Inside Bridgit Mendler’s New 185,000 sqft Northwood Space Factory

0:00Bridgit Mendler. Bridgit Mendler.

0:01Bridgit Mendler:Bridgit Mendler. This is 180 ,000 square feet. Damn. This is our manufacturing floor. We will have multiple manufacturing lines for our Prism and Portal products. So for both of those, that's going to be hundreds of antennas in production. Space systems were the major focus for a long time, and ground segment was kind of the afterthought. And a lot of networking infrastructure hasn't been touched since the 1990s. And so what got us excited was if you could provide that network foundation, think of how many more players could participate. So you've raised over$136 million from Founders Fund, 137 Ventures, Alpine, Washington Harbor.

0:37Bridgit Mendler:What do you foresee happening in the next 10 years?

0:49Bridgit Mendler:Bridget Mendler, thanks for having us at the new HQ. Your old tenants left you a lot of nice little gifts. Yep, yep. Like if you want kind of hospital aesthetic on your walls, we have a lot of good paintings up for grabs for anyone that wants them. But you did make a way with like this amazing NASA astronaut statue. Yeah, yeah. No, this building came with a lot of fun little treasures. There's like a NASA astronaut guy, pool table. So the team is advocating for some of the objects around here. So this is the year of hundreds for you. You recently had a hundred million dollar announcement back in January, February.

1:28Bridgit Mendler:Yeah. For a new funding round. This is a 185 square foot facility. How big is this? Thousand. Yes. OK. Yeah. Hundred and eighty thousand per feet. Yeah. Damn. Yeah. And it's designed to support hundreds of antennas in production. So a lot more antennas going to a lot more parts of the world and supporting a lot more space traffic. Amazing. So I guess for the general audience that does not know what ground stations are, what is the TLDR, the easy kind of description? So space missions need to send data into space, need to send data back to Earth in order to get any kind of value out of that mission, whether it be taking pictures of the Earth or communicating, delivering Wi-Fi or cellular connectivity, or supporting more of the space mobility use cases, where you're actually talking about just commanding a spacecraft that's moving around pretty dynamically in space.

2:26all of that requires some kind of connectivity back to the ground. And today, the state of that ground infrastructure is really lacking in the capacity and volume that it can support for the future of space missions. And so what we're responding to is a big surge in scale that is kind of matching that growth that you see both in launch and in spacecraft manufacturing.

2:48Bridgit Mendler:Why is there such a backlog? Like, like it was pretty obvious how much satellites were going to get built out. So why didn't the U.S. build out ground stations for this? I guess it depends on the customer segment. So for, you know, a government customer segment, they tend to procure their spacecraft and their ground systems separately. So space systems were the major focus for a long time. And ground segment was kind of just the afterthought. Like people think about what's the thing that you're putting up in space. And, you know, for a number of programs, the ground was just not really contemplated.

3:22And so that they started running into issues for that. And they were like, oh, man, we need to actually account for the ground in our build out so that we can serve that capacity. And then on the on the commercial operator side, it really is more of like a supply chain issue where you have a bunch of different suppliers and then the the actual operators of those ground sites. and then ultimately the software that's stitched on top of that. And for each of those parts of the value chain, it was just really challenging based on that structure to be able to be responsive to increased spacecraft demand.

3:57So as a lot of the operators are looking at launching new constellations, there's this moment of turnover where you have legacy operators who have their assets that are up in space right now, and they're thinking about, okay, what does our next generation look like so that we can be a part of this new wave of space? You have a whole wave of sovereign operators that are increasing their spacecraft manufacturing. So you have, you know, a lot of the bus companies that are serving that. And so then the ground operations needs to respond in kind, but that value chain is just not really set up to be responsive.

4:30And so for us, what we're doing is we're looking across that whole value chain and trying to accomplish it all within one company so that we can actually be responsive to that demand. do it at a better cost, make it more flexible, and just generally modernize. So how are you doing full stack ground support? It's a lot of disciplines that you tie into one company. So we cover everything from antenna development. We cover a lot of electrical work, a lot of digital signal processing, all within the hardware that we build. And then we have a whole sites team. So we actually think about how we manufacture and deploy those antennas.

