Why Spaceium does not plan to refuel satellites
From Building the Space Superhighway: Service Stations in Orbit on Deeptech Decoded, with Ashi Dissanayake.
Transcript
yeah, for sure. Like we always challenge each other. Like we always question and challenge and, but it's never like personal because I think when you know the other person and how they work and also we wouldn't have started the company together if we knew we can't work together, right? At that point we had already worked with each other for four years. so like it was just like, it was just doing the same thing, but now for your startup.
But overall on the way, did you ever felt like I'm in the wrong room? either you pitched it to some people that you got unexpected feedback or you got roasted so badly but doesn't really make sense? Do you have some kind of like this outlier story for us to... Yeah, awesome. I wanna hear.
Yes, so many. my God. There were so many times I was in the wrong room and got like roasted so much. And when people like, my God, this idea is never going to work. And then five minutes later, I go to a customer call and they're like, we need 30 metric tons of fuel. And it's just like such a big difference. ⁓ I don't like say any names publicly, but yeah, I
Yeah
There are many instances.
What do you think is of the unspoken and hidden assumptions in this space?
Hidden assumptions that we are going to refill satellites is one hidden assumption, which we are not, because we talked to a lot of satellite providers and they want to send a new satellite every five years or so, and it doesn't really make sense for them to refuel. And the real value comes from refueling is being able to carry more payload and move around in orbit, move around in space. go further and satellites don't do that. So that's a very hidden assumption. ⁓ so you guys are refilling satellites. like, I mean, no, we are refilling other spacecraft who has a propulsion system on board and who wants to go further, carry more payload and who can actually benefit from moving around rather than.
Mm.
for example, a satellite.
Okay, actually, this was also, I remember you had corrected me when I had written, because this was what I consumed. And I was so surprised. Okay, actually, I even, of course, I'm not in the space, I was unable to distinguish, okay, this is not correct, because sometimes even references, solid references that you come to believe. And today, what sort of things is Aishi consuming?
