Astranis signs geostationary satellite deal with Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom as undersea cable risk looms

little breakdown of Astronis and uh what uh how you describe the company on day-to-day basis. Yeah, of course. So, uh today we had this very cool announcement. You can go check it out on uh on Bloomberg and some other some other places. We announced a new satellite for Taiwan.

And this is a special kind of of dedicated satellite in a high orbit that is called geostationary orbit. So, uh this is a very special orbit.

It's been around for um you know been around since the beginning of the space age, but essentially allows you to park a satellite over a country or region of the world and provide continuous service with just that one satellite or um Oh, wait. What the hell? Oops. You look and sound good to us. Sorry.

Am I my my something glitched on my Zoom but is all good? You guys can hear me? All good. Yeah. Okay. Excellent. Um so you can provide this service with just one satellite or in some cases a couple of satellites parked up there and essentially uh create this this backbone in the sky. Yeah.

And this is really important in a case like Taiwan, which I'm I'm sure we'll get into. Yeah. Sure. Uh can you give us a little history of the company and uh because I know you launched satellites before and you I we I've heard about Alaska and a and a few other countries.

Um what has the roll out been now that you're kind of in the commercialization stage of the company? Yeah. So we started the company coming up on nine years ago. An overnight success. Overnight success. We love an overnight success on this show. Congratulations. Uh we love to see it. Just a quick quick 9-year journey.

Good job. Honestly, incredible timeline. Yeah, it's incredible. I appreciate that. Yes. Yes. We did. Yeah. We just sprang into being with this, you know, beautiful manufacturing. It just snapped your fingers for it just fully formed. Just magically appeared.

So, uh, we started the company actually to do this one thing which I, you know, I always like to joke there no pivots.

We started with this exact thesis in mind and then we just have been you know grinding away executing on that all all the way through but it is you know do a next generation satellite design using all the latest small satellite technology but in high orbits which have a number of benefits and a number of use cases that are they're very different from I'm sure what you you know you and your viewers have heard about in lower earth orbit.

Yeah, like Starlink and one Webb and some others that are in lower Earth orbit have a lot of advantages um and uh high orbits have their advantages as well and that's for both commercial and military and defense applications um which we are are also now charging ahead on.

So um we started the company uh you know on on some early uh commercial customers that we found and now you know fast forward today we've signed contracts for you know more than uh more than 10 of these satellites commercially.

We also have a number of US government defense programs uh that are there in work as we speak. So there's a there's a lot going on. Um but this one this was an important important one for us. Yeah. Can you talk about your neighbors in geostationary orbit?

I I I saw on your site there's $15 billion dollars worth of these satellites being sent up every single year. So there's other people you talk about kind of like Yeah. What else is up there? Is it like the Hubble telescope? Like like how high are we talking? Higher than the ISS. Like really explain it like we're five.

Explain it like we're actually. Yeah. No, no, for sure. So it is about a hundred times farther away than than lower Earth orbit. Um it's about a tenth of the way to the moon. Mhm.

And as as you as you said, there's about uh $15 billion worth of these satellite large satellites launched to GEO and other high orbits every year.

Um but historically those have always been giant behemoth satellites that cost hundreds of millions on uh really for the commercial side is in this like few hundred million range. And then on the military side, the satellites cost over a billion dollars per satellite. Wow. sometimes multiple billions per satellite.

So, we're talking and we're talking huge satellites the size of like a double-decker London, you know, big red London bus, that kind of that kind of size. Um, and then they're really designed to do uh everything from, you know, broadband communications.

This is where all broadcast satellite television has always been from. And then there's some important national security missions uh up there as as well. And so the 15 billion is total between commercial and military. Um but you know I mean it it is a huge number.

It's just like it's one of these very big industries that isn't talked about a lot. And so we said hey we there's nobody really taking a new approach here. Feels like we could go do something really interesting and and perhaps quite valuable. And t talk about today's uh announcement and the significance of it.

I imagine this is not the kind of partnership that you started working on in Q1. It's probably something that's been in the works for a really long time. Like what what what what you know what's even like the timeline to make something like this happen? Do you do you have oneclick checkout?