5:13And that incorporates all the way back to the original design principles of what we build. How can we make things that fit in small form factors and that can go out and be shipped to any part of the world? And they have to basically construct really simple versions of sites. So that's a whole different set of discipline. You have to think about how do you operate in different countries? So, you know, if you're landing a site in Japan or in Argentina or Iceland, all those wildly different contexts, how can you make sure that that service is like legally operating and also technically able to function in those regions?

5:52So there's all those disciplines. And then on top of that, you need to have the software that can tie that all together, both from a user interface perspective, networking, making the hardware work. So it's a lot of different disciplines that have to come together to make that possible. I think, you know, we really focused on top of the line talent across all of those so that we can execute really effectively and orchestrate it all together. Right. Because if any one of those pieces doesn't fall in line, then it impacts the overall offering.

6:23Bridgit Mendler:So you have five sites now in 2026. What is it like getting those sites built out and what kind of regulations do you have to go through? Yeah, so like putting together a site, basically, you have to think about just the base infrastructure that you need. So connecting the space, you need to have fiber. That means you need to be able to network back through Earth. You need to have power. So how can you actually turn on the devices that you have at site? And then you need to have a plot of land to put things. So we've tried to strip it down to basically just those three things. and so we tend to co-locate with you know optimizing for places that already have those things readily available so data centers for example that's a spot that's really great for co-location because they already have that infrastructure in place and and they also have you know smart hands knowledgeable people on site that can fix things up so that's like the first layer of site sourcing is can you check all all three of those boxes beyond that you have to think about like what parts of the world do you want to serve for your customer base.

7:30And so for our customer base, they need to account for kind of global coverage to make sure that their spacecraft can operate, right? So like a satellite, it's moving around the earth if it's in, you know, in orbit lower than geostationary orbit. And so you need to make sure that that spacecraft can always be in contact. It's turned on, it's healthy, it's operating. And then you need to make sure that can stream data. So where are the users? Where are the customers that you want to make contact with? If you're serving customers in the UK, you want to have a location in the UK that you can make contact with.

8:07So that's really like the triangulation of locations. And then the layer on top of that is like, is it a region where you're going to be able to work with the local government. Fortunately for us, the licensing has been relatively easy to work with in the different regions that we focused on because most countries are open for business. They want to have more space business. And so, yeah, once you have the licensing checked off, you have the site scoped, you know where your customers are, you've got your ground site. Fun.

8:40Bridgit Mendler:Well, I mean, we've definitely seen with the SpaceX IPO, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, they all put out these reports on how amazing and how big the space industry is. So what kind of downstream effects are you seeing from maybe the mainstream on maybe hiring or culture, general education and interest on this space? I think there's definitely increasing interest externally. And I think from the talent base, there's also just the excitement of the momentum that it generates with where the industry is going. So I think both from the investor perspective, there's folks considering space as a real business category.

9:22And on the talent side, they're seeing it as a place where they can build their career. I think what's interesting, though, with the space economy, right, is like there's a lot of enthusiasm around the category, but you have to tie that back to business fundamentals. Like, is there a real business that is happening today while we are super excited about that future that the SpaceX IPO painted? I think for us as a company, we are and we have been, you know, since the beginning, very bullish on what kind of data was going to be moving through space. We've been big believers that more and more markets are going to be using space as the medium for transmitting data.

10:02And that has proven out, right? Now there's enthusiasm around compute use cases and there's enthusiasm about IoT and other future industries moving to space. But the reality is that's not space today. That's what we're building all this infrastructure to be ready for. but today you need to build off of like real businesses that exist and so I think for us like we're a pragmatic business like we're very excited about the potential of space we appreciate that there's public sentiment and excitement about space but we're also like making sure that we're building real business today so that we can kind of you know rely on our own business going forward

10:42Bridgit Mendler:what I love about coming and doing these factory tours even when they're pre-built yeah is that You can see all the different stations and the people that work at them, and they're all very intentional jobs. They're very clear-cut jobs. They're durable, and you build careers with them and that kind of thing. Whereas, you know, you can go into software companies and everyone kind of looks the same. But everybody at these manufacturing and factory jobs, they all have a role, and they're all different. So I guess, like, what kind of, what do you see from your employees about the excitement about those roles, and what are you hiring for?

