It's been almost one year since SpaceX acquired Internet of Things satellite connectivity provider Swarm, and the co-founder and CEO of Swarm, Sarah Spangelo (now Senior Director of Satellite Engineering at SpaceX) is ready to talk about what she's been up to Swarm at that time.
One of the biggest obstacles to Swarm in terms of speed of deployment and growth of its network it was the ability to launch its satellites, which are themselves small: the company says they are "the smallest operational satellites in space," at little more than the size of your average sandwich. spangelo he said that unlocking launch readiness has been one of the biggest benefits of operating under the SpaceX umbrella so far.
“Basically free launch access is pretty exciting”he said in an interview. Experimental payloads have helped the company improve its overall latency, so now you can guarantee a latency of less than an hour (which means that a satellite Swarm passes over any point on Earth at least once an hour), opening up new categories of clients and applications for its low-bandwidth, hyper-efficient connectivity services.
The tiny satellites of Swarm have essentially jumped on the releases of SpaceX for other customers, where it's easy for the company to "just put them" in words of spangelo. Launching satellites tends to be a game of ounces due to weight considerations, but the benefits of being the smallest operational satellites in space mean it has a better chance than most to fit existing mission payload parameters. for Falcon 9 rockets SpaceX, even with other cargo on board.
While access to regular orbital delivery service is incredibly valuable for a technology like Swarm, spangelo says that too it has unlocked a number of other efficiencies that help the small startup move forward in terms of maturity and infrastructure.
With new use cases and new sales relationships, as well as a lot of demand on both sides, spangelo say what both Starlink and Swarm within SpaceX continue to grow their teams despite current macroeconomic conditions, especially when it comes to specific types of talent.
As for what the future a Swarm, spangelo says that they are actually quite satisfied with the current state of satellite hardware and design, although looking to create more software products for business customers. There are also "some products that are more stand-alone that are actually more appropriate for tracking use cases, and some of the larger enterprise use cases" that don't require the sophisticated integration of your current modem design, he said, somewhat more “In line with the “out of the box” philosophy of Elon Musk; something she said has already had an influence on the product side.
Meanwhile Swarm continues to operate from its facility in Mountain View, a short distance from a nearby office of SpaceX, which makes collaboration relatively simple. The Falcon 9 launch pads are a bit further away, but the price of the trip can't be beat.
 está lista para hablar sobre lo que ha estado haciendo Swarm en ese tiempo.){kind=link}