Can Taiwan just go please just buy now? Yes, exactly. Buy now pay later. Um no no for sure. It it it is a longer longer sales cycle for you know hund00 million plus uh deal but obviously worth the worth the effort. This is so this is a commercial contract with uh a telco called Chunwa Telecom.

It's the largest telco in Taiwan. They have about a $30 billion market cap. Um seven or eight billion a year in annual revenue. So it's very I mean this is a big country big uh uh big company, right? It's it's like in that Fortune 500 class of company.

And they among uh other things in addition to managing you know operating the cell tower networks for Taiwan they also manage the undersea cables uh for Taiwan. They also uh manage uh satellite connectivity for the government of Taiwan. So they have a you know they have a big footprint there as you would expect.

And so working with them, you know, going back, I don't know, at least a year, maybe closer to 18 months ago on where this could be, you know, this valuable asset for them. Um, and then, you know, sort of going through the I I would call it all the normal enterprise sales, uh, activities from there, right?

You have to get together with our technical teams with their technical teams, hash out exactly what the the technical specifics are of the satellite and then the the network around it. Um, and then, you know, of course, hammering out the the business terms. So, it's a it is a big deal for us.

Um, uh, and I think a big deal for Taiwan. You know, this is something they very badly need, as I'm sure you guys, uh, you know, as I'm sure has not escaped your attention. Uh, what what does it actually take to get the satellite up to geostationary orbit?

Uh assuming you guys are partnered with, you know, SpaceX on the transport side, but what are what are all the different kinds? Is this uniquely unlocked by SpaceX and dropping launch costs? I'd love to know kind of the general trend in mass to orbit and how that's enabling the business. Oh, 100%. Yes.

I mean there's no question space when SpaceX came along and really dropped the launch costs in a big way with the Falcon 9.

Um you know that enabled a whole array of of you know just like new new space opportunity most we like I said we've seen most of that in lower earth orbit but uh absolutely still the case for us in in higher earth orbit. I think the difference is it's a lot higher orbit the the higher orbits it's a lot harder to get to.

So, you have to uh have your own onboard propulsion. The rocket doesn't actually get you all the way there. That's what I was getting at. Yeah. Yeah.

So, in lower orbit, the rocket just drops you off where you want to be and you deploy satellites and there's satellites in in lower Earth orbit that have no propulsion uh extra propulsion on board at all. They don't need it. Um the we are quite the opposite.

So you get dropped off in this transfer orbit, but it's really on us and any other satellite that goes to GEO to do the rest of the propulsion ourselves uh and and get ourselves the rest of the way up to GEIO. So that is where we had to really design the whole satellite system around this electric propulsion system.

We use an ion thruster, very high performance. Um that allows us to, you know, essentially um have all the fuel on board that we need in the size of of a couple tanks that that are basically look like, you know, a couple of scuba tanks, right?

So it's like that that size of tank, that much xenon gas, which is the propellant, and we can actually get all the rest of the way there up to geo.

So um you know between between that and a sort of more recent technologies I think what we're doing today just wouldn't have even been possible technically until um you know coming when around the time we started the company eight nine years ago um because you you really had a few of these pieces coming together including the the electric propulsion.

So yeah it is it is a it is a more challenging orbit to get to for sure. Interesting. How did you get into this? I actually don't know your background before you started the company. Uh, I'm I'm an aerospace engineer. I'm a space guy. I've been a space guy since I was a kid. Did my degrees in a space engineering.

Uh, worked at some big satellite programs.

Uh, worked at, you know, a couple of the big defense contractors, which I will remain, you know, remain nameless for this, but suffice to say learned that was, you know, not what I wanted to do with the rest of my life working at the big uh defense primes and you know seeing how they operate.

I think there's also um you know there's something there that that we just we got to fix. You know we got to fix for the country or we're going to be in serious trouble. So yeah um no better way to do that than than starting our own company. Yeah.

We talked to Ian Cinnamon over at uh Apex Space and he was talking about building a satellite bus or platform for low earth orbit satellites kind of uh almost acting as like a supply chain partner to speed up uh you know delivery to low earth orbit like smaller companies that want to get going.

Uh you started the company so long ago. I imagine that that thruster is is in house. You built all this.

