The startup’s co-founders (from left): CTO Griffin Cleverly, CEO Bridgit Mendler and software lead Shaurya Luthra.
northwood space
Northwood Space, a new startup led by former TV star and singer Bridgit Mendler, has partnered with planet On-orbit imaging satellite.
“We are building this global network to send data to satellites, and it is based on phased array technology, which we have now successfully demonstrated in the lab and in the field,” Northwood CEO Mendler told CNBC.
Headquartered in El Segundo, California Northwood, unveiled earlier this yearthe focus is on the ground side of the spatial connectivity equation. Ground stations are important links for transmitting data to and from orbit, and are especially important for operating and controlling satellites.
The company’s prototype antenna “Frankie” was tested in North Dakota on October 5, 2024.
northwood space
The startup is developing ground stations that can be mass-produced and is betting that its phased array-based system, called Portal, can outperform the parabolic dishes traditionally used by ground station companies. It is expected that Portal will be able to connect to up to 10 satellites simultaneously, while parabolic dishes typically can only connect to 1 to 3 satellites.
“For Northwood, what we want to do is introduce a new connectivity standard for companies,” Mendler said.
The ground station-as-a-service market has many companies seeking opportunities to manage the Earth side of space infrastructure. Along these lines, Amazon has launched its AWS ground station service and Satellite communications giant Eutelsat Nearly $1 billion in deals are proposed in the sector.
Mendler’s Northwood wants to take ground station-as-a-service a step further, eliminating outages and “super expensive networks” that she says were “very difficult to connect to in a different era.”
“An analogy to the cellular industry – we draw an analogy to how cell towers and shared assets end up having players that are super vertically integrated – end up offloading their assets and selling them to tower companies. We expect the shared model will be efficiency,” Gates Dele said.
In her view, ground stations are the “third leg of the stool” for space technology, the other two being rockets (or cargo vehicles) and satellites (or orbital infrastructure).
“The industry is really at a stage where there’s a lot of interest in growth, and this is something we can really plug into the industry and accelerate progress,” Mendler said.
North Dakota Testing
The company’s prototype antenna was built in the early morning of October 2, 2024.
northwood space
Last week, Northwood’s team traveled to remote Maddock, North Dakota, to test its prototype antenna (“affectionately called Frankie,” Mendler noted) by attaching it to an orbiting Planet satellite.
The effort is called a TT&C (telemetry, tracking and control) test, and Northwood’s goal is to make contact with Planet’s satellites on S-band and X-band frequencies.
“We were able to achieve two-way communication with the planetary satellites throughout the flight and nominal communications for them. They were able to perform operations as if they were on their own systems,” Mendler said.
Test prototype on October 5, 2024.
northwood space
Northwood designed and built Frankie in four months and was able to deploy the antenna “from a truck to field sky testing” in six hours, the company said. Planet, which has more than 150 imaging satellites in orbit, called Northwood’s test a “major milestone.”
“Northwood not only solved historical issues of cost and scale, but built and successfully field-tested phased array antennas faster than previously thought. We are proud to be part of this breakthrough in ground station technology,” “Joseph Breu, Planet’s senior director of global terrestrial networks, said in a statement to CNBC.
Rendering of the Portal website.
northwood space
Northwood designed two antennas for its Portal system, a larger 5-by-5-foot S-band frequency antenna and a smaller 18-by-18-inch X-band antenna.
The company plans to begin deploying portals next year that can support up to 10 geostationary satellite connections, with data rates in excess of 1 gigabit per second per beam. Northwood is currently evaluating locations for its first portal in the United States, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
“Performance-wise, we achieved everything we hoped to achieve,” Mendler said, adding that Northwood was “extremely grateful for (Planet’s) involvement and support throughout the testing process.”
“It just unlocks a lot of the next chapter,” Mendler added.
