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Astranis (YC W16) | San Francisco, CA | Full-Time | Onsite | US Citizen or Green Card

Four billion people do not have access to the internet. Astranis is going to change that. We are building the next generation of smaller, lower-cost telecommunications satellites to bring the world online.

Join us and work with top engineers who have flown things in space before. We are a well-funded team that moves fast.

Roles we’re hiring for include:

* Embedded software -- write mission critical software that runs the spacecraft. Should have experience with microcontroller driver-level code and basic PCB design.

* Electrical -- PCB design, layout, bringup, test. Bonus: experience with fault-tolerant electronics, power systems, or high speed digital design

* Power electronics -- Design ~2 kW satellite power systems, including solar arrays and electronics for power regulation and distribution

* Fault tolerant systems -- Design fault tolerant electronics for operating in a radiation environment

* Aerospace/controls -- implement solutions to 6 DOF, non-linear control problems. Experience with spacecraft controls is a plus but not required.

* RF/Microwave -- work across a broad range designing and implementing RF systems at microwave frequencies, including LNAs and power amplifiers

* DSP/FPGA -- program FPGA hardware, develop custom DSP IP cores and integrate off-the-shelf IP cores

Please check out our postings here-- https://jobs.lever.co/astranis

Astranis (YC W16) | San Francisco, CA | Full-Time | Onsite | US Citizen or Green Card

Four billion people do not have access to the internet. Astranis is going to change that. We are building the next generation of smaller, lower-cost telecommunications satellites to bring the world online.

Join us and work with top engineers who have flown things in space before. We are a well-funded team that moves fast.

Roles we’re hiring for include:

* Embedded software -- write mission critical software that runs the spacecraft. Should have experience with microcontroller driver-level code and basic PCB design.

* Electrical -- PCB design, layout, bringup, test. Bonus: experience with fault-tolerant electronics, power systems, or high speed digital design

* Power electronics -- Design ~2 kW satellite power systems, including solar arrays and electronics for power regulation and distribution

* Fault tolerant systems -- Design fault tolerant electronics for operating in a radiation environment

* Aerospace/controls -- implement solutions to 6 DOF, non-linear control problems. Experience with spacecraft controls is a plus but not required.

* RF/Microwave -- work across a broad range designing and implementing RF systems at microwave frequencies, including LNAs and power amplifiers

* DSP/FPGA -- program FPGA hardware, develop custom DSP IP cores and integrate off-the-shelf IP cores

Please check out our postings here-- https://jobs.lever.co/astranis

We're lucky to work with a great group of investors-- the investors we work with at Andreessen Horowitz both have PhD's, one in CS, the other in EE. Our investor at Lux Capital has a PhD in RF engineering. Another of our investors has a PhD in particle physics. Couldn't ask for a more knowledgable, technically minded group.

Yes the plan is to lease bandwidth.

I'm always happy to answer basic questions about what we're doing. But questions around very specific technical details, especially when it comes to things that give us a competitive advantage like our antenna design, just aren't appropriate for a public forum. Thanks for understanding.

For more detailed questions we may or may not be able to answer them via email. But certainly I'd be happy to take a look at it and if its appropriate put them in touch with the relevant member of the team. (See-- https://www.astranis.com/about/)

Most large GEO's today still use purely analog repeaters. Having a true digital payload where we're doing digital signal processing on board the satellite is a significant step forward.

To get to the lower costs that we're aiming for, going to software defined radios was a necessary step. That's because it gives us the ability to build many satellites that are as identical as possible without hardwiring in the specific frequencies like they do with analog satellites today. It's hard to overstate the importance of that technology for what we're doing and the low cost targets we need to hit to get unconnected people online.

Hey there, I think you got the gist of it in a different part of this thread (each of our spacecraft has a fraction of the number of transponders as a typical large GEO). But if you'd like to discuss further I'd be happy to chat offline. Do you have an email address or other way that I could contact you?

Agree on the AJAX calls. Modern web apps are a mess. Thankfully mobile apps are built quite differently, so that's an improvement. And the biggest potential market out there to serve is new users that will be coming online for the first time mobile-first.

