FCC Chairman Brendan Carr just announced "Space Month" at the agency. Speaking from Apex's new satellite manufacturing facility in El Segundo, California, Carr laid out an ambitious plan to transform the FCC into what he calls a "license assembly line." The goal? Move from a "default no" to a "default yes" mindset, slash regulatory backlogs, and help American companies manufacture satellites at the speed and scale needed to compete with China's growing orbital ambitions. We're talking thousands of small satellites, direct-to-cell connectivity, and a fundamental reimagining of how government keeps pace with private sector innovation.
This episode takes you inside the El Segundo space ecosystem—the neighborhood that helped win the first space race and is now being reindustrialized to win the second one. FAI's Josh Levine hosts a panel with space industry leaders from Apex, Northwood Space, and Varta Space, who discuss everything from supply chain bottlenecks to the challenges of attracting talent in Southern California's red-hot aerospace scene. These aren't legacy defense contractors slowly building massive satellites—they're startups manufacturing dozens of platforms per month, treating satellites more like software products than bespoke engineering projects.
In the second half, Digital First Project’s Nathan Leamer sits down with Chairman Carr and Apex CEO Ian Cinnamon for a wide-ranging conversation about the geopolitical implications of space dominance, the unfair advantages China's state-backed companies enjoy, and why changing the terminology from "satellite bus" to "satellite platform" actually matters. Plus: why Starlink on airplanes is a productivity game-changer, how direct-to-cell technology could transform connectivity, and what it means when the same warehouses that built Apollo-era technology are now cranking out satellites for the 21st century.