DJ Selects: Japan’s Airbnb for Satellites – InfoStellar

The aerospace industry has been particularly resistant to disrupting in Japan. In the rest of the world, launch vehicle and spacecraft technology has made incredible gains over the past decade, but here in Japan its still mostly the same government contracts going to the same major contractors.

Naomi Kurahara of InfoStellar, has come up with an innovative way to leverage existing aerospace infrastructure and to collaborate globally by renting out unused satellite ground-sataion time, Airbnb style.

You see when an organization launches a satellite, they also build a ground station to communicate with it. The problem is, that as the satellite obits the Earthy, it’s only in communication range of the ground station for less than an hour a day. The rest of the time the ground station just sits there.

By renting out that unused time ground-station operators earn extra income, and the satellite operators are able to communicate with their satellites as often as they need.

It’s a great interview and I think you’ll enjoy it.

Show Notes for Startups

Why the Airbnb for satellites startup model makes sense The demand-side problem Why this market is much larger than it seems today The key growth drivers in the satellite market Why the Japanese aerospace industry can't innovate How to run a startup as an expectant mother What challenges women scientists still face in Japan How Japan could better support working moms

Links from the Founder

Learn about InfoStellar

[shareaholic app="share_buttons" id="7994466"] Leave a comment Transcript from Japan Disrupting Japan, episode 56.

Welcome to Disrupting Japan - straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me.

Aerospace in Japan is particularly resistant to disruption. Over the past decade, the rest of the world has seen incredible gains in both launch vehicles and spacecrafts. But Japan has been moving slowly. Sometimes it seems as if she’s determined to stay the course with the same government contracts going to much the same corporate heavyweights year after year.

Naomi Kurahara of InfoStellar once had plans of changing the Japanese aerospace industry. But along the way she went out on her own with a plan that bypassed Japan’s major players and targeted the global market. You see, when an organization launches a satellite, they usually also build an antenna and a ground station to communicate with that satellite. The problem is that as the satellite orbits the Earth, it’s only communications range with the ground station for less than an hour a day. The rest of the time the ground station just sits there.

So, Naomi decided to pool all of the unused ground station time together and rent it out to satellite operators, Airbnb style. Everybody wins by sharing resources. The ground station operators get income by renting out their facilities and the satellite operators get to communicate with their satellites far more often.

But Naomi explains it better than I can, so let’s get right to the interview.

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[Interview]

Tim: Cheers! I’m sitting here with Naomi Kurahara, the CEO and fearless founder of InfoStellar, so thanks for sitting down with me.

Naomi: Thank you for inviting me.

Tim: Now, InfoStellar is basically time-sharing for satellite ground station, or Airbnb for satellites, but it’s a complex idea so why don’t you explain a little bit about what InfoStellar does.

Naomi: Okay, the reason I started this business is the aerospace space has an issue for cost. Like satellite is expensive, and rocket is expensive, and ground station is expensive because, maybe, not many people are using.

Tim: Well, aerospace is incredibly expensive but actually I think before we get into InfoStellar’s business model, I think it’s going to be best if you explain what ground stations are and how they work.

Naomi: Okay, so there is three main components for space business. That’s the ride, or spacecraft, and the rocket, which delivers the spacecraft from ground to space, and after the delivery, the operator has to control the spacecraft somehow because most of spacecraft doesn’t have people on board. It could be a space station, maybe only space station. But most of the spacecraft do not have an operator, so the ground operator has to control this spacecraft. So we need to send some commands. For that, we use radio and radio communication. So the antenna system and some computers to process the commands.

Tim: So the ground stations, they’re what’s around the big parabolic antennas that everyone’s used to seeing on the ground and they both get data from the satellite?

Naomi: And to the satellite.

Tim: And give instructions back to it? Okay. Now that that’s clear, tell us about InfoStellar’s business.

