In a world where enterprises can rent not just additional computing power, but their entire IT network, Tokyo-based startup Infostellar is using that model by offering ground-station-as-a-service for the emerging Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite market. Satellite operators are only able to use their hugely expensive ground stations to communicate with a satellite when the bird…

Finnish startup Iceye has big ambitions — the smallsat company wants to do for satellite imagery what IBM did for computing in the ‘80s. “We want to democratize the technology, to make it available for everyone,” said Rafal Modrzewski, the company’s co-founder and CEO. IBM took computer technology, then available only to large corporations, and…

Agility was one aspect of New Space that On Orbit guests could agree on, as they put the hotly debated term under the microscope during a live podcast recording at SATELLITE 2020. Traditionally the space industry has worked with very long production cycles, explained Tanya Harrison, manager of science programs for Planet Labs, a company…

Space is getting more crowded, but the growing risk of a satellite colliding with orbital debris is what economists call “a tragedy of the commons” — it’s no one’s job to fix it. At the same time, the way the U.S. government keeps track of all that space junk is being radically shaken up, just…