solution I’m putting together is human security engineering consortia, because here’s the problem: awareness is important. I wrote ‘Security Awareness for Dummies’ because awareness is a tactic. Data leak prevention can be important to stop major attacks, and anti malware can be important to stop major attacks, so those are tactics too. The problem is that currently, when we look at the user problem, it’s being solved with individual tactics that are not coordinated through a strategy. We need a strategy to look at it from start to finish that includes both the operating system and the user responsibilities. 

You’ve got to stop and think, ‘what are my potential attack vectors? What capabilities does a user have?’ A user can only do things that you enable them to do, they only have access to data you allow them to have, they only have a computer that has the capabilities you provide them. You need to stop and think, ‘given that finite set of capabilities and data provided to a user, what is the strategy that looks at it from start to finish and best mitigates the overall risk?’ I’m not saying you can get rid of risk completely, but you need to create a strategy to mitigate as much risk as possible from start to finish, knowing the capabilities you provide to the user. 

One of my books is ‘Zen and the Art of Information Security’, which includes a concept of what makes an artist, and it’s the person’s ability to look at a block of marble and see a figure in it. They can produce different pieces of art, but they’re all made the same way. There’s a repeatable process and what they use to get what they got. Now in the same way, there’s a repeatable process for looking at human-related errors. You look at the potential attacks against users and ask ‘What mighty users do, using good will, thinking they’re doing the right thing but accidentally causing harm?’ Most damage to computer systems is done by well-meaning users who inevitably create harm. 

You don’t go around and see people saying, ‘I’m getting in my car and crashing into another car’ – that’s why they’re called accidents. We have a science in how we design roads, literally the curvature of roads is a science and when they assign speed limits to it there is a science to understanding what a user does, what their capabilities are, and how you can mitigate that to reduce the risks. In cyber risk, you should be asking similar questions, like ‘How can I proactively analyse how the user gets in the position to potentially initiate a loss and mitigate that proactively?’ Then you design the operating system to reduce the user’s inadvertent risks. 

To learn more about human behaviour and risk in Cyber Security, tune into Episode 23 of The Cyber Security Podcast here. 

We sit down regularly with some of the biggest names in our industry, we dedicate our podcast to the stories of leaders in the technologies industries that bring us closer together. Follow the link here to see some of our latest episodes and don’t forget to subscribe.     

Inside Earth Observation & Data Analysis 

Posted on by Tom Wilding

Earth Observation has been a hot topic in the NewSpace industry for several months now. On Episode 23 of The Satellite & NewSpace Matters Podcast we were joined by Kammy Brun, an expert in strategy and business development in aerospace and AI based analytics applications, to discuss the forces driving the growth of Earth Observation. Kammy has held several roles in the space industry, including Airbus and SkyFi. She has also completed multiple degrees, and is currently finalising her MBA. Read on for her insights. 

What are the main applications of the NewSpace industry, and what’s really driving demand for them? 

Defence security has always been the first market for geospatial solutions. Today, we can work together with remote sensing geospatial with the IoT and AIS. That is definitely one of the markets where I can see lots of synergy between different technologies. I believe that we should have some applications which merge geospatial and navigational capabilities and make them more integrated, because the end users don’t really care which technology it is. 

Maritime is another one of the markets that is going quite well. There’s a future there. I’m pretty sure that with the growing numbers of AI-based analytics companies globally, we will be able to offer some solutions which are more tailor made for the end user. We’ll be able to  give end users a solution, but we currently can’t, because they did not know what geospatial was. We can have a bigger market, the reason we don’t is because we do not yet have a perfect solution for the end user. 

For our users, it’s relative. They want to have something easy to use – they don’t care about what it does or image resolution or the AI behind it. It’s very difficult to offer a service that is simple and easy to use and gives you the answer that you need, but those private markets will be able to grow in the next few years as the technology develops. For today, those geospatial companies are offering better and better solutions that will draw people into the industry. 

How is the industry currently leveraging these technologies to enhance data analysis and decision making processes?

AI and machine learning has always been used in geospatial markets. We use it for object or change detection. It’s also been used to classify different objects in a set of images. Today we are using it even more than we did five years ago. It is a good market driver for companies who manage more data, because today’s AI and machine learning will be able to help them manipulate or ingest more data. 

In the remote sensing markets, we’re expecting a baby boom of hyperspectral constellations. Hyperspectral is not new, but we have not always used it from space – it was originally used from planes or drones. With NewSpace hyperspectral images and geospatial expertise, I’m pretty sure that a lot of applications will open up as we increase the data supply. We will have a better usage of AI and new applications. Currently we know some of the use cases with hyperspectral, but we are not yet fully exploiting the potential. I expect significant growth in the next few years.

To learn more about Kammy’s work and experiences in the NewSpace industry, tune into The Satellite & NewSpace Matters Podcast here. 