Are there any other partners other than SpaceX that have been helpful to you as you've built out or or what does the modern space economy and and landscape of partners look like as someone's building a company like Astronis? Oh, that's a great question.

Um, so true, a lot of these a lot of these pieces were not in place when we started the company. Um, but as these pieces come along, we absolutely take advantage of them. So that includes uh you know more rockets coming online. Sure.

Um you know some of them have have or have have um more uh what we call delta V to to get to the to the higher orbits. Uh that also includes some of these uh transfer vehicles. So what we call you know orbital transfer vehicles. So like impulse space impulse for example.

um you know, no question as those things come online, we can we can take advantage of those and use that uh to really to to I mean, not to benefit us, but to benefit our customers, right?

We can get a satellite, they're faster, they get the you know, faster time to market, they get the the spacecraft and their service that much faster.

um if they uh um you know if if if they come online and and do the the kinds of things that we're talking about uh the orbital transfer vehicles then we have more fuel on board which means a longer life to the satellites.

So a lot of these there's there's a lot of great opportunity to you know come in and and add pieces to the to the ecosystem for sure. Are you expecting Starship to change the business?

Um, I know Starship's going to be able to dump out like way more mass in LEO, but does it also make to get does it also make getting to GEO easier because it's just a bigger rocket? Um, well, it'll it will uh I believe it is is heavily LEO optimized. So, using it, we will most likely it's it's not strictly necessary.

We we we don't have to do this, but um we will most likely want to use one of these orbital transfer vehicles. Sure. And I think that's that's actually like part of the genesis of of you know why Tom started Impulse Space was he saw this like uh you know this this real need there.

Um but uh it will result in lower launch costs, right? I mean which just really benefits everyone. I I I think it's a huge um it's going to be a huge boon to the to the industry. Uh and you know I very much looking forward to to uh to it flying. Yeah.

Can you talk a little bit about uh how a modern telecom company delivers internet because I imagine uh Chungwa Telecom has cell phone towers and maybe some 5G stuff and then also maybe now they have geo satellites and those plug into the rest of the system or or are they or are they trying to specifically create like we're going to sell you a separate product that's a satellite dish that will interface with this geo internet product and it's like a completely different line.

Just like, you know, I have a Verizon plan on my on my iPhone. I also have a Starlink terminal for when I travel. They're two completely separate uh products and networks and bills. Um but but what but how how are the telecoms thinking about providing kind of a a 360 experience to the customer? Yeah.

So for a for a telco, we are providing what what we call trunking and back haul, right? So trunking is exactly what you'd imagine, a giant pipe that allows them to bring, you know, huge amounts of data, pipe huge amounts of data from point A to point B.

Uh and then back hall is uh in in their case, imagine you have cell towers out in remote areas and you need those cell towers are acting like any normal cell tower and to the end user, they don't know the difference, right? They're just their cell phones connecting whatever cell tower they're closest to.

But if the cell tower is in a remote area, it doesn't make sense to run a fiber line to that cell tower. And so you need to do that back hall length that is connect that cell tower to the network through some other way.

And satellites are a uh you know a a a very uh advantageous way to do that especially in certain cases.

Um I think what we've seen with a lot the Telos that we work with uh like Chungwa Telecom is they really um yeah they they do see it as a as a very separate kind of uh of need and and product offering than uh what people might get at their homes with uh whether that be their their terrestrial provider or a or a uh or a LEO provider like Starlink.

Um what they are really looking for is dedicated capacity that is set aside for their exclusive use and it's on these uh what we call SLAs, service level agreements um you know guaranteed uptimes where they they and they know it's there whether they are using it or not. It's just always guaranteed to be there for them.

Um and then on top of that you imagine what I mean you can just think about what kind you know what some of these customers fortune 500 customers might want in an enterprisegrade offering. It's security. Um, it's, you know, a lot a lot of the, uh, customization.

So, understanding exactly what the, uh, the different endpoints of the network are, exactly what equipment is used, and, you know, getting to work with us to pick that equipment, if they have a preferred vendor, uh, for that networking equipment, and then really just having this insight and transparency into exactly what's happening on their network at any given moment.

