1 week Ago By Bernadette Berdychowski [email protected]
Bridgit Mendler, former Disney Channel actress turned aerospace startup founder, was in Colorado Springs on Wednesday to debut her company at Space Symposium. Northwood Space is a new venture-backed entrant in the aerospace industry. While many space companies are seeking to launch projects into orbit, Mender’s company is examining a side of the industry often looked down upon from the cosmos: ground infrastructure.
The ground network that communicates with satellites is dated and takes a long time to manufacture, according to the company. It’s a “point of weakness” for the space industry, Mendler said Wednesday, comparing satellites to an iPhone 16 relying on cell towers from the 1990s. “We are truly in the very early innings of the potential for space to transport economies, maintain peace and expand our understanding of the universe,” Mendler said.
“And if we can enable a reliable and a scaled ground segment,” she added, “it will push the boundaries of what is possible.” Mendler was a featured speaker at Space Symposium, the six-day trade show at The Broadmoor where more than 10,000 space and military professionals from 40 countries meet each year for one of the space industry’s largest events. At the end of her presentation, Mendler invited attendees to connect with Northwood Space as they seek to grow their partnerships as a budding startup and improve ground network communications with satellites.
Mendler founded the company in 2023 with her husband Griffin Cleverly and Shaurya Luthra. Northwood Space broke ground last year on building its first antennas. Before founding her company, Mendler was the star of Disney Channel’s “Good Luck, Charlie” television series and the movie “Lemonade Mouth,” as well as a Billboard-charting singer, before leaving the entertainment industry to earn doctorate degrees at M.
I.T. and Harvard University.
Northwood Space is still a small startup, she said, with 32 employees and a 35,000 square foot manufacturing facility in the L.A. metro region.
Mendler said satellite communications are frequent and normal, which causes space companies to lose money. “Because while theoretically, there are ground locations all over the world that support aggressive timing requirements, it's not reliably available due to ground outages and to capacity of limitations,” she said. Northwood Space is working to reduce the time to integrate major ground infrastructure parts from days or hours to minutes, Mendler explained.
Last year, Northwood Space deployed a new antenna named “Frankie” in North Dakota and connected it to a satellite within six hours. They later repositioned the antenna from one part if the site to another within an hour. “Our antenna system will be the first version to be deployed globally for operations and we're designing it for maximum shipping efficiency,” Mendler said.
Their next step is figuring out how quickly the company can scale its network. “It's important that we not only manufacture rapidly.” Mendler said.
“But that we're able to shave off time by rapidly deploying as well.”.