We sit down regularly with some of the biggest names in our industry, we dedicate our podcast to the stories of leaders in the technologies industries that bring us closer together. Follow the link here to see some of our latest episodes and don’t forget to subscribe.     

How to Ensure Humanity Survives the Existential Challenges of this Generation and Thrives to the New Century

Posted on by Tom Wilding

The younger generations are facing a range of challenges on a global scale. On Episode 22 of The Satellite & NewSpace Matters Podcast we were joined by Jim Keravala, the Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer & Chief Architect at OffWorld, to talk about the innovative solutions that the space industry is creating to tackle these issues. Jim has extensive experience in a range of space sectors, and currently sits on several advisory boards such as the National Space Society, International Moonbased Alliance and the Moon Village Association. He co-founded OffWorld to extract critical minerals, minerals and materials on Earth and in space using swarms of smart industrial robots. Read on to how space is set to save the world.

“The challenges that we’re facing today are, in part, born out of our own successes as a species. The other part is our systemic, steady state of ongoing risks that are always in the background – and to some extent, the intersection of the two is another challenge in itself. I think the manifestation of all of these challenges is not the uncertainties of big environmental cataclysms or other single impact changes. The more concerning risks are those that are subject to cascading sequencing. 

There’s always the asteroid impact issue. Stars could go supernova and create an untenable environment for life on this planet. There’s always the big issues like that, and those issues are real, but the probability of those occurring in the next 100s or 1000s of years are very, very small. The things that seem small and innocuous, such as the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, are cascading triggers. Greenhouse gases lead to atmospheric temperature rises, leading to loss of biodiversity, leading to changes in weather patterns, climate, ocean current path patterns, which can then lead to reduction of polar ice caps, which can add to the lack of reflectance of Sun’s energy, which can then start increasing those cycles. I’m more concerned by these dynamic instabilities which start running towards catastrophe. 

It’s my personal opinion that it’s a combination of natural cycles and small catalytic inputs into that environmental system that is the biggest threat. There’s a lot of debate around climate change and the origin of it; ‘Is it human generated or is it natural?’ That’s a less important question than ‘What are we going to do about it?’ For everything else we do we tend to take out insurance, whether it’s our car, our home, our pets – whatever is important to us, we insure it. We should take out some form of insurance for our planet as well. That form of insurance is not about creating an escape valve, it’s about opening up a closed system. 

If we can open up the system and use the resources of space, we can genuinely help solve some of these challenges. I believe we are in the midst of these changes already. I personally don’t believe that as a species we’re really that well equipped to deal collectively and sensibly and proactively with challenges that we rationally are aware of. As a species, we tend to wait for things to happen and then deal with the consequences afterwards, despite being able to afford what’s needed to address it now. We just don’t act proactively. To some extent, that’s the nature of our global economic structures as well. The economic structures respond to value in real time, and those same rules for creating long term visions of entrepreneurial change are unfortunately the same rules that applied to long term visions of environmental mitigation. So understanding that, what can we do to break down the problem and solve it once and for all?

I personally believe there are several different classes of mitigation work that can be done. The first is assuming that the consequences of the changes we’re undergoing now are going to happen. If we were going to address climate change, we should have started acting 50 years ago when it became obvious, because it’s too big of a needle to move now. The question that needs more urgent attention is what happens to coastal regions in deprived areas? What do we do for those communities? What are the risks of micro weather pattern changes that are emerging? Whether it’s more hurricanes, greater heat domes, etc, what does that do for agriculture? What does that do for the availability of fresh water? 

The most vulnerable will be the most affected, so coastal regions in emerging nations whose economies and infrastructure are less organised will suffer the most. So what can we do to get ahead of solving that problem? With a focussed enough set of challenges, there can be economic solutions to address them. They have to be economically viable solutions in order for us to help our fellow human beings. The end to end system will not mobilise unless people are making money off it, which sounds a little brutal, but evidence has shown that it tends to be the norm. We can provide humanitarian aid on a momentary basis for extreme isolated events because it’s part of our nature to try and help, but that nature becomes increasingly subject to economic pressure, and that’s the reality of humanity. 

That first class of problems is focussed on how we can help those who are affected by the changes that are emerging. The second class is how to mitigate the effects of it on this generation. The third class is, assuming those changes are coming, what can we do to truly turn that around by the 22nd century? The solution is to build space infrastructure which allows us to access the energy and material resources of the inner solar system. We can harvest it by building heavy industrial energy generating infrastructure in space, outside of Earth’s atmosphere. If we can do that in space and bring it down to Earth, we can provide clean, safe energy for our planet without generating heat. It’ll take at least two generations to mature that into an operating infrastructure, but I do believe that by staging economically viable revenue generating milestones from today to the end of the century, we have everything going for us to build these architectures in space. 