We're compatible with all the major launch vehicle families-- SpaceX Falcon 9, Atlas V, Ariane 5, and some of the other foreign launchers. Part of the great thing about where things are in the industry today is that ride shares for micro-satellites (where you fly as a piggy-back alongside a traditional satellite) are pretty much a solved problem.

Astranis (YC W16) | San Francisco, CA | Full-Time | Onsite | US Citizen or Green Card

Four billion people do not have access to the internet. Astranis is going to change that.

We are building the next generation of smaller, lower-cost telecommunications satellites to bring the world online.

Join us and work with top engineers who have flown things in space before. We are a well-funded team that moves fast.

Roles we’re hiring for include:

* Embedded software -- write mission critical software that runs the spacecraft. Should have experience with microcontroller driver-level code and basic PCB design.

* Electrical -- PCB design, layout, bringup, test. Bonus: experience with fault-tolerant electronics, power systems, or high speed digital design

* Power electronics -- Design ~2 kW satellite power systems, including solar arrays and electronics for power regulation and distribution

* Fault tolerant systems -- Design fault tolerant electronics for operating in a radiation environment

* Aerospace/controls -- implement solutions to 6 DOF, non-linear control problems. Experience with spacecraft controls is a plus but not required.

* RF/Microwave -- work across a broad range designing and implementing RF systems at microwave frequencies, including LNAs and power amplifiers

* DSP/FPGA -- program FPGA hardware, develop custom DSP IP cores and integrate off-the-shelf IP cores

Please check out our postings here-- https://jobs.lever.co/astranis

1. Our first design has a capacity of up to 10 Gbps. And we have a technical roadmap that can significantly increase that in future spacecraft designs.

2. For various reasons it doesn't make sense to go into that level of detail on a public forum.

3. Yes.

Hi there, great questions. The satellites are spec'd to deliver the same power (EIRP) on the ground as traditional large GEO's, with each of our satellites having a fraction of the capacity. This is a key point-- it will take several of our satellites to do the same job as one traditional large GEO. But that's not only ok, it's much better. It means we can put up a smaller chunk of capacity as needed and not do the "all or nothing" approach of a large GEO.

The high capacity satellites do have insufficient bandwidth to serve demand, on that I agree. But that's not a spectrum limitation, its a limitation on how many such large GEO's have been launched. Which is a small number because each one is so expensive. There is still plenty more spectrum we can use for GEO telecoms, and more with proper frequency re-use schemes.

The point you make about the drive to large GEO's holds true if you assume only one spacecraft will ever be in a single orbital slot. But that's not the case. There's plenty of orbital slots where multiple GEOs are co-located, and this will increasingly be the case in the future. I'd argue the drive to large satellites was more driven by various incentives and systemic issues in the industry that drove them that direction. A much longer conversation, but it's things that can all be fixed.

And to answer your last question, because our satellites are spec'd to provide the same EIRP on the ground, the ground terminals used are the same as those in use today for GEO telecoms. These terminals are all off-the-shelf and very low-cost compared to the terminals necessary for a LEO-based network.

The distance to GEO does add some latency due to the distance, that’s the main trade off. What we found in studying this problem for a long time was that 95% of internet traffic isn’t latency sensitive— CDN traffic, video streaming, audio streaming, file downloads, social media posts, etc. The bandwidth crunch is a huge problem to solve but we realized there is low hanging fruit here that we can go after by putting satellites one at a time in GEO and putting a dent in it immediately. vs LEO constellations where you have to put up hundred of satellites (at a cost of billions of dollars) just to get started.

Hi everyone, I’m one of the cofounders of Astranis (YC W16). Thanks for taking the time to read about what we’re doing and happy answer any questions.

Astranis (YC W16) | San Francisco, CA | Full-Time | Onsite | US Citizen or Green Card

We’re building small, low-cost telecommunications satellites. Our mission is to help bring the 4 billion people online who are without internet. And to pull it off we have to reinvent microwave-frequency radios in space using SDRs.

Work with engineers from SpaceX, Google, Qualcomm, and Planet Labs who have flown things in space before. Well-funded, but still a small team that moves fast. No prior space experience needed, you just need to enjoy getting your hands dirty with real hardware and be ok with struggling to do things that seem impossibly hard.

