The startup’s co-founders are, from left: Chief Technology Officer Griffin Cleverly, CEO Bridgit Mendler, and Head of Software Shaurya Luthra.
northwood space
Northwood Space, a startup led by former TV star and singer Brigitte Mendler, announced last week that planet lab Imaging satellite in orbit.
“We are building a global network to send data to satellites,” Northwood CEO Mendler told CNBC. “This network has been successfully validated both in the lab and in the field. It is built on phased array technology.”
Announced earlier this year, El Segundo, Calif.-based Northwood focuses on the terrestrial side of the space connectivity equation. Ground stations are critical links for transmitting data to and from orbit, and are particularly important for satellite operations and control.
The company’s prototype antenna “Frankie” being tested in North Dakota on October 5, 2024.
northwood space
The startup is developing a mass-produced ground station and is betting that its phased array-based system, called Portal, can outperform the parabolic antennas traditionally used by ground station companies. The portal predicts that it will be able to connect to up to 10 satellites at a time, compared to the usual 1-3 satellites that parabolic dishes can connect to.
“For Northwood, what we want to do is introduce a new standard for connectivity for businesses,” Mendler said.
In the ground station as a service (GSaaS) market, companies are eyeing opportunities for earth-side management of space infrastructure. Along that line, Amazon has launched its AWS Ground Station service, and satellite communications giant Eutelsat is offering a nearly $1 billion deal in the space.
Mendler’s Northwood wants to take GSaaS a step further and eliminate what she sees as “stuck in another era of connectivity,” such as power outages and “super expensive networks.”
“An analogy to the cell phone industry shows similarities to how cell phone towers and such shared assets end up with players that are hyper-vertically integrated, but end up offloading the assets to base station companies. We expected the shared model to be more efficient.” Mendler said.
In her view, ground stations are the “third leg” of space technology, the other two being rockets or cargo vehicles, and satellites or orbital infrastructure.
“The industry is really at a point where there’s a lot of appetite for growth, and this is something where we can really step in and accelerate progress,” Mendler said.
north dakota test
The company’s prototype antenna was installed in the early hours of October 2, 2024.
northwood space
Last week, the Northwood team traveled to remote Madoc, North Dakota, to test a prototype antenna (affectionately called “Frankie”) by connecting it to the Planet satellite in orbit, Mendler said. said.
The effort is known as the TT&C (telemetry, tracking and control) test, and Northwood aims to communicate with Planet’s satellites on both S-band and X-band frequencies.
“We were able to achieve two-way communication for the entire transit period with Planet’s satellites, and we were also able to achieve nominal communication for the satellites. The satellites were able to perform operations just as they would on their own systems. ” Mendler said.
Prototype tested on October 5, 2024.
northwood space
The company said Northwood was able to design and build Frankie in four months and install the antenna in six hours “from unloading the truck to live testing in the air.” Planet, which has more than 150 imaging satellites in orbit, heralded the Northwood experiment as a “major milestone.”
“Not only is Northwood solving historical issues such as cost and scale, but we have also built and successfully field-tested a phased array antenna faster than previously thought. This breakthrough in ground station technology We are proud to be part of this exciting progress,” said Joseph. Blue, Planet’s senior director of global terrestrial networks, said in a statement to CNBC.
Portal site rendering.
northwood space
Northwood designed two antennas for the portal system. One is a large 5-by-5-foot S-band frequency antenna, and the other is a smaller 18-by-18-inch X-band antenna.
Starting next year, the company plans to roll out a portal site that can support up to 10 satellite connections simultaneously, with data rates in excess of 1 gigabit per second per beam. Northwood is currently considering locations in the United States, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand for its first portal site.
“Performance-wise, we achieved everything we wanted to achieve,” Mendler said, adding that Northwood “really appreciates (Planet’s) participation and support throughout the testing.” Ta.
“It reveals a lot about the next chapter,” Mendler said.