Satellite-enabled Rebelle Rally with Iridium.

I want you to imagine with me for a moment an eight-day 2,500 kilometer navigation challenge across the Nevada and California deserts with no GPS and no cell phones. Competitors rely solely on analog tools like compasses, maps and roadbooks all to find hidden checkpoints and to navigate the unforgiving terrain. And behind the scenes of all of this there is a modern logistics marvel made possible by satellite powered tracking, scoring, communications and emergency response all delivered of course via space. To find out more let's dive in to the Rebelle rally. [Music] I'm Maria Varmazis and this is T-minus Deep Space. My guest today has not only participated in the Rebelle rally she is also part of a team that enables the event. Let's find out more. Suzi McBride I'm the Chief Operating Officer here at Iridium and Iridium is a telecommunication system that happens to use satellites for our network. You know we're very proud of what we built over the last 25 plus years. We started back in the 90s and I was actually part of the original building of the Iridium network when I was at Motorola and you know back then it was designed to be basically a business person's phone to use while they're roaming and traveling around the world. It has completely innovated and changed from that original concept that technology was fantastic but the business case back in the 90s didn't materialize as you know Motorola originally hoped and so you know we continue to innovate and we do a lot of like an internet of things connections personal communications maritime and aviation safety so anything that needs me connected that's important around the global world because we're a fully global network is what we do and for me particular my job is around all the technology both you know the R&D we do developing our products and our services and then running the 24/7 operations. Susan McBride That's amazing well thank you Suzy it's great to meet you and I'm so amped because this is not sort of my usual interview where I usually talk to people just about you know the products that they're building or some cool development this is a sort of a dual use interview where you are both working on this incredible suite of products but also you have used them in the field so this is a really I don't often get to have this kind of chat so without further ado tell me about the rebel rally I want to tease this a little bit before we get into why we're talking about this but can you tell me what the rebel rally is first and then we'll get into the why we're talking about this. Suzy So the rebel rally is the longest US based road rally that is a competition on navigation so it's not a speed race it really is a very precision long road rally that is off-road like they got a 4x4 and X cross crossover tech class and Emily Miller who designed it she wanted to make a very challenging the longest one in the United States it's over like 2500 kilometers and it's an eight-day competition and it just happens to be for women so it's a driver and a navigator make a team and they go out for eight days completely off the grid and it's all done by maps and navigations and I can go into all all kinds of stories about it but it's a it's I've done it now this I just finished my fourth event I've done it three years ago was my last time took a three-year break and then just did this this the 2025 competition which was the ten-year anniversary of this event it's extremely challenging it is exhilarating powerful but it's very tough and it really challenges you in so many different ways and aspects yeah and where and where does it take place it's because it's it's looked phenomenally difficult when I was looking at the pictures of it I said why where is this you never know until you get out there that's kind of challenge it's I mean you kind of know where the start is in the end and that's it and every day is different and you don't you get your kind of coordinates for the day in the morning to have to plot it so you kind of don't know it's kind of a surprise and it involves as the days go on but it usually starts in usually California Nevada like this year we started in Mammoth California and kind of goes through parts of Nevada and California and it usually ends kind of more in Southern California we usually end up in sand dunes we do a lot of dirt roads and navigate across the desert landscaping and view oh wow it's I was gonna say I can imagine that's got to be extraordinarily beautiful challenging but beautiful yeah wow so the reason that I asked you about the rebel rally is you you mentioned you've been a participant many times is that there's also a role that iridium plays here and I wanted you to walk me through that as well if you don't mind yeah yeah no and it was actually back in 2019 and our director of communications you know called me and said hey there's this all female rally out in the middle of the desert they want us to come out as a VIP would you go I'm like sure I live in Arizona as my base so you know going out to play on Miss Sand Dunes was only a three-hour drive and so I show up you know I think it was a Friday when they were all coming in finalizing the end of the rally coming into the finish line and the reason they asked us is because Emily Miller when she designed this this rally she chose iridium to be her safety component and they are in the middle of the desert in very remote locations she want to make sure that you know safety was number one concern for her with all these competitors there's usually a hundred to 150 and competitors plus about a hundred of staff as well so she want to make sure they always had communication she want to make sure that there was tracking of all the participants the safety crews the teammates and she also used it for scoring and so when I went out there and seeing how they were using iridium in such a unique way it was such a great playground for what we are all about which is safety services about personal communications and I met these women doing the rebel that that year which were all just powerful smart women mostly in STEM a lot of STEM places to have a personal passion for that I called all my friends up and I said would you do it with me in 2020 and so we signed up and I thought was a phenomenal way for me also to really truly experience how our products are being used in a kind of a day-to-day activity yeah so it was it was just a great opportunity and that's a great challenge I would love to hear about your experiences and I would just want to start with how do you train for something like this because I was I was perusing the website a little bit because I mentioned before we started recording I admit ignorance