Roles we’re hiring for include:

* Embedded software -- write mission critical software that runs the spacecraft. Should have experience with microcontroller driver-level code and basic PCB design.

* Electrical -- PCB design, layout, bringup, test. Bonus: experience with fault-tolerant electronics, power systems, or high speed digital design

* Power electronics -- Design ~2 kW satellite power systems, including solar arrays and electronics for power regulation and distribution

* Fault tolerant systems -- Design fault tolerant electronics for operating in a radiation environment

* Aerospace/controls -- implement solutions to 6 DOF, non-linear control problems. Experience with spacecraft controls is a plus but not required.

* RF/Microwave -- work across a broad range designing and implementing RF systems at microwave frequencies, including LNAs and power amplifiers

* DSP/FPGA -- program FPGA hardware, develop custom DSP IP cores and integrate off-the-shelf IP cores

Please check out our full list of jobs here if you're interested in learning more: https://jobs.lever.co/astranis

Astranis (YC W16) | San Francisco, CA | Full-Time | Onsite | US Citizen or Green Card

We’re building small, low-cost telecommunications satellites. Our mission is to help bring the 4 billion people online who are without internet. And to pull it off we have to reinvent microwave-frequency radios in space using SDRs.

Work with engineers from SpaceX, Google, Qualcomm, and Planet Labs who have flown things in space before. Well-funded, but still a small team that moves fast. No prior space experience needed, you just need to enjoy getting your hands dirty with real hardware and be ok with struggling to do things that seem impossibly hard.

Roles we’re hiring for include:

* Embedded software -- write mission critical software that runs the spacecraft. Should have experience with microcontroller driver-level code and basic PCB design.

* Electrical -- PCB design, layout, bringup, test. Bonus: experience with fault-tolerant electronics, power systems, or high speed digital design

* Power electronics -- Design ~2 kW satellite power systems, including solar arrays and electronics for power regulation and distribution

* Fault tolerant systems -- Design fault tolerant electronics for operating in a radiation environment

* Aerospace/controls -- implement solutions to 6 DOF, non-linear control problems. Experience with spacecraft controls is a plus but not required.

* Mechanical -- design spacecraft deployment mechanisms and structures.

* Thermal -- develop thermal loading, nominal and off-nominal analysis cases for Astranis spacecraft.

* RF/Microwave -- work across a broad range designing and implementing RF systems at microwave frequencies, including LNAs and power amplifiers

* DSP/FPGA -- program FPGA hardware, develop custom DSP IP cores and integrate off-the-shelf IP cores

Please email john@astranis.com if you’re interested in learning more.

Astranis (YC W16) | San Francisco, CA | Full-Time | Onsite | US Citizen or Green Card

We’re building small, low-cost telecommunications satellites. Our mission is to help bring the 4 billion people online who are without internet. And to pull it off we have to reinvent 30 GHz radios in space using SDRs.

Work with veteran engineers from SpaceX, Google, Qualcomm, and Planet Labs who have flown things in space before. Well-funded, but still a small team that moves fast. No prior space experience needed, you just need to enjoy getting your hands dirty with real hardware and be ok with struggling to do things that seem impossibly hard.

Roles we’re hiring for include:

* Embedded software -- write mission critical software that runs the spacecraft. Should have experience with microcontroller driver-level code and basic PCB design.

* Electrical -- PCB design, layout, bringup, test. Bonus: experience with fault-tolerant electronics, power systems, or high speed digital design

* Power electronics -- Design ~2 kW satellite power systems, including solar arrays and electronics for power regulation and distribution

* Fault tolerant systems -- Design fault tolerant electronics for operating in a radiation environment

* Aerospace/controls -- implement solutions to 6 DOF, non-linear control problems. Experience with spacecraft controls is a plus but not required.

* RF/Microwave -- work across a broad range designing and implementing RF systems at microwave frequencies, including LNAs and power amplifiers

* DSP/FPGA -- program FPGA hardware, develop custom DSP IP cores and integrate off-the-shelf IP cores

Please email john@astranis.com if you’re interested in learning more.

Astranis (YC W16) | San Francisco, CA | Full-Time | Onsite | US Citizen or Green Card We’re building small, low-cost telecommunications satellites. Our mission is to help bring the 4 billion people online who are without internet. And to pull it off we have to reinvent microwave-frequency radios in space using SDRs.

