Bridgit Mendler's Northwood passes the first satellite antenna test

Northwood Space, the startup led by former TV star and singer Bridgit Mendler, passed its first major development test last week by joining forces with Planet Labs Image satellites in orbit.

“We are building this global network to send data to satellites based on the phased array technology that we have now successfully validated, both in the lab and in the field,” Northwood CEO Mendler told CNBC.

Northwood, based in El Segundo, California, was unveiled earlier this year and is focused on the ground side of the space connectivity equation. Ground stations are the critical link for data transmission to and from orbit and are particularly crucial for the operation and control of satellites.

The startup is developing ground stations for mass production and is betting that its phased array-based system, called Portal, can outperform the parabolic antennas traditionally used by ground station companies. It is predicted that Portal will be able to connect to up to ten satellites simultaneously, as opposed to the typical one to three for dish antennas.

“For Northwood, we want to introduce a new standard for enterprise connectivity,” said Mendler.

The ground station-as-a-service, or GSaaS, market offers companies the ability to manage the Earth-based side of space infrastructure. In this sense, Amazon has launched its AWS ground station service, and satellite communications giant Eutelsat has proposed a nearly $1 billion deal in the sector.

Mendler's Northwood wants to take GSaaS a step further and eliminate what she sees as “connectivity stuck in another era” of blackouts and “super-expensive networks.”

“By analogy with the wireless industry – where we draw parallels to how cell towers and such shared assets end up being extremely vertically integrated players – they ended up moving and selling their assets to the cell tower companies. We expected that the joint model would be a success.

In her view, ground stations are “the third leg” of space technology, while the other two are rockets or cargo vehicles and satellites or orbital infrastructure.

“The industry is really at a point where there is a lot of appetite for growth, and this is something we can really bring to the industry and accelerate progress,” Mendler said.

Last week, the Northwood team was in remote Maddock, North Dakota, testing its prototype antenna — “affectionately called Frankie,” Mendler noted — by connecting to a planetary satellite in orbit.

The attempt is known as the TT&C (telemetry, tracking and control) test, in which Northwood aims to make contact with the planet's satellite in both S-band and X-band.

“We were able to achieve two-way communication with Planet's satellites and achieve nominal communication for them throughout the duration of a pass. They were able to conduct their operations as they would on their own system,” Mendler said.

Northwood designed and built Frankie in four months, the company said, and was able to deploy the antenna “from truck to live test in the sky” within six hours. Planet, which has more than 150 imaging satellites in orbit, called Northwood's test a “major milestone.”

“Not only is Northwood solving historical problems such as cost and size, but it has also built and successfully field-tested its phased array antenna faster than previously thought possible. We are proud to be part of this breakthrough in ground station technology,” said Joseph Das Breu, senior director of global ground networks at Planet, in a statement to CNBC.

Northwood developed two antennas for its Portal system, a larger 5-by-5-foot S-band frequency antenna and a smaller 18-by-18-inch X-band antenna.

The company plans to deploy portal sites capable of supporting up to 10 simultaneous satellite links at data rates in excess of 1 gigabit per second per beam starting next year. Northwood is currently evaluating locations in the US, Europe, Australia and New Zealand for its first portal locations.

“Performance-wise, we accomplished everything we hoped for,” Mendler said, adding that Northwood is “truly grateful for (Planet’s) participation and support throughout the test.”

“It just opens up a lot of things about the next chapter,” Mendler said.