Ground Segment as a Service with Leaf Space.

One thing we can all agree on in the industry is that space is expensive. From design to R&D, production through launch, the cost can run well into the millions of dollars. But the cost don't stop once spacecraft reach space and for satellite says the cost of returning data to Earth. That's where ground stations come in and to build and maintain them across the world to effectively support missions doesn't always have to be the job of the launch companies. [Music] Welcome to T-Minus Deep Space from N2K Networks. I'm Alice Karuth, producer of the T-Minus Space Daily podcast and our host Maria Valmasas will be speaking to our guest. Our guest today is Jay Delani, managing director of Leafspace US. Leafspace is an Italian company specializing in ground segment as a service solutions. Its mission is to simplify satellite communications by providing managed services for satellite operators. I lead the sales and business development for the US market. So I run the US office essentially for Leafspace. We are an Italian entity. So we are based in Italy, Milan, Italy, 10 years since inception. I've been working for Leafspace about four years now. Before that I was at AWS ground station and before that I was at several companies but my satellite earlier started with Iridium and then Orbcom. So I've been in this satellite communications business for over 11 years now. That's fantastic and I've spoken to a number of those companies before. Those are all great names and great orgs to be working with. So definitely super interested in learning more about Leafspace also. So maybe to kind of set up the premise here, ground segment as a service, can you sort of give me the overview of? I have a general sense of what that means but I'd love to hear from you. What should I know about ground segment as a service as someone who has an understanding of what ground segment does and the need for more capacity? But beyond that, that's sort of where my understanding ends. Absolutely. I'll be happy to help you because when I was new in the industry, when I joined AWS on the ground station side, it wasn't new industry to me as well because I primarily come from the terminal market, the products, the terminals that the users use in different markets, be it recreational maritime, be it industrial mining, be it landmobile, or be it aeronautics. So I come from that world being in Iridium and Orbcom driving a number of those product lines. So it was new to me and one person placed it really succinctly that satellites are up there in orbit and you are communicating with them but there needs to be a link where all that data can come down to earth from the satellite. And that's where ground segment comes in, which is essentially serves as a backhaul or feeder links as they also call it technically speaking, where there's a bunch of antennas and as the satellite passes through or over ground station, it communicates with the ground station antenna, gets commands from it, downlinks all the data, onboard data to the ground station so that it can be processed further. And this data can be anything. There's a number of applications, earth observation, Internet of Things, narrowband, or wideband satellite communications, whatever. But the gist is the ground segment is comprised of mainly large antennas, large dishes that communicate with the satellite and then bring all the data down and then pass them on to the customer. These antennas are usually quite capex heavy. They're quite expensive not only to procure but to install and maintain around the world. So the ground segment as a service concept really takes the capex out of it and converts it into an apex equation for the companies, for the satellite operators. So what the ground segment as a service providers do is they procure these antennas, they deploy them, they operate them, maintain them, and then sell the capacity, the antenna capacity to the satellite operator. So the satellite operators, they just focus on launching their own satellites. They do not have to worry about the ground segment and they pay the ground segment service providers for as much capacity they utilize on their network. So for them, it really becomes, they don't have to invest additional resources, additional capex into infrastructure that is not of primary nature to their business model. It's a must have because they need to bring the data down. But having ground segment as a service, now they can streamline the cost structure and then focus on their core business, which is launching the satellites and specific payloads on them. That makes sense. Yeah, traditionally I would imagine it was a sort of a bundled situation. You needed to have all these things sort of lined up in place before you could move ahead with your mission. And now, especially with the huge proliferation of satellites we see in all sorts of sectors, but just the sheer number that we've got. I can't imagine, I mean, capacity for on the ground is definitely always a concern. It's a growing concern. And I imagine that this approach can help really alleviate that where if you're launching a satellite or a series of satellites, you don't have to also figure out how you, as you said, to have that investment for a ground segment. But yeah, I'd love to get your thoughts on that capacity question because that is something that I know is a really pressing issue is trying to figure out who you can downlink to, I think. Right? I mean, so what are your thoughts on that? There are several facets to that question. So I'll answer them in three ways. One of them is we cannot install ground stations or antennas anywhere around the world where we want. There's countries that are embargoed. There are regions that have extreme weather conditions where installing an antenna, providing connectivity to it, to providing