Work with engineers from SpaceX, Google, Qualcomm, and Planet Labs who have flown things in space before. Well-funded, but still a small team that moves fast. No prior space experience needed, you just need to enjoy getting your hands dirty with real hardware and be ok with struggling to do things that seem impossibly hard.

Roles we’re hiring for include:

* Electrical -- PCB design, layout, bringup, test. Bonus: experience with fault-tolerant systems or power electronics

* RF/Microwave -- work across a broad range designing and implementing RF systems at microwave frequencies, including LNAs and power amplifiers

* DSP/FPGA -- program FPGA hardware, develop custom DSP IP cores and integrate off-the-shelf IP cores Please email john@astranis.com if you’re interested in learning more.

Astranis (YC W16) | San Francisco, CA | Full-Time | Onsite | US Citizen or Green Card

We’re building small, low-cost telecommunications satellites. Our mission is to help bring the 4 billion people online who are without internet. And to pull it off we have to reinvent microwave-frequency radios in space using SDRs.

Work with engineers from SpaceX, Google, Qualcomm, and Planet Labs who have flown things in space before. Well-funded, but still a small team that moves fast. No prior space experience needed, you just need to enjoy getting your hands dirty with real hardware and be ok with struggling to do things that seem impossibly hard.

Roles we’re hiring for include:

* Electrical -- PCB design, layout, bringup, test. Bonus: experience with fault-tolerant systems or power electronics

* RF/Microwave -- work across a broad range designing and implementing RF systems at microwave frequencies, including LNAs and power amplifiers

* DSP/FPGA -- program FPGA hardware, develop custom DSP IP cores and integrate off-the-shelf IP cores

Please email john@astranis.com if you’re interested in learning more.

Astranis (YC W16) | San Francisco, CA | Full-Time and Internships | Onsite | US Citizen or Green Card

We’re building small, low-cost telecommunications satellites. Our mission is to help bring the 4 billion people online who are without internet. And to pull it off we have to reinvent microwave radios in space using SDRs.

Work with incredibly smart people who have flown things in space before. Well-funded, but still a small team that moves fast. No prior space experience needed, you just need to enjoy getting your hands dirty with real hardware and be ok with struggling to do things that seem impossibly hard.

Roles we’re hiring for include:

* Internships (EE, ME, Aerospace, CS) -- Positions available both immediately and for summer 2017. Help design, build, and test real hardware that will fly in space. To apply you should already have some hands-on experience with hardware in your field.

* Power electronics -- Design ~2 kW satellite power systems, including solar arrays and electronics for power regulation and distribution

* Fault tolerant systems -- Design fault tolerant electronics for operating in a radiation environment

* RF/Microwave -- work across a broad range designing and implementing RF systems at microwave frequencies, including LNAs and power amplifiers

* DSP/FPGA -- program FPGA hardware, develop custom DSP IP cores and integrate off-the-shelf IP cores Please email john@astranis.com if you’re interested in learning more.

Astranis (YC W16) | San Francisco, CA | Full-Time | Onsite | US Citizen or Green Card

We’re building small, low-cost telecommunications satellites. Our mission is to help bring the 4 billion people online who are without internet. And to pull it off we have to reinvent microwave radios in space using SDRs.

Work with incredibly smart people who have flown things in space before. Well-funded, but still a small team that moves fast. No prior space experience needed, you just need to enjoy getting your hands dirty with real hardware and be ok with struggling to do things that seem impossibly hard.

Roles we’re hiring for include:

* Power electronics -- Design ~2 kW satellite power systems, including solar arrays and electronics for power regulation and distribution

* Fault tolerant systems -- Design fault tolerant electronics for operating in a radiation environment

* RF/Microwave -- work across a broad range designing and implementing RF systems at microwave frequencies, including LNAs and power amplifiers

* DSP/FPGA -- program FPGA hardware, develop custom DSP IP cores and integrate off-the-shelf IP cores

Please email john@astranis.com if you’re interested in learning more.