Transitioning many of our polluting technologies and industrial processes off the surface of the Earth will protect our local environments. If we build a beautiful cottage in a meadow, the last thing you want to do is put a chemical plant next to it. That’s what we’re doing on our planet though. We have an oasis in the universe, this perfect ball that has allowed life to flourish. Earth is the centre of the Anthropocene universe, and we need to do everything we can to care for it and look after it. 

The challenge is that we need a firm sense of reality on what is happening today. What can we really do about it? What are the changes we’re prepared to accept and tolerate? And what’s the big picture that we really have to focus on? Whilst those changes happen? There are going to be trillions of dollars of economic disruption in the next decades. There will be a lot of suffering, but there will also be a lot of opportunities to help and solve those problems. If we think ahead on those smaller scale problems like ‘how we can help the local communities that are going to be affected?’ There are addressable solutions for that class of problem. Questions like ‘how do we help the next generation or two of families and communities that are going to be in trouble?’ is where we should place our focus, as well as trying to solve the big picture terrestrially and addressing the big solution system. 

To hear more about Jim’s work in the space sector, tune into The Satellite & NewSpace Matters Podcast here. 

We sit down regularly with some of the biggest names in our industry, we dedicate our podcast to the stories of leaders in the technologies industries that bring us closer together. Follow the link here to see some of our latest episodes and don’t forget to subscribe.     

The Evolution of Satellite & NewSpace Technology 

Posted on by Tom Wilding

The Satellite & NewSpace industry is constantly evolving. On Episode 21 of The Satellite & NewSpace Matters Podcast we sat down with Lindsey Kemp, who is the Director of Global Markets at Communications & Power Industries (CPI), to discuss her perspectives on these evolutions. Lindsey has been in the SATCOM industry for 15 years, and is currently responsible for global business development of CPI’s antenna and power electronics unit, which plays a key role in shaping innovation and exploring future technologies for the company. Read on to find out what she had to say. 

The satellite space industry has been continuously evolving evidence creation. How is the ground sat market adapting to those new pressures? 

We’re doing some new developments in terms of both amplifiers and antenna systems. It’s critical that we develop the design for manufacturing in a repeatable way, because we have to meet really aggressive timelines at the factory. We’re currently seeing some of these new product launches being very successful. It’s hard, because while we’re incorporating those manufacturing improvements, there are a lot of new things that we didn’t have to accommodate before, but we’re going to have to accommodate for now. It’s to our benefit that we have so much experience, both in terms of where we started and how we’ve been evolving along the way, because that’s prepared us for these complicated considerations and higher volume demands. 

Where do you think some of these developments could have come from?

We’ve been bringing people in from other industries. We have a new operations manager who is from the automobile industry – there’s quite a few people that we have brought in from there. That’s critical because we need to challenge what we’ve been traditionally used to, and be open to new things that we never thought could potentially be possible to get out of our comfort zone. Bringing things in from outside of industry, such as people who have experienced business elsewhere, is going to bring a totally different perspective to our company. What we’re doing is trying to push everything forward. 

What is the biggest development that we still need to successfully cater to new NDSI platforms?

There’s a lot of offerings at K band for LEO and MEO trackers and amplifiers. The ground infrastructure is there already. I think the big one in the future is going to be supporting the V band. There are some challenges that we need to face, but the great thing is that our company is building both travelling wave tube amplifiers and solid state amplifiers. We have the ability to be agnostic when we go into these situations and see that this one makes sense for this application. One of the big drivers for that scalability is the need for solid state amplifiers to support those deployments. That’s something that is going to be really important for us to stay on top of and make sure that we’re looking to the future to be able to support that when that’s ready, because that’s a whole new ballgame in terms of that technology.

To learn more about evolving technology in the industry, tune into The Satellite & NewSpace Matters Podcast here. 

We sit down regularly with some of the biggest names in our industry, we dedicate our podcast to the stories of leaders in the technologies industries that bring us closer together. Follow the link here to see some of our latest episodes and don’t forget to subscribe.     

Improving Accessibility in NewSpace

Posted on by Tom Wilding

Accessibility is a key issue in the NewSpace industry. With a number of different applications for satellite technology, there is an increasing focus on enabling smaller players to enter the sector and access the NewSpace sector. On Episode 20 of The Satellite & NewSpace Matters Podcast we spoke to Nathan Monster, the CEO and Founder of A-SpaX (which means Affordable Space Access), about the company’s aims to make the opportunities that space offers accessible to as many people as possible. They offer an end to end service that spans from pre launch to delivery. Nathan also shared how we can improve accessibility as an industry. 

What’s been the biggest change in the industry that has made space more accessible to date? 

