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Astranis Space Technologies Corp.

Company type	Private
Industry	Satellite Internet
Founded	October 20, 2015 (2015-10-20)
Founders	John Gedmark and Ryan McLinko
Headquarters	San Francisco, California
Key people	John Gedmark (Founder, CEO) Ryan McLinko (Founder, CTO) Martin Casado (Board Member, Andreessen Horowitz) Ethan Batraski (Board Member, Venrock) Dan Berkenstock (Board Member)
Products	MicroGEO communications satellite
Number of employees	100+ (2020)
Website	www.astranis.com

Astranis Space Technologies Corp., doing business as Astranis, is a private American satellite operator and manufacturer headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was founded by Chief Executive Officer John Gedmark and Chief Technical Officer Ryan McLinko to get the next four billion people online by building next-generation internet satellites.

Astranis’s first production satellite model, microGEO, is a geostationary telecommunications satellite twenty times smaller than existing telecommunications satellites from competitors like Airbus and Boeing. It is designed to be roughly one meter cubed in size and 350 kg in weight, which compares to legacy satellites like Intelsat EpicNG, which are upwards of 8m x 4m x 4m in size and 6,500 kg in weight.

In January 2018, Astranis launched DemoSat-2, a prototype 3U cubesat to test the company’s homegrown Software-Defined Radio (SDR) technology for its larger communications satellites. The prototype worked as expected, demonstrating broadband and HD video streaming capabilities from low-earth orbit.

In January 2019, Astranis announced their first commercial program, a partnership with Pacific Dataport, Inc., the largest satellite TV provider in Alaska, to triple the satellite internet capacity of Alaska. CEO John Gedmark said that the Alaska deal would generate “many tens of millions of dollars” of revenue for the company beginning in 2021.

Astranis has raised over $100 million in venture capital and venture debt financing from Andreessen Horowitz, Venrock, and other investors. The company was part of the Winter 2016 cohort of the Y Combinator accelerator.

MicroGEO Satellite Model

Traditional communications satellites operate from geostationary orbit, 35,786 km from Earth and directly over the equator, so that they remain stationary above a fixed position on the ground as the Earth rotates. Launch costs for such satellites are high, (e.g., $57 million for an average Falcon 9 launch), so satellite manufacturers and operators have traditionally made geostationary telecommunications as large as possible to increase the quantity and size of their antennas and therefore provide higher throughput given the same fixed costs.

Artist rendering of Astranis microGEO Satellite

The Astranis model with their microGEO platform is different. Capitalizing on recent technological advances that make miniaturization of a satellite bus and payload feasible, Astranis is building a satellite for Alaska that they claim can fit into the ESPA Grande satellite class (1.2m x 1m x 1m; under 400 kg). The small size of the satellite significantly reduces its expected launch costs by allowing it to fly as a secondary payload, a class that costs on the order of magnitude of $7-9 million.

Astranis claims that the microGEO satellite class can also be built in 12-18 months, far faster than the industry standard five years.

Astranis microGEO size comparison

Demonstration Satellite Mission

On January 12, 2018, Astranis flew its first satellite, “DemoSat 2,” on an Indian PSLV-XL rocket. DemoSat was a 3U cubesat (10 cm x 10 cm x 30cm; less than 3 kg) that held an Astranis-built Software-Defined Radio (SDR) as its primary payload.

The Astranis SDR is another point of contrast between Astranis’s technology and that of legacy players. Where traditional satellite manufacturers only offer “bent-pipe” communications -- meaning, they transmit the same signals they receive, serving only as an analog relay -- the Astranis SDR allows for digital signal processing to happen onboard the satellite. That computing power can be used to reduce interference before re-transmission, to change frequencies or waveforms while in orbit, and support dynamic beamforming and channelization.

Astranis demonstrated their SDR technology on DemoSat, earning their technology flight heritage. CEO John Gedmark said afterwards that “all tests worked perfectly. We successfully demonstrated streaming HD videos up to the spacecraft, processed in real-time by our digital payload, and then sent back down again to our ground station in Alaska.”

Alaska Mission

Astranis announced its first commercial program on January 16, 2019. The mission of the program is to triple the internet capacity of Alaska by launching a single microGEO satellite.

Of all Alaskans, just 61% have reliable internet access, the lowest number of any U.S. state. Those Alaskans who do have internet generally pay multiples of what individuals pay in the contiguous United States, often up to hundreds of dollars a month for basic home internet services.

For this first program, Astranis is partnering with Pacific Dataport, Inc., a subsidiary of Microcom, Alaska’s largest satellite TV provider. Astranis announced in August 2019 that it had a launch contract with SpaceX with a launch window beginning in Q4 2020.

Funding

Astranis has raised over $100 million in venture financing. They closed an $18 million Series A equity investment led by Andreessen Horowitz on March 1, 2018, and a $90 million Series B investment with equity and debt components on February 13, 2020 led by Venrock and with continued participation from Andreessen Horowitz. Astranis was also part of the Winter 2016 cohort of the Y Combinator accelerator.