Abstract away (1/24/23)

Good morning. We’d like to officially extend a warm welcome to Peter Xiong, the new producer of our Pathfinder podcast. He’s a pro at churning out crisp audio and video. If you’ve watched or listened to Pathfinder in recent weeks, you’ve already seen/heard his work.

Peter also produces Maxime Lenormand’s excellent Mind Behind Maps podcast, among others; plays the cello; and composes new music. Stay tuned for more from Peter soon.

In today's edition...💸 Quindar seed🎧 Pathfinder #0032 🔁 On the move

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Quindar Closes $2.5M Seed Round

Quindar, a startup building a web app for satellite owners to design, test, and operate their constellations with little to no human intervention, announced this morning the closing of a $2.5M seed round raised from Y Combinator, FCVC, Soma Capital, and Liquid 2 Ventures.

“One of the value propositions of being an aerospace company with a software business model is that it allows us to be pretty lean and provide well for new hires,” CEO Nate Hamet told Payload. “We were very fortunate to become oversubscribed, to close our round early, and to have such strong interest from investors.”

The team of six technical cofounders will use the funds to make three new engineering hires. The Quindar team comes from OneWeb, where they built and operated the platform that controls the company’s 542 satellites in orbit today.

Since graduating from YC’s summer batch, Quindar has been working with customers, iterating on its product. Quindar’s users range from those still at the clean-sheet stage to full-blown satellite manufacturers. The startup has deepened partnerships with ground station operators and space situational awareness (SSA) providers. As for Quindar’s tooling, its web app has grown beyond only operations to also target manufacturers and ground players.

We sat down with Quindar for a Q&A last fall. Since then, the startup says its initial bet has been validated: customers want to spend less time fixing problems and more energy on their own value prop. Plus, keeping a close eye on burn is key in today’s economy.

An analogy: Quindar hopes to shake up the industry the same way AWS (Amazon Web Services) took the world by storm with cloud computing. Hamet envisions the company growing into an “IT for space” provider. And that’s the pitch to space startups: we’ll abstract away operational complexity, so you can focus on getting to space quicker—and bringing your product to market at an affordable price point.

Pathfinder #0032, featuring Matt Weinzierl and Brendan Rosseau

Today, Pathfinder turns the complexity up a notch by simultaneously welcoming two speakers onto the show.

Matt Weinzierl and Brendan Rosseau research, write, and develop coursework at the intersection of space and economics. They teach MBA students at a business school just outside of Boston (why yes, we are indeed referring to Harvard Business School).

Today’s episode is brought to you by Altek Space.

Why is HBS so invested in space? A sneak peek

As Matt and Brendan wrote in a widely read Harvard Business Review essay, ”Your Company Needs a Space Strategy. Now.” The two join Ryan today to discuss the thinking behind this theory, along with:

• Space-for-space vs. space-for-Earth

• What types of students study space at HBS?

• The most encouraging signs of “innovism” on orbit

• Why we’re living through an inflection point in space

• Should we prioritize human spaceflight or automation?

• The chicken and egg problem facing space station developers

• Could the commercial space market be in the middle of a bubble?

…and more! Ryan quizzes the two on how their “space strategy” framework would apply to sectors ranging from semiconductors to consumer packaged goods, and probes for areas where the two disagree. You don’t want to miss this convo—it’s bound to shape how you think about the economics of space.

Watch Pathfinder #0032 now

Due to connectivity issues this morning down in Austin, we only have the YouTube link ready to go this morning—-you can check out the episode here. For the Spotify and Apple links, hang tight. We’ll have em ready by tomorrow.

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In Other News

• SpaceX conducted a full Starship wet dress rehearsal, loading the stacked Ship and Booster with 10M+ pounds of propellant.

• SSC, or Space Systems Command, set a new launch record last week, placing the classified USSF-67 mission and a new GPS bird into orbit within just 61 hours.

• ESA is easing up on its policy not to award launch contracts to small rocket companies that have not yet achieved an orbital flight.

• NASA decided to stop trying to unfold the Lucy probe’s second solar array, at least until late next year.

• SDA renamed its National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA) to the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA). Much catchier.

• The UK Space Agency announced a £50M pot to back projects that “will supercharge the UK’s satellite communications industry.”

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