11:16The excitement of more hardware-based roles? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot of excitement around hardware-based roles. And like I mentioned, we have a huge variety in the kinds of roles that we're hiring for. So I think folks are seeing, you know, the cool thing about the hardware that we make is it's the intersection of a lot of different disciplines. And so if you have a curious person, they like to know that there's going to be some integration between RF, EE, high-speed data processing, all of that within the same system. So while they're figuring out their piece of the puzzle, they have to actually think about a lot of other disciplines at the same time.

11:58So, yeah, I think if you like hard problems, it's a really juicy place to dig in.

12:05Bridgit Mendler:When we were walking through like the main HQ area, there was this really interesting room that you guys are going to build out. So what's going on in that room? I mean, part of it is like you inherit the building that you have, you know. So like, I mean, I don't know that we would have built out a movie theater ourselves, to be honest. But I think the cool thing as a ground company is you do need to have a form of mission ops. And so we are we're going to be, you know, running mission ops out of what used to be a movie theater. And yeah, I think that'll be a fun piece of the building to figure out.

12:39Cool.

12:40Bridgit Mendler:And you can watch all the launches out of there. Exactly. And I think, you know, the thing for for ground networks is we're kind of making sure that all of these diverse space missions are staying online. And so being able to have that tracking of those missions staying online is just like a key part of our business. Like today we have a bunch of monitors just kind of thrown up in different areas around our existing facility, you know, tracking uptime, tracking other reliability metrics. So we're just going to have to continue to track those metrics. And I think especially for our customer base, like what we have focused on as a business is the customers that do really care about reliability and they care about, you know, flexibility, being able to allocate capacity where it's needed around the world.

13:25And so being able to track that and measure that is kind of like core to us doing our job well.

13:32Bridgit Mendler:Northwood recently won a nearly$50 million government contract. What does that contract go towards? Yeah. So that contract goes towards a program called the Satellite Control Network, which is basically a network that is a pool of a bunch of different space missions. So the way that government has historically thought about how they manage all their spacecraft is they break out the functions. So on what they call the TT &C side, which is making sure that the spacecraft is moving where it needs to go, it's healthy through all the different stages of its operations, that's satellite control network.

14:10And then the actual data for that mission, like let's say it's an imagery or it's a comms in the field use case, that's kind of handled separately. And so the satellite control network side, it's really important for two reasons. One, because there's just so many more spacecraft launching that they need to make sure that they can be in contact with those spacecraft at all times. But the other piece is those spacecraft are doing different things. Like, you know, I heard you talk with the impulse team, for example, all of those use cases where spacecraft are moving dynamically around in new ways in the space environment.

14:48They basically just don't have a solution for how to connect and control that spacecraft. So, you know, when we tie back to how do you succeed at doing your mission, like how do you make sure you can actually do things in space? That really ties back to the networking. So that's really what the satellite control network use case is for us. And it was kind of the beginning of a partnership with the Space Force in doing that. It's kind of like our trial period. You know, it's us demonstrating our system works. We're able to do all the things that we said we were able to do. And then that's kind of the catalyst for a larger engagement for those services.

15:27So, you know, I think we're very happy with how that program has progressed, both in terms of, you know, how they've continued to expand and use it, which I probably can't speak too much officially to right now. But also just, I think, you know, we've been able to knock out a number of those milestones, which is great for validating our system.

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16:35Bridgit Mendler:It's time to get Brex AF. Learn more at brex.com slash sorcery. That's B-R-E-X dot com slash S-O-U-R-C-E-R-Y. Bye. Turing is training the next generation of AI with tasks that require real expertise and real world judgment. That's why companies like NVIDIA, Anthropic, Salesforce and Gemini partner with Turing. Turing builds realistic reinforcement learning environments and data systems based on real operational traces. The kind of infrastructure Frontier Labs need to train superintelligence. Visit Turing.com slash S-O-U-R-C-E-R-Y. So there are about 15 ,000 to 16 ,000 satellites up in space from LEO to MEO to GEO.