So among other things, they know where their data is going and where it's not going. Uh they know uh for example that their citizens internet traffic is not going up to a satellite and then landing in some other country outside of their control where maybe they don't you know they don't trust that country.

They they just don't know what's what's happening to that data. So that's where we've seen this uh this need out in the market for a a true enterprisegrade offering that has this kind of uh all these all these aspects to it. Um, yeah.

How do how do you think about scope creep when you're sending a, you know, multiundred million dollar, hundred million dollar satellite up into the air. Everybody in, you know, traditional software is familiar.

You start building something or you start scoping something out and you're like, "Oh, what if we added this button or this feature, things like that. " I imagine there's a huge incentive to try to scale capabilities and and offer a bunch of capabilities, but at the same time, like you kind of needed to do matters. Yeah.

Every ounce matters. And there's like one or two things that are critically important. Totally. Uh for the sort of value of the product. Totally.

I you know when when the uh when the customer asks for something and they know there's uh you know there's like a hund00 million contract there waiting, the sales guys always want to say yes.

So So you got to figure out ways to help them say yes to things without, as you said, you know, giving giving in to this like um uh you know giving giving into this temptation to just like customize everything. Yeah. So we have a standard satellite design.

We have a few pieces to it that are that are essentially modular. So um you can sort of plug and play a few different things like like Lego blocks for slightly different customer configurations. Um but that's it, right?

we draw the line there and then there's only so much that we're willing to customize the design and you have to you know at some point you have to say no like hey uh if if if we were to totally customize this thing for you it would be the cost would you know balloon way beyond what what you are you know what what you're willing to pay here.

So um I I think that's uh I think that's worked well for us. you know, we've sold, like I mentioned, a lot of a lot of satellites of of this uh using that approach. And I think um you know, yeah, there's there's there's always ways to to make it work. Yeah.

I love the the the meme of uh you know, the sales guy the sales guy just promised like dinner. Yeah, of course we can do that. You want to just be able to go up and back whenever you want. For sure. Yeah, we'll make it happen. Yeah. Yeah. You want it to land on the moon and then come right back. Yeah, obviously. Yeah.

Little bit different.

I don't I mean well I guess I don't really know in enterprise software land but I can imagine that happens all the time and you know it's like um sometimes they just have to put up with it but it's a little harder to like build a totally different satellite design physical satellite hardware some extra software features.

Yeah. No, I totally get with the with software. It's like, okay, you know, this engineering team is going to have to spend, you know, uh, two days over the weekend like, you know, shipping this, but it just doesn't quite work the same when you're sending nine figure payloads to space.

Um, can you talk about uh security kind of like risks in um in geostationary orbit versus low Earth orbit? Are you far enough away that that that it's like a you know maybe a more secure environment or or less risk or are the risks still kind of very real? Yeah.

So I mean I'm I'm going to be a little limited in what I can go into here since I do have a a security clearance. um the the there are different uh threats to uh higher orbits and geospatial orbit than there are to lower earth orbit and different different count different counters to those threats.

Um I think what I would say is that uh you know our plan is uh and and what we're executing on is we're building many of these satellites. We're spooling up our production here in this building um to build, you know, many dozen build and launch many dozens of these satellites, including we'll have onorbit spares.

We'll have satellites that we could bring in um and and and add to uh the you know, add to the network or or replace if if a satellite was lost for whatever reason. And you actually imagine, I mean, that actually is an easier problem to solve than uh an undersea cable. Yeah. fiber optic cable being cut.

That fiber fiber optic cable is being cut. You you just think about the difficulty to replace that. You have to actually get, you know, a ship to roll that out over um Oh, hold on. Thousands of miles, right? Um I I somewhat related to that, but probably something you can talk about.

Uh in terms of space junk, we hear these stories about like, oh, the ISS had to dodge some satellite debris. Uh is is that a problem for you? Do you have systems and thrusters that can turn on if you're detecting something or is it clear enough that it's not really an issue at this point? No, it's true.

I mean it it it it occasionally it's it's much more it's much more rare in geo than in in LEO these days but the orbital uh you know the the the orbital um you know space uh like airspace but space space is being actively monitored at all times by uh the US military.

They actually do this, you know, your taxpayer dollars at work. They do this and broadcast to the entire world if they believe there could be a collision between two space objects. Mhm.

