Aalyria just emerged from stealth mode, announcing an acquisition of a trove of connectivity technology from Google. The search juggernaut's parent company Alphabet has been developing high-altitude networking technology and apparently a space laser for years, if not decades. Aalyria is setting out to commercialize a lot of this technology, including much of the IP that ran in production with Alphabet's high-flying Loon connectivity balloons.
The startup is promising the world, and then some, with two products to its name: Spacetime & Tightbeam. We bring Aalyria CTO Brian Barritt on the show this week to dig into the startup's vision.
0:00 — Live intro
0:34 — Aalyria has just emerged from stealth
4:17 — Brian's background
9:03 — Spacetime & Tightbeam
14:00 — Demoing the laser
18:41 — Air to ground, space to ground, ground to ground
20:15 — Acquiring Alphabet's tech & going independent
24:14 — Why now?
30:31 — Potential deep space applications
33:35 — What's derisked? And what's not?
38:40 — Commercial viability
43:29 — End of show Qs ... including the one we've all been dying to know Is Aalyria worried about aliens piggybacking off of its laser beams?
Brian's Twitter: https://twitter.com/brianbarritt?lang=en
Aalyria's Twitter: https://twitter.com/AalyriaTech
Company website: https://www.aalyria.com/ (head here for more on Spacetime & Tightbeam)
Ryan's Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ryandoofy
Spacetime description: "Spacetime is a software platform for orchestrating networks of ground stations, aircraft, satellites, ships, and urban meshes. It optimizes and continually evolves the antenna link scheduling, network traffic routing, and spectrum resources — responding in realtime to changing network requirements. Spacetime operates networks across land, sea, air, and space, at any altitude or orbit type, supports all radio frequency bands and optical wavelengths, and it is designed for interoperability with legacy, hybrid space, 5G NTN and FutureG network architectures."
Tightbeam description: "Tightbeam is the world's most advanced coherent light free space optics technology. At rates faster than any other solutions available today and covering greater distances than previously imagined, it moves data intact through the atmosphere and weather, and offers connectivity where no supporting infrastructure exists. Tightbeam radically improves satellite communications, Wi-Fi on planes and ships, and cellular connectivity everywhere."
Pathfinder is brought to you by Payload, a modern space media brand, and while we have designs on becoming the biggest space content company in the galaxy, for now, we publish:
1) Payload, our flagship daily newsletter, every Monday to Friday morning
2) Pathfinder, this podcast, on Tuesday mornings
3) ...and 💫Parallax!💫 on Thursday afternoons.
Parallax is our brand-spanking new weekly science newsletter for the space industry. Subscribe now so you can say you were early by signing up at parallax.beehiiv.com
And subscribe to our daily newsletter and find out more about Payload at www.payloadspace.com