17:25Bridgit Mendler:There is a, and what is crazy is around like 11 ,000 of those are just Starlink satellites. Totally, yeah. But there's a component to this which is national security. Yeah. There was a viral tweet that went out and it was completely fake. I tried to tell you about this and you're like, oh shit. but there was a viral tweet that went out about hacking Elon space ground stations and about, you know, the sensitive data and interception there. So how do you think about security and privacy and I guess, yeah, national security when it comes to ground stations and how are you fortifying on both the physical side of this and then also the software side of this?

18:04Yeah, yeah, no, it's a great question. And it's something that we really think about up and down the stack. It's all the way from the networks, the hardware, the software, to make sure that we are making it basically impossible for anyone to write anything to our local systems or to tamper with our hardware at site. I think we've really taken a software first approach with a lot of the security stack. We have conversations with customers who have historically really hardened up each of their individual sites. Think of like, you know, guards and gates and things like that. We're taking a bit more of the SpaceX approach where they tend towards proliferation.

18:48So we have a bunch of sites and we have that diversity of sites so that we can make sure if any one of those sites goes down, you know, not necessarily for some kind of malicious reason, But let's say there's like, you know, a crazy hurricane that wipes out the area. We can continue to have continuity of coverage. So, yeah, we think about both at a local site level, being able to have basically no intervention possible at site, as well as diversity of sites for being able to cover for any site downtime.

19:24Bridgit Mendler:I'm sure this has brought you many crazy places. What is the craziest place that this entire process of building this company has brought you? Oh, man. I guess like the recent one that I went to was Bulgaria for the first time. Really? That was fun. Yeah, I got to hang out with the Endurosat team, see what they're doing. Like, they're doing such, such great stuff over there. So really excited for what some of the countries around the world are producing. And I think that was like a real motivating purpose for me with this company is I want to see more space missions be successful and be possible, you know, within the U.S., but also within our allies and also across a lot of different commercial operators.

20:09So that, you know, right now we have some really strong front runners and I think they will continue to be leaders. But like, what can we do to make it possible to build an economy? And I think that's what I get excited about from the SpaceX IPO is there's more like general enthusiasm and adoption for that concept of, you know, what the space economy's growth looks like. And so, you know, for me, founding Northwood, we were kind of like looking at the space industry and seeing, OK, there's, you know, development in launch, there's development in spacecraft. but what about the actual economics of space?

20:46You need to send data. That is like how you monetize space. How is that networking currently being modernized and resolved? You have, you know, SpaceX, which has totally transformed, you know, not just on the launch side or the spacecraft side, but truly on the networking side as well, what they're able to accomplish for sending data through space. I mean, the V3 announcement, right? Like a terabit per second per spacecraft, Like that's incredible that they're able to do that. You know, some of the like less remarked upon things are really like on more of the networking side of what they've built, like, you know, the mesh networks that they've supported.

21:25that's like really not the paradigm of space today. With space today you have like much lower throughput you generally have challenging reliability requirements and so like people tend to solve for that in really expensive ways like creating a ton of diversity of sites and redundancy which becomes extremely costly and a lot of networking infrastructure that hasn't been touched since the 1990s and so what got us excited was if you could provide that network foundation, think of how many more players could participate. And so I think like to date, when we think about the commercial operators that make the most sense to serve, it's those folks that are serving parts of the network where they're moving bits and they need to be reliable bits, they need to be flexible bits, and they also as a company need to be able to perform at high margin, So they need to reduce costs and they need to increase their utilization.

22:23So being able to make more viable businesses through introducing a part of the network, first for us as a starting point is ground. But beyond that, we want to continue to support more and more of the networking piece. Being able to introduce cost savings and reduce the time to delivery is a pretty relevant piece of making those missions successful and possible.

22:44Bridgit Mendler:So you've raised over$136 million from Founders Fund, 137 Ventures, Alpine, Washington Harbor. They're a huge name, by the way. They're over a lot of these companies down here in El Segundo. But I guess from raising that much capital over time, what do you foresee happening in the next 10 years? Right now you have a 185 ,000 square foot facility. What does this scale out look like for you and the space industry? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that kind of speaks to what I was saying earlier around. You want to be a very ambitious business and think in the long term about, you know, really where is the space industry going and where you envision the set of problems that you can kind of uniquely address and fill.