power to it is almost impossible. So there's only a limited number of countries where we can install the ground stations. Second is the coverage. The real, I would say, benefit of using ground segment as a service provider is the ground segment as a service provider is focused on setting up as many antennas throughout the world globally as possible. So the more the regions, the better the coverage, the more opportunities there are for the satellite operator to maintain contact or have contact with these antennas and be able to command the satellite or download the digital. And the fresher the data, the more importance it has, they can set it up to preview me. Now having said that, the third part is regulatory challenges. If they were to deploy their own antenna, South Africa as an example. Now they have to get permissions from the South African regulator to operate the antenna. They have to deal with that additional overhead and burden, which leaves space as a ground segment as a service provider alleviates that burden as well. Because we, where we deploy our antennas in different regions, we also obtain regulatory authorizations so that our customers can start operating on those over the antennas right away as soon as the antennas operational. So we take that burden off of the customer. And that's been one of the biggest pain points for all of us, for all our customers launching satellites. Absolutely. So I can imagine that the flip side of using a service that is not solely dedicated to mission would be tasking or scheduling. So my understanding is you all have a really interesting solution around that. I would love to hear more about that because that one, I imagine is a big question for a lot of folks. Yes. And so, you know, right from the start, what we have done is we have defined our architecture natively in a software defined fashion so that it's configurable. And since every customer of ours, there is, I would say that, you know, every mission is different. Every mission's requirements are different. Like for example, if there's an auto observation provider, they may need a pass every orbit. If there's a new provider, which has, we're just launching a technical demonstration satellite. They only may need one or two passes per day. And they may only need a backhaul or bandwidth of like, say, less than, you know, 20 Mbps, for example. Auto observation might need a really high data really downlink. So we need to comply a little bit, all these different requirements and be sure that the ground station can satisfy these requirements for all our customers. And you see there's different types of missions going up now. Auto observation, remote sensing, there's orbital transfer vehicles, which can do maneuvering between orbits. There's technical demos, there's narrow band satellite communications, there's wide band satellite communications, wide band as like very high ultra high data rates. There's a new crop of satellites going up that are involved in rendezvous and proximity operations, RPO operations. As well as in-space manufacturing is becoming a new, you know, target as well. So each of these missions are so specific in their requirements from the ground segment. We look at all these requirements, we collect all these requirements from different customers, we collate them, we come up with different capabilities, different feature sets. And being natively software defined allows us to do that quickly. So we have in-house software development guys that develop or enhance our software defined radios that are residing on the ground station because every satellite has a different radio on board, has different communication requirements. Having the software defined radios on our ground stations allows us to, you know, configure them on the fly in real time. The other aspect of being software defined is we have an automated network scheduler which runs on the cloud and automatically schedules contacts or visibility as you call it across all our ground stations. Currently, we have 26 ground stations or 17 locations and we are expanding at a very rapid pace. We closed our series B last year. It was around $40 million US dollars. Congratulations. Great. Thank you. Thank you. It's been a big help for us to be expanding our network, not only that. We have seen US as getting a great foothold in the US market which globally as you know, US is the leader. So we have had a tremendous amount of success in the US market. So we have had a bunch of contracts, bunch of new customers signed up since the past couple of years and we are flying over 100 satellites on our network. So the number of satellites on our network is just increasing and handling or providing the capacity or the service to all these satellites is only possible through our automated scheduling platform that we have been operating. It has, you know, we have a patent on it as well. Now that's to, let's do this map, new new satellites right in, have them interface or you utilize the ground stations without much of a lift on our side. We'll be right back. Yeah, that's very cool and especially that proprietary scheduling is, it makes a lot of sense given what you all do and that's a really neat capability. And I was looking at also some differentiators. You all mentioned zero trust security architecture and that makes me happy as a cybersecurity person just to see that get a good mention. That again, given you all are very software focused also that makes a lot of sense that you can bake that in. I imagine that's also a serious requirement given that you work with a lot of different customers to have that security baked in. Increasingly as cybersecurity is becoming a big part of our offering as well. And we are actively looking at what needs to be done on the cybersecurity side. So we have an inherent, inherently we have a zero trust architecture. So