(September 3, 2024 – New York City) – Space & Satellite Professionals International (SSPI) today announced the beginning of Digital Space, a multi-week campaign featuring videos, podcasts, live conversations and a new issue of SSPI’s digital magazine, The Orbiter. The campaign explores the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning and space-based digital infrastructure, from the ground breaking developments in Lunar data storage to the innovative software that powers the next generation of sales. The Digital Space campaign is underwritten by Hughes Network Systems, LLC.
The campaign begins this week with the first episode of a new podcast series, underwritten by Hughes and RKF Engineering Solutions, LLC, featuring an interview with Chris Stott, Founder, Chair and CEO of Lonestar Data Holdings, Inc. Later this month, SSPI-WISE (SSPI Women in Space Engagement) will conduct a panel session of women experts to discuss the growing market and the opportunities it opens up for women. New Digital Space content will be published weekly at www.sspi.org/digitalspace2024.
“SSPI’s topic campaigns highlight important trends and enduring value provided by the space and satellite industry,” said SSPI executive director Robert Bell. “Our industry has long clung to its analog roots, but the digital revolution is upon us, bringing both disruption and opportunity. The Digital Space campaign shines a light on all of it.”
About Digital Space
Our digital technology world owes a debt of gratitude to space. It was the need to miniaturize electronics for the first civilian and military space programs that created demand for the integrated circuits independently invented by Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce of Intel in 1960. From that pioneering work came today’s silicon chips that cram 100 million transistors in a space the size of the head of a pin.
Today, more than 60 years later, space is going digital at last. Human activity in Earth orbit has long been ruled by radio waves, which transmit information in a continuous analog stream unlike the series of separate bits in digital circuits. Satellites were designed to send and receive to fixed spots on Earth’s surface and were unable to adapt to changing market demand. Deliberately designed for simplicity, they beamed back to Earth whatever analog signal they received. The ground systems they connected to were assemblies of analog hardware that amplified, split, combined and switched communications.
The new generations of satellite being launched into GEO, MEO and LEO are increasingly commanded by onboard software that interacts with AI-enabled software on the ground. They steer their electronically-generated beams wherever needed, adapting minute by minute to demand. The digital capacity of space keeps growing with new satellites, on-orbit servicing and debris removal spacecraft. Businesses have been funded to put data storage systems in orbit and on the Moon. And ground technology is beginning a revolution to replace analog systems with end-to-end digital, creating the possibility of seamless interconnection with the world’s telecommunications networks. An industry long restricted to an insignificant slice of telecom spending has begun a journey toward a much bigger role in connecting and comprehending the planet we share.
You can learn more about the Digital Space campaign on SSPI’s website.
About SSPI
Founded in 1983, Space & Satellite Professionals International (www.sspi.org) is on a mission to make the space and satellite industry one of the world’s best at attracting and engaging the talent that powers innovation. The space and satellite business has never seen a time of greater experimentation and disruption than we see today. Investment is the fuel for transformation, but people are the engine. SSPI helps the industry attract, develop and retain the talented people it needs to keep the engine turning. People who connect through high-profile events and gain recognition from prestigious awards. People who rely on SSPI for a broader understanding of the industry as much as for individual networking and career mentoring. From young people seeking a career path to industry veterans with wisdom to share, SSPI connects them all.
Talent, investment and opportunity flow to industries that make a difference. SSPI is the only organization that also promotes the enormous value of space and satellite through dramatic stories of our technologies and companies making a better world. Those stories overturn misconceptions about the industry that hold it back. They inspire our people and attract new ones to the industry. They help justify investment and give new customers a reason to care about our services and products. Through the stories we tell and the people we serve, SSPI inspires the growth of the $1 trillion space economy of the future.
For More Information
Victoria Krisman
Communications Manager
Space & Satellite Professionals International
vkrisman@sspi.org