Uh and they they called it a a conjunction event and you get a conjunction warning and you on you know on board like we do have thrusters on board, rocket thrusters that we could use to do these evasive maneuvers and get the satellite out of the way if we really believe there was a a real risk of of some kind of collision there.

Like I said, quite rare in GEO. Um not I mean certainly not unheard of, but uh rare for you to to get one of those warnings. um more common in LEO, but that is just becoming a reality in uh you know in the space environment now. I mean that's just a reality we're going to have to all deal with. Makes sense.

Uh speaking of undersea cables, uh it's been 10 years working on this. Can you take me through what the next 10 years might look like? I know that a geostationary satellite uh is mostly in the case of an island nation mostly going to act as backall between cell phone towers on that country.

But is there a future where uh instead of going through an undersea cable from an island in the Pacific to mainland America uh you could actually do the back hole back haul in space between two geostationary or uh satellites.

Is that something that's possible even or or I know it might not be as fast but well that is the you that is the use of this Taiwan satellite today actually that we announced today. That's right. Um, it will actually have a couple of different, you know, it will be able to provide service on the island.

Um, but it will also be able to be a relay to locations off the island in the case that all their all their fiberlands are cut and they would otherwise just be totally out isolated from the outside world. Right. Seems really really important. That is that is very important. That is very real concern.

You can imagine if you were just getting your communications, you know, piped in Yep. with these undersea cables and then one day uh someone accidentally drags an anchor across you know all of them. Yep. Um that you would you could end up very isolated and and in fact completely unable to talk to the outside world.

It's very scary. That is very scary. Very scary scenario for for a country like that. Right. Um and there's a and there's a lot there's a there are many such countries uh that that have these concerns.

Now the world is a more complicated and and I would say dangerous place than it than it was um in the past and so you know we have this is where we have seen uh a significant demand for this this kind of service.

Now do you have do you have any insight into how Taiwan and the Taiwanese government views civil military fusion? We've we've heard uh from Palmer Lucky that uh you know every boat that's built in China needs to be able to be built to military specs.

Um obviously you're doing a commercial deal here, but how does Taiwan think about that? I feel like in America if if AT&T does a deal, the government's like or the DoD is like, "Okay, cool. " Like, you know, that's kind of its own thing.

Uh Taiwan might have a different positioning, but what is your take on how the Taiwan government views civil military fusion? Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, this this is this is a commercial um this is a commercial deal. Yeah, sure.

And is one of our commercial satellites coming off our our commercial production line. I think what I would I think what I would say is that um you know where we've seen interest from the DoD it is actually also for these same satellites off of that same production line.

They are very interested in this dual use uh type of scenario where they actually get to benefit from all the private capital that we've raised. We've invested that into this production capability. So then therefore, you know, we're using it commercially.

we're using produce and then if we use that same production capability to produce satellites for them then they get a much lower price point than they would otherwise if they just like all this investment had to come in to stand up a whole new production line just for a military uh you know a new line of military satellites.

So that is where right that that's the benefit of of dual of a dual use technology like they are yeah getting that benefit way they just wouldn't otherwise and I think um places like Taiwan they they saw the they saw the benefits from that also they saw our US military contracts they know that we have uh designed something that the military is interested not in some upgraded you know super uh you know turbocharged version of what we have today but but what we actually have today and they are they're basically getting that same thing right so that is I I maybe that's slightly a different way to look at it but there's definitely you know we we are definitely seeing a closer um you know amount of overlap of of our commercial industry and the and what the DoD is looking for than ever before I think in in the US as I'm sure you guys are seeing with a lot of companies you're talking to for sure uh I'm a big fan of the moon.

I want to go to the moon. I want to be able to listen to podcasts on the moon. Are you going to be able to help with mooncoms in the future? Uh 100%. Yes. Um we actually Yes, we we have an early um NASA study contract. We're studying that for NASA.

Uh NASA's going to need every everything that we have in that like every space service we have for Earth, we're going to need another copy of that around the moon. We're Moon's going to need its own GPS.

Yeah, Moon's going to need its own comms networks, uh, both, you know, moon to moon, uh, you know, lunar surface to lunar surface comms as well as relays back to Earth. Um, there and then they're going to need all these transportation systems.

