Portal Space Systems is building maneuverable orbital spacecraft for defense, with first Starburst mission launching October 19

Speaker 2: Oh, okay. Oh, sorry. Should have you watching Okay. Edit that out. It's not like it's a livestream or anything. Anyway, I I believe we have our next guest already here. So let's bring in Jeff

Speaker 1: Thornburg from Portal Space Systems. It's portal time. How are you doing?

Speaker 11: Fantastic.

Speaker 2: Welcome. Great to have you. Thank you so much. Let's start with the decision to start this company. I mean, you you have experience from SpaceX. What was the original thesis? What was the the the the first prototype pitch deck? What how did you even begin this journey?

Speaker 11: So many things, but I think the simple answer is after thirty over thirty years in the space business, I had a lot of colleagues in the defense side that was really struggling with how do they combat adversarial advancement on orbit. And we're running our spacecraft like hot air balloons and they're running theirs like fighter jets. And so we really set out to build the fighter jets for orbit here at Portal while also allowing more space exploration for for NASA and the civil space community.

Speaker 2: Yeah. What is the benefit of being able to maneuver in space generally? I mean, we've seen, you know, the trajectory of of traditional rockets, ballistic missiles. Seems like a lot of stuff can happen in space, whether it's the Starlink constellation or the International Space Station. None of that required too much maneuverability. Why maneuverability? Why now?

Speaker 11: Well, you've you've all seen the movies, right? Where the the adversarial country runs out in the field and covers their stuff with tarps because they know the satellites coming overhead to take pictures. And so most things on orbit are very predictable. And, you know, to mix it up, we used to not have any real competition on orbit. And now guess what? China and Russia are challenging us Mhmm. On the defense side, and, you know, we don't want people throwing tarps over stuff. We wanna show up and do the things we need to do when we wanna do them and not be constrained by the lack of fuel in the gas tank on orbit. And a lot of the ways this has been looked at in the past is it's like you went to buy a new car and you throw that new car away as soon as you use the first tank of gas. And we really set out to build platforms where gas is not in the equation anymore. Use it, move it quickly. There's some generals out there that have this phrase I really love where we drive our spacecraft like we're going to church and our adversaries drive them like they stole them. And and and we really want our customers to drive them like they stole them. And and that's really what built the foundation of the business five years ago. I love that. So what yeah. What has progress been like over the last five years?

Speaker 2: Is this are you at manufacturing stage? Is this prototype level? I imagine that, you you know, you gotta actually send stuff up to to at least low Earth orbit to really test the capabilities. But what's the what's the progression been like?

Speaker 11: Yeah, I first have to really give a shout out to my team because none of what we've done would be possible without them. We're about 60 people now here North Of Seattle and the progress has been amazing. I've got to work with some amazing people over the years. The biggest compliment they've given to me is wanting to come back and work with me again. And we were able to launch our first mission to orbit in March and successfully test a lot of our electronics hardware for the brains of our systems. And then we just finished our first small Starburst spacecraft that's about 600 pounds that's going to go up and really demonstrate our ability to do some of the things we just talked about and that's going to launch October 19. So the team has been grinding for the last several weeks to get ready to ship to The Cape, and we're going to do that in the next few days. They couldn't be more excited or more fatigued all at the same time, but they're doing a fantastic job getting us ready.

Speaker 1: Very cool. Space, conflict in space is something that we hear about from entrepreneurs and various people that are in defense tech, it's not something that you necessarily read about in the newspaper. It's happening way up above us, it's not something, you know, it involves private companies and governments, but no one is really incentivized to come out and say like, hey, we had this issue. It seems like it just kind of gets talked about behind closed doors. Do you think this is something that over time private companies will be like end up disclosing? When do you think there's more of like a conversation around this or is it something that just kind of stays talked about behind closed doors?

Speaker 11: I think there's changes happening right now in the conversation, but it's tough, right? Because when national security is impacted, you don't necessarily wanna be telegraphing all of the things that are going on. So I think there'll be some element of protecting that information, but I think there's gonna be more companies like Portal and you're seeing them now that are gonna have a significant part of their business be defence related. And the Department of War or the Department of Defense in general are really trying to bust up the legacy compartmentalization of information so that we can support the defense department and the agencies in ways that frankly they have to have. And I think what's happened with a lot of the acquisition reform over the last few years is trying to get capability in the hands of the warfighter as quickly as possible. So there's a much more willingness to partner with industry. A lot of the decision makers are saying, hey, bring it all. We want it all. We wanna maintain our number one position in the world, in the Western world with our allies in controlling the space domain. So you're seeing a thaw in that, but I think there'll always be elements of national security where you will know there are things happening, but you won't necessarily know all the details just so the public can understand why it's important. But I what I would point people to is just take a look at that sixty minutes, report from a couple of years ago where they were with the Philippine Navy in the South China Sea, and they were actually filming how China was engaging the Philippine Navy. It's all public domain. It all gives you a great idea of what's actually happening in other parts of the world with adversarial aggression and tactics. And I think it's a great example that people could then kind of take forward. Why is this important? It's important because we protect our interests in land, air, and sea, and now space. And space has to become a domain that we defend for future commercial and commerce activity. Mhmm.

Speaker 2: What's the biggest lesson that you're taking from SpaceX to Portal?

Speaker 11: Tenacity. Mhmm. Not taking no for an answer. Mhmm. Every problem has a solution, and with the right team, you can get there. And I think those are the biggest lessons I took away. Do you have to show that to the 50 employees that you have on your team?

Speaker 2: Do you is it enough to say it? How do you actually display it if you're a CEO? Because, tenacity can look different in this particular seat.

Speaker 11: Yeah. I think it's tenacity coupled with, you know, maintaining a cool head Mhmm. Working the problems as they come. Mhmm. I joke with my group, you know, how many times do you see me running around with my hair on fire? You know, that's that's not the right approach to inspire confidence in your team. Yeah. So, I I think the bottom line is you've gotta project a calm but aggressive attitude to work through these issues. And I think just having experience in doing that in the past, which certainly all of us that came out of the SpaceX environment have an incredible amount of experience in solving impossible problems and moving forward with a great team.

Speaker 2: Well, Jeff, congrats on the progress. Very cool. Thank you for everything you're doing and thank you for coming on the show. I'm glad. Well, I'll be driving it like we stole it. Was about to say the same thing. That's what I wanna hear. Yeah. I wanna hear about people in space. Know? Know, they see In

Speaker 1: AI, they say you don't need to drive a Ferrari to to get groceries. Yeah. But I hope we're gonna be driving Ferraris like we stole them Yes. In space to do simple things like getting space groceries.

Speaker 2: Kinda lost the plug. Anyway, thank you so much. Great to meet you, Jeff. Thank you. Have a great rest day. We'll talk to you soon.