Naomi: To go back to the issue of this business, the cost. The cost is so expensive in this business, it’s difficult to launch or start. And for the ground site, one ground station, including one dish antenna, maybe it costs $300,000. So to reduce the starter’s price, there is only one way to reduce the cost, which is to increase the usage.

Tim: So increase the usage of the ground stations?

Naomi: Yes. If only one person uses, maybe 1% or 2% of the whole time is used.

Tim: So InfoStellar allows the sharing of these ground stations, right? So, traditionally, if I’m putting up a satellite—I build my satellite, I pay someone to launch it into orbit for me, do I usually build a dedicated ground station to track that satellite?

Naomi: I say yes because most of the satellites, the government requires you to stop anytime. Make sense? So the many operators have to have one ground station at least.

Tim: Now, how much downtime does a ground station have? If I’ve launched my satellite and I’ve got my ground station, in one day, how many minutes, or how many hours are that ground station and that satellite communicating?

Naomi: It depends no location. For Japan, I can get only 30 minutes per day of communication time.

Tim: 30 minutes per day? So 23 hours and 30 minutes, it’s just not being used? And that’s the time that InfoStellar wants to rent out and to share.

Naomi: To reduce the cost, I want to make the usage higher.

Tim: Right. That makes sense, renting out that unused capacity. Now, I don’t imagine that all ground stations are the same. They must have different frequencies and different ways of communicating with the satellites. How does InfoStellar work with that.

Naomi: Well, all satellites have different but I can still categorize some satellites because the frequency, there is an allocation amount for satellites. For example, there is a band called X-band, it’s about 8GhZ so for satellites, can use about 8 to 8.4GhZ, and the other X-band satellites cannot use.

Tim: Okay. So it is fairly standardized. All right. The protocol used to communicate between a ground station and a satellite must be completely different for every satellite so how does it work?

Naomi: Just a program. The many satellites have a protocol or an option. So I have to make sure that every station can process the many, many satellites.

Tim: Okay, but I would imagine the stations themselves, they don’t have to understand the data they’re getting, right? They just have to collect it and send it into the cloud and get it to where it has to go.

Naomi: Correct. I have to think about the analog side and the digital side; for an analog signal or digital signal. For the antenna, they take care of the analog and for analog it’s more easier. Many satellites can be categorized or they have some subbed out frequencies.

Tim: It sounds like there’s enough standardization so you can at least attack the problem. So, for any multi-sided marketplace, you’ve got the supply side and the demand side. And the biggest challenge is always getting both sides on board together. So let’s first talk about the supply side. Have you been able to get a good collection of ground stations signed up for this service?

Naomi: Okay, they need the dish antenna but also I need to have another type of antenna called Yagi antenna. The antenna looks like a fishbone on the buildings or the houses—that’s called a Yagi antenna. So other types of antennas can receive or can transmit the UHF or VHF frequencies. It’s not VHF or UHF, it’s a type of frequency category.

Tim: So who owns the ground stations that are signing up?

Naomi: So, for Yagi antennas, the individual person. For the dish antenna, maybe a private company or sometimes a university has.

Tim: All right. You’ve gotten ground stations throughout Southeast Asia on board? And how did you make those sales? How did you convince people to join this?

Naomi: Well people who have antennas, the people usually have their own satellite because the two operating their satellites, they have their antennas or their ground station. So they have the same issue, they have the antenna on one station but the usage is 30 minutes to 1 hour per day.

Tim: I see. So I guess on the supply side it’s an easier case because they’re not using it for 23 hours a day. Okay. So it’s very appealing to them.

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Naomi: Yes, they have a maintenance cost issue. Sometimes the Yagi antenna requires maintenance to change frequencies or get some new functions, so they still need maintenance and maybe $5,000 to $10,000 per year.

Tim: So $5,000 to $10,000 per year for maintenance costs?

Naomi: Yes. So it’s not big but it still costs.

Tim: Sure, it makes sense. If they can get a little bit of income to pay for the maintenance, it’s a great idea for them. That makes sense on the supply side. So let’s talk about the demand side. I’m curious, how big is this market?