View Transcript: The Space Show Transcript
Guest: Marc Bell, CEO of Terran Orbital; Topics: A brief cubesat history, LEO, MEO & GEO satellites, lunar satellites, DOD and intelligence agency customers and products, funding, public stock issues, and more.
We welcomed Marc Bell, CEO of Terran Orbital to the show for a fascinating one hour cubesat, satellite, national security plus more discussion. To find out more about Terran Orbital, check out their website at https://www.terranorbital.com. We covered many many topics during our discussion, starting with a brief history of Terran Orbital and its part in the creation of cubesats plus much more regarding innovation regarding satellites. A good part of the first section of the show was devoted to this discussion. I urge you to listen to it as much of it was new history or history not frequently discussed by other Space Show guests. Following that, I urge you to follow the topic suggestions per our tags and key words as they do a great job in summarizing the key elements of our discussion. The tags-key words are repeated below for your convenience.
Tags-key words: “Marc Bell, Terran Orbital, NewSpace pioneer, cubesat inventor, SpaceX, school bus size satellites, Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, Inc, DOD & Intel Agency customers, LEO, LEO speed, life expectancy, deorbiting, Starlink, funding, future business, technology advances, cyber threats, GEO products, lunar products, Space Traffic Management, on orbit servicing, debris concerns, data base upgrades, SPACs, EFT, Ukraine, regulatory concerns, Marc’s path to satellites, company diversification, in-house production, vertical and horizontal integration, inspired by sci-fi movies, private space stations.”
Some of the highlights for me included the innovation that Marc and his organization have continually provided throughout his personal and company business history. Listen to this history, especially the history beyond that of cubesats. I also found it most interesting that Terran’s customer base was mostly DOD and intelligence agencies. This led to questions about satellites and the role they are playing in the Ukrainian war, especially private sector remote imaging satellites. When asked about cyber he interesting things to say but was limited in his commentary for security reasons. Unfortunately for those of us wanting more info on cyber, as expected all the good information is classified or held tight to the chest by the company and people involved. Another part of the discussion that grabbed my attention was Terran’s operations beyond LEO including GEO and Lunar yet in many ways they fly under the radar. It would be great for you to comment on what you are hearing and to do that, just post away on our blog for this show.
Other than content which I found most interesting, another part of the show that got my attention was how interesting and enjoyable it was talking with the guest. He was a great guest with amazing energy and clarity. I’m quite sure you will pick up on this when you hear this show. For my part, I will certainly go back to Marc for updates and industry questions and more education down the road.
One other part worth bringing to your attention dealt with orbital servicing and space traffic management. Fremont John called and started us on the road to orbital servicing but this subject along with the traffic management issues, well, these are red hot issues today. Since I have been doing Then and Now programming, think back to the early years of The Space Show and what was going on in the industry back then. Orbital servicing was just a dream and now it is becoming reality. Decades later and lots of work and labor by dedicated and innovative folks. Space Traffic Management was just a dream back in 2001. OMG! We might need to control traffic in space? Well, here we are. It’s a burning priority issue today.
There was much more to this discussion than in this summary as you can tell from the tags so do listen to the full 60 minute program. Please post your comments/questions for our guest on the blog for this program. You can reach Marc Bell through me or the Terran Orbital website, www.terranorbital.com.