new York For a long time, the private space industry was not as much in focus as it is today. The war in Ukraine shows the difference satellite constellations like Starlink can make. The subsidiary of Elon Musk’s space company SpaceX provides the Ukrainian troops with fast internet. And according to Bulent Altan, the Internet from space should become even faster in the future.
“The world is currently seeing what satellites can do,” says the Mynaric boss. According to his vision, many satellites will soon be equipped with technology from the Munich space company: the company, which was founded in 2009 and is listed on the Frankfurt and New York stock exchanges, manufactures highly developed lasers.
These allow aircraft, satellites and rockets to communicate with each other and with ground stations – and at up to ten gigabits per second, i.e. a significantly higher data rate than by radio.
The technology could soon become even more important – example of the Ukraine war: “Russian troops have destroyed cell phone towers. Undersea cables could become a target in future conflicts,” says Altan. “And a region is already cut off from the Internet.” Something similar can happen in the event of a natural disaster. “Satellite constellations like Starlink or future European alternatives can prevent that,” says Altan.
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At least since the Ukraine was supplied with the Internet, Starlink has been a household name around the world. But few people know Elon Musk’s space company SpaceX as well as Altan: the Istanbul-born manager, who now lives in Los Angeles and Munich, was one of the first employees.
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Altan studied computer science at the Technical University of Munich, then aerospace at Stanford. There, in 2004, he met the man who was to change his life. “I was in a group of students building small satellites,” he says. One day Elon Musk visits the university and pitches his idea of a private space company. The students impress the entrepreneur immediately. “I was the third in my friend group that Elon hired.”
Altan remembers the job interview clearly. SpaceX is based near Los Angeles. “Elon said, ‘I heard you don’t want to go to LA since your wife works at Google. I already have [Google-Gründer] Larry Page spoke. Your wife is now working out of LA. What do you say now?’” In fact, Altan’s wife is transferred a working day later, even though Google has no office in Los Angeles. Altan follows suit and starts at SpaceX.
Rapid rise at SpaceX
The engineer rises quickly. As one of three vice presidents, he is responsible for the development of the missiles and becomes head of avionics, i.e. head of missile and capsule control. Half of the year he is on the road, often in Texas and Florida, where the rockets are tested and launched. “I like touching things. Just looking at PowerPoint slides in the office is not my thing,” says Altan.
In 2015 and 2016, Altan took a break from SpaceX and went to Airbus. “But the corporate culture wasn’t for me.” He returns to Musk’s company before leaving for good in 2017. “SpaceX is great, but it’s also a somewhat introverted company. I had to broaden my horizons, wanted to see what we could achieve in European space,” he explains.
For 15 years, Bülent Altan developed, among other things, the Falcon rockets for the space company in California.
(Photo: Reuters)
In Munich, Altan founds Alpine Space Ventures, a venture capitalist for space projects, with partners. Before that, Altan had already invested privately in the rocket company Isar Aerospace.
Partner Joram Völklein raves about Altan’s skills: He was one of the few Europeans to have made it into the American aerospace industry: “Bulent played a major role in the development of the reusable rocket that made SpaceX’s success possible in the first place.”
Growth market space laser
Altan doesn’t just want to work as an investor. In 2019 he is drawn back to the operational side. He becomes the head of Mynaric. The business idea fascinates him. “At SpaceX, we dealt with how satellites can communicate with each other early on,” Altan explains the approach. “Data can be transmitted faster and more securely using lasers.”
The goal: faster Internet connections in the car independent of dead spots, on ships and in airplanes. The lasers demonstrate their greatest strength when used in satellite constellations: even if a satellite has no contact with a ground station, it can make contact with other satellites via laser – and thus communicate indirectly with a distant ground station. High-performance Internet can bring this to even the most remote parts of the world.
So far this is still a dream of the future. The first generation of Starlink satellites has no lasers on board, only with the second generation is this standard. And the laser terminals have not come from Mynaric so far – “which we want to change”, as Altan says.
Competitor Airbus has been active in the market for many years, SA Photonics equips the US military with laser terminals. But Mynaric has also already won major customers: In March, the start-up received a $36 million order from Northrop Grumman.
Mynaric has ambitious goals
Mynaric is still small. Last year the company made $2.7 million in sales with a pre-tax loss (EBIT) of $49 million. Due to supply chain problems, revenues are likely to stagnate in the current year, as the company announced on Tuesday. The loss will also increase.
Altan keeps a low profile on sales targets. He estimates that a total of 100,000 small satellites could be needed in 2030, three quarters of which could be equipped with lasers.
Whether it’s OneWeb from Great Britain, Kuiper from Amazon, Telesat from Canada, Starlink or future European solutions: “There isn’t a western satellite constellation that we don’t talk to,” says Altan. The Bundeswehr is also interested. Mynaric wants to work on a demonstration mission for the EU’s “Secure Connectivity Initiative”. The demand is increasing rapidly – the company already has more than 250 units in the order books.
>> Read also: European satellite constellation – Germany pushes through the participation of start-ups
Investors are also likely to be longing for rapid sales successes: the share price has fallen by more than 60 percent since the beginning of the year, like other tech stocks. Mynaric is still worth 108 million dollars on the stock exchange. Forrester analyst Phil Brunkard thinks the technology is promising. “If laser communication catches on, it will revolutionize the satellite industry,” he says.
However, there are still challenges to be overcome, says Brunkard: “The technology is still at an early stage. Communication back to earth can be subject to interference from clouds and moisture. And there is no downward compatibility with existing satellite constellations.” Nevertheless, the space expert believes that the technology will catch on. “The demand is there.”
At the beginning of 2023, Mynaric will take the most important step in the company’s history to date: a SpaceX rocket is to put the first Telesat satellites with Mynaric lasers on board into orbit. Altan wants to be there at the start.
More: SpaceX could become the most valuable US start-up with a new round of financing.