I think with the moon, the the most interesting story that nobody is talking about is we have a real space race with China happening as we speak and it's very concrete.

There is a series of craters on the moon that we know have water ice trapped in them and there these are permanently shadowed craters on the lunar south pole. Um, and it is extremely valuable real estate.

Like those that real estate and those mineral rights, if you want to call it that, enormously valuable because you can use that water to create rocket fuel, which you can use to then use the uh have the moon be this um this stepping stone to other places in the solar system.

and whoever gets there first and really decides we're going to actually we're not just going to plant a flag, we're going to pl we're going to put down a fence base. Yeah. And we're going to say this is our uh lunar property.

Like whoever does that first um they there's you know there's no reason they to not believe they they will just maintain that forever for all time, right? I mean it's currently totally green field.

Now, if if all the nations on Earth agree to not do that, which I they essentially did through an international treaty, I'm sure the US would abide by that.

But if China decides to just flout that treaty and ignore it and just go land and start grabbing territory there, um we would be it would be incredibly dumb for us to uh let them charge ahead with that and and miss out and let them get there first.

So, um, and this is this is like I mean China just landed a new lunar sample return mission that allows them to demonstrate all the technologies needed to essentially do human missions, do other types of of missions for uh to for all the things I'm talking about.

And honestly, we just we haven't been talking about it enough because we're we're we're sort of letting China just go out and do all these things in space without even calling attention to it.

I mean, I I honestly I mean, I think I think our new NASA administrator, uh, Jared Isman, who's going to be absolutely fantastic. I think I I suspect he will talk about it once he gets in the seats. So, we've been waiting for him to get Senate confirmed.

Um, I think you'll see other uh folks in the space industry start to talk about it because it it's a it's a big deal. like we need to start getting um you know about the moon. We got to get Do you think in some way la last question then we'll let you go.

Do you think in some way you know calling the you know the space force the space force kind of like allowed people to not take it at like it doesn't in many ways I think the name sounds cool but I think a lot of people didn't feel like it was a super you know serious initiative when it actually it absolutely is something that you know should be mass you know continued to be invested in massively and taken more seriously.

Um, oh, I I mean I I you know I think and I mean I mean more like the broader social media reaction to like oh like you know great we have a space force versus no this is absolutely a new frontier of defense and warfare and and it should be taken more seriously than ever. Yeah.

I mean it's important to you know keep in mind the space for in government terms space force is still very new right it was uh these things take a while to get established and and also um you know essentially to to really put forward their mandate.

I also would argue that under the past the previous administration things were a little muddled in exactly what their their mandate would be.

Um I think under the Trump administration has been it's very clear uh their mandate is to counter the um uh all of the uh activity and I would say aggression that we're seeing from China and space and we're going to see them um you know I think we're going to see a lot more from space from space force in the near term here.

So um you know yeah I I think I think you know so I think stay tuned on that and then um you know we will also and I think we'll also see an increasing amount of coordination between our civil space community NASA and the space force than we have in the past.

And again, that's going to go back that I take it back to, you know, what China's doing on the moon. There's they they have no, you know, not only do they have coordination. I mean, there's there's just no divisions at all between their military space, civil space, and even their commercial space.

It's all just one big industry blob of of activity that's, you know, we can't even draw lines there. So, I think to counter that, we are going to see more cooperation there. it and I think people will start taking it very seriously very soon. Great.

Well, thank you for starting the company 10 years ago and for uh yeah, congratulations. Congratulations on the milestone. Kind of a right place, right time story. Really when I think about 10 years in the making years in the making. Anyway, uh this is fantastic. Thanks so much. Congratulations to the whole team. Cheers.

Have a good one. Right. And we have Jordan coming on. I'll be right back. Perfect. Uh Jordan, when you're there, welcome to the show. We're excited to catch up. Talk China. There's so much to talk about. You're in the right business. You're here at the perfect time. How you doing, Jordan? Can you hear me?

Let's bring him in. Are we on? We're on. How you doing? I'm pissed off, John. What's happening? I'm not happy. This is This is the You should be celebrating. This is the best time to