Access to space has improved with the transportation from Earth to low Earth orbit. There are more frequent launches going into orbit from more commercial companies who have developed their own launchers that go through to space. There are hundreds of rocket companies now. There has been a lot of investment in the space industry too, particularly going into launchers. I’m hoping that now that we’ve gotten into space people will start to think about the return. Questions like ‘While you’re in orbit, what are you going to do there?’ are really important. For me the answer is production and bringing the results back to people on earth. 

What has enabled accessibility more, small satellite launches or rideshare opportunities? 

It’s a complex situation because of the amount of investment that has occurred. So many commercial companies now have the chance to create a difficult transportation system, launch things and reach orbit. That should be a good thing, but it often goes wrong. Having all this competition does bring down the cost and enable a lot of commercial activity, which makes the industry more accessible, but there are downsides too. It’s the investment itself that has created more accessibility rather than rideshares or launches, but I’m interested to see which method will continue to grow accessibility in the space. 

What are the barriers to accessibility and what needs to be done to remove them?

The biggest barrier is making sure a rocket is safe and in a good state. All these commercial companies need to have systems and checks in place to make sure they’re successful. As an industry we need to support these companies so that they have the chance to reach a certain point where these protocols are in order and their systems can mature. That requires quite a lot of capital, and there will be failures along the way, but we need to expect and allow that. We need to keep backing them until they’ve built a protocol to make sure that everything is ready before the launch and is done in a proper order.

To learn more about accessibility in space, tune into The Satellite & NewSpace Matters Podcast here. 

We sit down regularly with some of the biggest names in our industry, we dedicate our podcast to the stories of leaders in the technologies industries that bring us closer together. Follow the link here to see some of our latest episodes and don’t forget to subscribe.     

Automotive Connectivity

Posted on by Tom Wilding

As smart technology advances, connecting devices while they’re on the move is becoming a priority within the Connectivity industry. On Episode 12 of The Connectivity Matters Podcast we spoke to Rafet Lakhdar, the Vice President Quality & Operations at Rolling Wireless, about how they are solving connectivity issues in the automotive space. Here are his insights: 

What specific things do you have to do to ensure that a connectivity solution meets a car manufacturer’s quality standards?

The automotive industry is often said to be requesting military quality levels for a consumer price, which means that you are going in two opposite directions to hit those targets. This is where you need to differentiate yourself by making the big jump between low cost and extremely high quality – which is where the matter of quality becomes so critical. 

The first pillar of quality is reputation. These car manufacturers need to protect their reputation – they cannot afford to be in the newspaper for recalls or that they have poor quality and so on because the consumers are very sensitive to that. This applies to the whole ecosystem behind the connectable technology. This is where we are proud to say that we have reached what we call a 10 PPM level, which means that we can guarantee that out of 1 million units you will not see more than 10 of them having an issue, which is about what the automotive segment is looking for. You have to be reliable to sell to automotive companies. 

The second pillar is financials. If you have a good quality standard you are optimising your production and you don’t have yield loss, so you could become competitive. If that is not the case you will be beaten by the competition because they could provide a better price. You need to be sure that you have made a superb optimisation of your production so that you run it at the lowest possible cost. If you look at the financials, you could say that quality is part of sales, because when you go to the competition, you will be matching your competitor to a penny. What will differentiate you is the quality level that you can bring on the table when things are the same price. 

The last pillar is innovation and expertise. If you think about quality, that means making sure we follow the processes during fabrication to ensure that every product meets those standards. We have to set specifications, but if you limit yourself to this, you miss a big part of what you can do in this industry. However, we have transformed quality into expertise. We provide expertise to the designers and optimise our cost. We provide expertise on how to make our product more reliable, so that the carmaker could use our product for 5, 10, or 15 years without suffering issues, and not having issues with the long range. That is what is important when you think about quality – it lasts. We provide a quality service by providing expertise to the company for a long time, rather than just giving them one product and limiting ourselves in that way.

What does tomorrow’s connected car actually look like? 

I think the car of the future will be safer and more environmentally friendly, and the VTX will participate in that future. It will generate softer driving behaviour because cars will be able to anticipate things, therefore reducing brutal acceleration or massive brakes, because people pick up the information at the last minute. Also, it will become much safer. The VTX creates more alert systems which should also help reduce collisions and traffic jams. 

Some people say cars will become a computer on four wheels. I think it will become an entertaining mobility moment. We’re trying to reduce the hassle of driving that makes people tired of it, and allow them to enjoy a mobility ride with infotainment, watching a movie or listening to some nice music, but also with the ability to get information on your destination while you drive. The car can point out things that are happening on your trajectory or relieve that stress by going into autopilot while you focus on preparing for your arrival. It will make driving far more entertaining. 

To learn more about connectivity in the automotive industry, tune into The Connectivity Matters Podcast here. 

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