I hadn't heard of the rebel rally so I was trying to learn a little bit about it and I'm going how do you train how do you prepare I mean this is just an incredible challenge it is and I was not an off-roader I still I don't consider myself an off-roader I say I'm a rebel off-roader because I do it for the rebel but it was I had it I actually had a Jeep at the time I had never really taken an off-road and so this really pushed me to kind of learn more about my own vehicle that sat in my driveway and something else the rebel and Emily really preaches that a lot of these cars are capable a lot more than people use them for and so I you know went to they've got training for the rebel you they call it they do training on how to navigate and some of the driving I went out some of the past rebels who just the community of the rebel women are just powerful and strong they came in and they helped train but you know you start with how do you plot how do you put take the coordinate a lot long and how do you actually put it on a map and then how do you find that on the map once you're actually in the real world doing it and then just some you know some training with a few of the experts to on how do you use all the pieces of your car I learned things that I never knew were like what lockers were and my sway bar and things that all sounded very foreign to me when I started and you just kind of you know take it one step at a time it was a challenge and scary but after doing it it kind of it feels in powerful that I've changed a tire now I never knew how to do before so it really pushes pushed me out of my comfort zone yeah and kind of to your limits that you never knew I mean there's days on the rails hard and there are days that are tough and challenging and you know you're exhausted and tired and sometimes it's hot out there and you get stuck in the sand and all you want to do is get back and you're like I've got nothing left in me but you're you know what are you gonna do you have to get out you have to figure out how to get out of the situation and so that's what it's all kind of about is kind of pushing into those areas and realizing you can do it really can [Music] we'll be right back yeah relying on your ingenuity and your perseverance and your grit to get you through that that that sounds like a really transformative experience I've got to say that's got to be incredibly powerful yeah it is and I a lot of people do come back and you know sometimes it's reset courses of people's lives but in one part of it just it really roots you in kind of what's important and and for somebody who works in communications it's ironic for me to say this but it is amazing to be off the grid completely yeah and focus in on one thing for that week you know it's really just your entire world becomes just that that that focus of what you do and every night when you come home to the base camps wherever they are it's all about the community coming together having dinner together and talking about your day you know going to bed and getting up the next morning and doing again so I really do think it's a phenomenal experience for me just be able to focus in that that clearly on one thing yeah and just let the rest of the world go for a week yeah yeah it's it's the few times I've been in a situation where I've been off grid I felt oddly both it kind of comforted to be disconnected but very vulnerable also I didn't realize how dependent I'd become on that sense of connectivity and I imagine it I don't want to put words in your mouth I mean that's just how I thought about it but I would imagine being in a situation where you know you're in an extreme environment you are off-grid it gives you a great appreciation for many people who are in similar situations who use I would guess iridium products too absolutely and that's I mean I was gonna say that that's one thing that makes it more comforting yeah because we know we're never truly off-grid but you know I would not feel as comfortable at all just doing it alone without having the connectivity we do have I know we're being tracked we know that if we got into any situation so we carry up we care in a radium phone every competitor has one so if anything happens where they really get into a situation they have a phone to call anytime they can call dispatch they can call emergencies we have you know the radium scoring there's a tracker from our partner yellow brick that does why be tracking tracks us and we actually push that to score which gives us our we also can give you a coordinates of your feel lost you can also push that get your coordinates and figure out where you are so it's a little bit false say complete after grid because we are directly with the radium which is super important but yeah but it gives you that sense of security that then you can go and do this and then really focus in so I'm like you it's scary at first to go off the grid and like disconnect from family and work and everything else you have in your life but it's also really empowering to just realize how important is to connect with people again and just be in that moment yeah I'm wondering I probably should ask this earlier but could you give me a sense of what an average day during the Revelle rally is like it's such a day could be that is average what what is that like yeah no so so most mornings you get up anywhere between 4 and 5 a.m. and at 5 a.m. is when they are 5 10 actually but is when they open the base camp tent and that's when you get start getting your coordinate points for the day I'm a driver so I mainly drive Heidi who is my partner who's done this last couple years she will take those points and she clocks them all in the morning I'm getting breakfast I'm packing our if we're moving unpacking our bags up and getting the car ready I also do some Enduro there's math you have to do to kind of figure out your timing and when that start to start line is about 7 a.m. and at that point base they were different orders you know we head up for the day and we're basically chasing points all day long for about 10 hours a day and it's go go go the days go by super fast and you have just three different kinds of check points there's green which is really easy kind of like skiing you know a green green flags easier to find and there's people there for safety there's blues which are smaller flags or little poles but you can kind of find them she know where they are and then there's blacks which have nothing so you you know could be right here or right over there you don't know because there's no nothing to identify it and so you have to really just say I think it's here and push the button and click and then the the radium system is used to do geo fencing around those