Today's Industry Trends, with Caleb Henry (Quilty Space)

Back in the Pathfinder hot seat is Caleb Henry, Director of Research at Quilty Space. We were privileged to have Caleb join us over a year ago on one of the initial Pathfinder episodes, where he shed light on industry consolidation and the T-Mobile partnership with SpaceX. 

Today, he rejoins us to delve into a variety of pertinent topics, including: 

• SpaceX vs everyone else
• Remote sensing business models
• LEO vs GEO broadband operators
• Capacity shortages across operators
• Effective telecom regulation 

And much more…

This episode is brought to you by SpiderOak, a US-based software company that builds space cybersecurity products and solutions for civilian, military, and commercial space operations. Learn more at https://spideroak.com/ 

• Chapters • 

00:00 - Intro & SpiderOak Ad 

01:56 - Caleb’s origin story 

04:00 - Transitioning from journalist to research writer 

10:08 - How does Quilty choose what to focus on 

13:44 - Is SpaceX a monopoly? 

18:24 - Supply/demand dynamics of launch 

20:39 - Market for small and medium lift launch vehicles 

24:42 - SpiderOak Ad break 

25:29 - The commercial remote sensing market 

30:53 - A commercial remote sensing market big enough for multibillion businesses? 

33:57 - Will Starlink make GEO operators obsolete? 

40:03 - A shortage of capacity? 

42:56 - Would you rather be a LEO or GEO operator? 

45:42 - Where should there should be more regulation? 

49:56 - What would you be doing if you weren’t in the space industry?

• Show notes • 

Caleb's socials — https://twitter.com/ChenrySpace

Mo's socials — https://twitter.com/itsmoislam 

Payload’s socials — https://twitter.com/payloadspace / https://www.linkedin.com/company/payloadspace 

Pathfinder archive — Watch: https://www.youtube.com/@payloadspace Pathfinder archive — Listen: https://pod.payloadspace.com/episodes 

• About us • 

Pathfinder is brought to you by Payload, a modern space media brand built from the ground up for a new age of space exploration and commercialization. We deliver need-to-know news and insights daily to 15,000+ commercial, civil, and military space leaders. Payload is read by decision-makers at every leading new space company, along with c-suite leaders at all of the aerospace & defense primes. We’re also read on Capitol Hill, in the Pentagon, and at space agencies around the world. Payload began as a weekly email sent to a few friends and coworkers. 

Today, we’re a team distributed across four time zones and two continents, publishing three media properties across multiple platforms: 1) Payload, our flagship daily newsletter, sends M-F @ 9am Eastern (https://newsletter.payloadspace.com/) 2) Pathfinder publishes weekly on Tuesday mornings (pod.payloadspace.com) 3) Polaris, our weekly policy publication, hits inboxes Tuesday (https://polaris.payloadspace.com/) 4) Parallax, our weekly space science briefing, hits inboxes Thursday (https://parallax.payloadspace.com/)