even if we get had the customer's data is still protected. And we are looking at the different standards across Europe and North America as well. ISO 27001 in Europe and the NIST 800171 in the US. So we are in the process of getting those certifications, compliances. So that's, yeah, we don't view that as a big requirement of, especially the defense. Defense requires us to be compliant with the standard. So also our customers who are serving the defense markets. Absolutely. It makes a lot of sense. It's a definite absolute need there. Well, you mentioned also last year you all got a series B, which is fantastic news. I'm curious as you all continue to grow, maybe what the vision is for long-term growth for you out leaf space. So that's a great question, Maria. The vision for long-term growth is to provide as much coverage to our customers as possible, not only in Leo orbits, which is a primary, most of the customers are now that we are serving are in Leo orbits, operating Leo orbits. But we do have plans to sell the geo orbits as well because we see a lot of the new space companies going into the geo space for geo servicing missions or over the transfer vehicles going to the geo belt to drop off the customer satellites or to perform random proximity operations, refuelling operations. So there's a whole bunch of crop of them that have very specific requirements around geographic or geo synchronous or geo stationary belts. So we are looking to expand into that market. And we're also looking to expand into the system market in the near future. There's optical on the horizon as well. It's taken off between for inter satellite links now. This we're still waiting on the maturity of optical ground stations as well as space to ground links. So once there's this maturity over there and once we have customer signals, the demand signals, we will proceed with deploying optical ground stations as well. And natively, you know, leap space is, focuses their attention on what the customers tell us. So we operate on customer feedback and if the customers tell us, hey, go give us optical ground connectivity, we'll plan to do that. Because now we see increased, also increased number of increasing number of missions in the system space from the private sector that has been, you know, a government only initiative in the past. So that's another area of interest for us. So near term and immediate attention is on putting many grounds, many more ground stations around the world. So from 26, we want to expand to 40 and then to 45 or 47 by the end of 2025. And then even even more after that, and all depends on the demand signals from the market. So one example of that is also is a lot of customers are going into the K a band, which provides high data rate downlink capability for especially for observation customers. So we have activated our first K a band ground station in Iceland in the past couple months. And then we will be deploying two more K band ground stations in Punta Rina, Chile, as well as in one of one in New Zealand. Then we have plans to deploy another one in Alaska as well. And then a couple more locations. But that that really depends on the customer feedback and and the number of K band missions that will be flying in the near future. A lot of really cool plans in the works there. So I'm I'm I'm wishing you all the absolute best as you continue to grow and your capabilities continue to serve new markets. That's very exciting stuff. Well, thank you so much for for speaking with me today. I want to make sure I give you an opportunity to wrap up. If there's anything else you wanted to mention before we conclude now is your opportunity. Oh, no, thank you so much for the opportunity. One thing one thing I would say is, you know, we all the years we have learned a lot, my own mistakes from from what we have seen in the market. We have evolved rather rapidly. And we have we have quite a few differentiators that differentiate us from other providers in the market. There our focus is on providing a ton key service, be it for dedicated antennas for the customers, be it for antennas that are shared between the customer's satellites or even pricing. We include all aspects of the service, including getting licenses on the for the ground stations and and backhauling all the data for for our customers from the antenna to their endpoints in a single price per minute, which has turned turned out really well for us. Our customers really like that. They really like the simplicity of our service. We like to compare our service with driving a car. You know, the car is we open the hood and you don't know what's what's what. There's a lot of wiring underneath machinery underneath. But all you care is about the is all you care is the steering wheel, the brakes and the accelerator. So those are the, you know, the controls that you operate the service with. And that's what that's what we have been striving to provide to our customers as well. Fantastic. That's a very easy to understand metaphor. So thank you for that. I like that. I'm leaving us with that one. I like it. Thank you again for your time, Maria. That's it for Team Minus Deep Space, brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. We'd love to know what you think of this podcast. You can email us at space@intuk.com or submit the survey in the show notes. Your feedback ensures we deliver the information that keeps you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. Team Minus Deep Space is mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our associate producer is Liz Stokes. Our executive producer is Jennifer Iben. Our executive editor is Brandon Kav. Simone Portrella is our president. Peter Kilpie is our publisher. Our interview was conducted by Maria Valmarzis and I'm Alice Carruth. Thanks for listening. [Music] . [Music] (gentle music) [BLANK_AUDIO]