points to see if you're right or wrong getting scorey okay on a black one there's different like 25 meter rings and depending on the math we're on if we're like on a 200,000 scale map then you know you're a little pencil marker point five pencil is 50 meters so like you know you're trying to get within 25 meters to get the most points so it's very much precision about how accurate you are at your plotting and getting there but for 10 day for 10 hours we are basically out in the desert or different parts mountains where we are chasing these points and watching our time because there's a lot of time limits you have to do and then we usually come back into camp you know five ish in the evening and if you make it back on time we missed one back base camp we were late so and then there's a phenomenal dinner she actually has a Michelin chef that it has been doing this for 10 years through Deckman who comes in and we usually have a wonderful meal and that's where all the headers come back in you know Emily usually talks to us in the evening sometimes if there's topics and then I'll go to bed and do it again the next morning that sounds incredible honestly I I've never I've never known about an event like this before so hearing about it just blowing my mind how challenging but unique this really sounds I'm just sounds really cool no no wonder my team was so excited about us getting to talk. Thank you. I mean if the women out there come from all different parts there's certainly people who are more in the industry and understand four-wheeling and off-roading but so many of us don't which is kind of fun too just to get to meet all these different women from all different types of backgrounds whether there's there's GM's from Las Vegas hotels there is construction there you know there's lawyers I mean there's just all kinds of interesting people and backgrounds as part of the rebel which also makes the connections over your friendships and to row in a unique way as well. That's awesome yeah I can I could see it appealing to people who are really into pathfinding and off-roading and and it is a really interesting intersection of all these different things that sounds really really fascinating. I'd love to hear your reflections to bring it back to sort of the iridium and the technology side of things just to get some reflections on you know this this fascinating intersection of you know making sure that you know safety through satellite technology when terrestrial networks are not available or scarce and you know being in a situation where you are dependent on that for your safety and and just just reflections on that let's just go with that for now. Yeah I mean that's again why I did it why we now actually have sponsored several iridium teams so we actually some of our employees come together put a team together because I think it's important for them to also get out there and really immerse themselves in a world where iridium is critical to being able to even do this event in the first place for Emily to go get all those permits to do this I mean she's got to work a lot with those the Bureau of Land Management and other areas to permit this type of event given the criticality and the numbers of people that are involved in it and it's because of iridium both in that there's other systems out there but she chose iridium because she knew it was very reliable she knew that you know she could build an entire event around us you know again it's not her event but around our technology it because it was reliable because she knew it would be there it also we also provide multiple products which are good we got the phone we got the trackers and then we also have push to talk which is another key enabler and differentiator what we provide which is for the safety teams and the support teams are working they can do a very large net basically you know a push to talk network that could span hundreds of kilometers for us it could be in the world and you can be anywhere in the world and have your own net and so that's the part I think that made us very unique to contribute to having all the components needed to you know from one network to support all these different angles of what you need to have an event such as the rebel rally it's amazing and I want to make sure I give you wrap up thought time anything you want to leave our audience with it is open forum anything you'd like to add yeah no I mean I'm glad you're interested in it I think it's a great showcase of such a great event as well as with iridium and I encourage anybody who's even considering it if it sparks an interest you know get out there learn more I would go let this there's a rebellion university you know they got rebellion you can go and do your own training to see if you like it don't be afraid of it because like I said I'm not an off-roader I don't claim to be I don't think I ever will be but it is such an empowering event and I love that it just showcases what Sally technologies can do and especially what iridium is all about that's wonderful Susie thank you so much for telling me your story this has been a delight I've learned so much from you today and now I know I will be keeping an eye out on every year the rebel rally seeing how people do because this is I'm fascinated this is so neat you should have experience it that's maybe maybe we'll see how much we can next year and come here that's it's an amazing watch a road command into the finish line I bet and you had me at Michelin star chef so that was like wow well seriously thank you so much for sharing your story I really appreciate it well thank you very appreciate it too [Music] that's T-minus deep space brought to you by N2K Cyberwire we'd love to know what you think of our podcast your feedback ensures that we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry if you like our show please share a rating and review in your podcast app or you can send an email to space@n2k.com we're proud that N2K Cyberwire is part of the daily routine of the most influential leaders and operators in the public and private sector from the fortune 500 to many of the world's preeminent intelligence and law enforcement agencies N2K helps space and cyber security professionals grow learn and stay informed as the next is for discovery and connection we bring you the people the technology and the ideas shaping the future of secure innovation learn how at N2K.com N2K's senior producer is Alice Carruth our producer is Liz Stokes we're mixed by Elliott Peltzman and Tre Hester with original music by Elliott Peltzman our executive producer is Jennifer Eiben Peter Kilpe is our publisher and I am your T-minus host Maria Varmazis thank you for listening we'll see you next time [MUSIC]