Strongly disagree. Under the previous plan, Ares I was NASA's vehicle for taking astronauts to low Earth orbit. Ares I was over budget by 10's of billions of dollars, leaving no money left over for commercial crew services. (Which was seen under Bush's NASA as a nice to have, not a must have.)

Because Obama cancelled Ares I and re-directed that money to commercial crew contracts, SpaceX has been able to accelerate/do a lot more than they would have done otherwise. And the technical gains by SpaceX alone have been... non-trivial.

Astranis (YC W16) | San Francisco, CA | Full-Time | Onsite | US Citizen or Green Card

We’re building small, low-cost telecommunications satellites. Our mission is to help bring the 4 billion people online who are without internet. And to pull it off we have to reinvent 30 GHz radios in space using SDRs.

Work with incredibly smart people who have flown things in space before. Well-funded, but still a very small team that moves fast. No prior space experience needed, you just need to enjoy getting your hands dirty with real hardware and be ok with struggling to do things that seem impossibly hard.

Roles we’re hiring for include:

* Embedded software -- write mission critical software that runs the spacecraft. Should have experience with microcontroller driver-level code and basic PCB design.

* Electrical -- PCB design, layout, bringup, test. Bonus: experience with fault-tolerant electronics, power systems, or high speed digital design

* Mechanical -- design, build, and test deployables and mechanisms. Should be experienced in stress and thermal analysis

* Aerospace/controls -- implement solutions to 6 DOF, non-linear control problems. Experience with spacecraft controls is a plus but not required.

* RF/Microwave -- work across a broad range including microwave system-level design, RF PCB design, and antenna design, simulation, and characterization.

* DSP/FPGA -- program FPGA hardware, develop custom DSP IP cores and integrate off-the-shelf IP cores

Please email john@astranis.com if you’re interested in learning more.

Astranis (YC W16) | San Francisco, CA | Full-Time | Onsite | US Citizen or Green Card

We’re building small, low-cost telecommunications satellites. Our mission is to help bring the 4 billion people online who are without internet. And to pull it off we have to reinvent 30 GHz radios in space using SDRs.

Work with incredibly smart people who have flown things in space before. Well-funded, but still a very small team that moves fast. No prior space experience needed, you just need to enjoy getting your hands dirty with real hardware and be ok with struggling to do things that seem impossibly hard.

Roles we’re hiring for include:

* Embedded software -- write mission critical software that runs the spacecraft. Should have experience with microcontroller driver-level code and basic PCB design.

* Electrical -- PCB design, layout, bringup, test. Bonus: experience with fault-tolerant electronics, power systems, or high speed digital design

* Mechanical -- design, build, and test deployables and mechanisms. Should be experienced in stress and thermal analysis

* Aerospace/controls -- implement solutions to 6 DOF, non-linear control problems. Experience with spacecraft controls is a plus but not required.

* RF/Microwave -- work across a broad range including microwave system-level design, design of LNA's and SSPA's, RF PCB design, and antenna design, simulation, and characterization.

* DSP/FPGA -- program FPGA hardware, develop custom DSP IP cores and integrate off-the-shelf IP cores

Please email john@astranis.com if you’re interested in learning more.

Astranis (YC W16) | San Francisco, CA | Full-Time | Onsite | US Citizen or Green Card

We’re building small, low-cost telecommunications satellites. Our mission is to help bring the 4 billion people online who are without internet. And to pull it off we have to reinvent 30 GHz radios in space using SDRs.

Work with incredibly smart people who have flown things in space before. Well-funded, but still a very small team that moves fast. No prior space experience needed, you just need to enjoy getting your hands dirty with real hardware and be ok with struggling to do things that seem impossibly hard.

Roles we’re hiring for include:

* Electrical -- PCB design, layout, bringup, test. Bonus: experience with fault-tolerant electronics, power systems, or high speed digital design

* Mechanical -- design, build, and test deployables and mechanisms. Should be experienced in stress and thermal analysis

* Aerospace/controls -- implement solutions to 6 DOF, non-linear control problems. Experience with spacecraft controls is a plus but not required.

* RF/Microwave -- work across a broad range including microwave system-level design, RF PCB design, and antenna design, simulation, and characterization.

* DSP/FPGA -- program FPGA hardware, develop custom DSP IP cores and integrate off-the-shelf IP cores

Please email john@astranis.com if you’re interested in learning more.

