Hello and welcome back to Max Q!
In this issue:
- A closer look at Umbra
- News from Rocket Lab, Astranis and more
Umbra co-founder Gabe Dominocielo’s last name is roughly translated from the Latin as “lord of the skies.” It’s a fitting title for the head of a satellite imagery company — but in a recent interview with , he joked that his last name should be “unit economics.”
“Space isn’t my background,” he said. “My passion is unit economics.”
Umbra’s story can be summed up as a marriage of technological innovation and — you guessed it — sound unit economics.
Image Credits: Umbra (opens in a new window)
More news across TC
- Amazon will spend $120 million on a new satellite processing facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for its Project Kuiper satellite internet constellation.
- Astranis said its first commercial internet satellite will be unable to provide full coverage to Alaska due to a technical issue with the spacecraft’s solar arrays.
- Pew Research Center found that few Americans think that going to the moon or Mars should be among NASA’s top priorities.
- Rocket Lab advanced its Electron reusability program with its most recent launch, which includes a number of upgrades to the booster to make it more water-resilient.
- SpaceX’s Swarm Technologies is halting new sales of its modem, in a move that seems to be connected to SpaceX’s plans to move into the sat-to-cell market.
- Virgin Galactic is gearing up for its second commercial launch in August, which will send three private citizens to suborbital space and back.
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