EPISODE · Sep 27, 2022 · 48 MIN
Lasers + Software with Aalyria's Brian Barritt
from Valley of Depth · host Arkaea Media (Payload | Ignition | Tectonic)
The startup is promising the world, and then some, with two products to its name: Spacetime & Tightbeam. We bring Aalyria CTO Brian Barritt on the show this week to dig into the startup's vision.*CHAPTERS*0:00 — Live intro0:34 — Aalyria has just emerged from stealth4:17 — Brian's background9:03 — Spacetime & Tightbeam14:00 — Demoing the laser18:41 — Air to ground, space to ground, ground to ground20:15 — Acquiring Alphabet's tech & going independent 24:14 — Why now? 30:31 — Potential deep space applications 33:35 — What's derisked? And what's not?38:40 — Commercial viability 43:29 — End of show Qs ... including the one we've all been dying to know Is Aalyria worried about aliens piggybacking off of its laser beams?*SHOW NOTES*Brian's Twitter: https://twitter.com/brianbarritt?lang=enAalyria's Twitter: https://twitter.com/AalyriaTechCompany website: https://www.aalyria.com/ (head here for more on Spacetime & Tightbeam)Ryan's Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ryandoofy*DESCRIPTIONS*Spacetime description: "Spacetime is a software platform for orchestrating networks of ground stations, aircraft, satellites, ships, and urban meshes. It optimizes and continually evolves the antenna link scheduling, network traffic routing, and spectrum resources — responding in realtime to changing network requirements. Spacetime operates networks across land, sea, air, and space, at any altitude or orbit type, supports all radio frequency bands and optical wavelengths, and it is designed for interoperability with legacy, hybrid space, 5G NTN and FutureG network architectures."Tightbeam description: "Tightbeam is the world's most advanced coherent light free space optics technology. At rates faster than any other solutions available today and covering greater distances than previously imagined, it moves data intact through the atmosphere and weather, and offers connectivity where no supporting infrastructure exists. Tightbeam radically improves satellite communications, Wi-Fi on planes and ships, and cellular connectivity everywhere."*ABOUT US*Pathfinder is brought to you by Payload, a modern space media brand, and while we have designs on becoming the biggest space content company in the galaxy, for now, we publish:1) Payload, our flagship daily newsletter, every Monday to Friday morning2) Pathfinder, this podcast, on Tuesday mornings3) ...and 💫Parallax!💫 on Thursday afternoons.Parallax is our brand-spanking new weekly science newsletter for the space industry. Subscribe now so you can say you were early by signing up at parallax.beehiiv.comAnd subscribe to our daily newsletter and find out more about Payload at www.payloadspace.com
What this episode covers
Aalyria just emerged from stealth mode, announcing an acquisition of a trove of connectivity technology from Google. The search juggernaut's parent company Alphabet has been developing high-altitude networking technology and apparently a space laser for years, if not decades. Aalyria is setting out to commercialize a lot of this technology, including much of the IP that ran in production with Alphabet's high-flying Loon connectivity balloons.
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Lasers + Software with Aalyria's Brian Barritt
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