Astranis (YC W16) | San Francisco, CA | Full-Time | Onsite | US Citizen or Green Card

We’re building small, low-cost telecommunications satellites. Our mission is to help bring the 4 billion people online who are without internet. And to pull it off we have to reinvent 30 GHz radios in space using SDRs.

Work with incredibly smart people who have flown things in space before. Well-funded, but still a very small team that moves fast. No prior space experience needed, you just need to enjoy getting your hands dirty with real hardware and be ok with struggling to do things that seem impossibly hard.

Roles we’re hiring for include:

* Electrical -- PCB design, layout, bringup, test. Bonus: experience with fault-tolerant electronics, power systems, or high speed digital design

* Mechanical -- design, build, and test deployables and mechanisms. Should be experienced in stress and thermal analysis

* Aerospace/controls -- implement solutions to 6 DOF, non-linear control problems. Experience with spacecraft controls is a plus but not required.

* RF/Microwave -- work across a broad range including microwave system-level design, RF PCB design, and antenna design, simulation, and characterization.

* DSP/FPGA -- program FPGA hardware, develop custom DSP IP cores and integrate off-the-shelf IP cores

Please email john@astranis.com if you’re interested in learning more.

Astranis (YC W16) | San Francisco, CA | Full-Time | Onsite

We’re building small, low-cost telecommunications satellites. Our mission is to help bring the 4 billion people online who are without internet. And to pull it off we have to reinvent 30 GHz radios in space using SDRs.

Work with incredibly smart people who have flown things in space before. Well-funded, but still a very small team that moves fast. No prior space experience needed, you just need to enjoy getting your hands dirty with real hardware and be ok with struggling to do things that seem impossibly hard.

Roles we’re hiring for include:

* Embedded software -- write mission critical software that runs the spacecraft. Should have experience with microcontroller driver-level code and basic PCB design.

* Electrical -- PCB design, layout, bringup, test. Bonus: experience with fault-tolerant electronics, power systems, or high speed digital design

* Mechanical -- design, build, and test deployables and mechanisms. Should be experienced in stress and thermal analysis

* Aerospace/controls -- implement solutions to 6 DOF, non-linear control problems. Experience with spacecraft controls is a plus but not required.

* RF/Microwave -- work across a broad range including microwave system-level design, RF PCB design, and antenna design, simulation, and characterization.

* DSP/FPGA -- program FPGA hardware, develop custom DSP IP cores and integrate off-the-shelf IP cores

Please email john@astranis.com if you’re interested in learning more.

There's definitely a legal way to do it. You just tie federal dollars that flow down to local police to requirements for police training. It's the same way federal highway dollars are tied to standards for state driver's licenses.

Of course states and cities will be free to turn down the dollars if they want, but the incentives will be strong for them to comply.

Click-bait headline. The article is actually about Greg Wyler's WorldVu company. If you haven't gotten around the paywall yet, here's the key quote...

"The people familiar with the matter cautioned the project is in a formative stage, and it isn’t certain Mr. Musk will participate."

Not sure what proper HN etiquette on this is, but I made a comment on the launch news story on this exact subject:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8525057

TLDR- Those engines may be 50 years old, but they're a technological marvel. Using them is a little crazy, but I'm sure Orbital saw it as the "least crazy" of three options: building a new engine from scratch, buying prohibitively expensive engines from Rocketdyne, or buying risky but cheap engines from Russia.

I should have been clear on the propellant - the SSME is a hydrogen engine. For a lot of reasons, comparing engines of different propellants by using a single performance number alone doesn't make a lot of sense. But if you want to talk about hydrogen engines, the Russians built the RD-0120, which reportedly had a higher Isp and chamber pressure than the SSME...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RD-0120

Although I don't believe we ever tested it on our own test stands, so it's impossible to know for sure.

By the way you are conflating vacuum Isp with sea level Isp (what I was using). The Sea level Isp of the SSME is 366 s.

The SSME is also a fuel-rich staged combustion cycle. The point I was making above is that the Russians were able to get an ox-rich staged combustion cycle working reliably. That's the key technology breakthrough that we have never duplicated.