Here is what Swarm has been up to for the past ten months since SpaceX purchased it.

Regular rocket rides and Starlink synergy result in significant advancements.

Sunday, July 31, 2022 | Chimniii Desk

The co-founder and CEO of Swarm, a supplier of satellite Internet-of-Things connectivity, Sara Spangelo, who is currently senior director of satellite engineering at SpaceX, is prepared to discuss what Swarm has been up to since it was bought by SpaceX about a year ago. I was interested in learning more about Spangelo and Swarm because SpaceX is not a firm that tends to make a lot of acquisitions. Mostly, she claims, the past 10 months have been marked by rapid acceleration.

The ability to launch its satellites, which are tiny and, according to the business, "the smallest operational satellites in space," are little larger than an ordinary sandwich, was one of Swarm's largest roadblocks to rapid network expansion and deployment. Unlocking launch availability, according to Spangelo, has been one of the main advantages of working under the SpaceX brand thus far.

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In an interview, she told me, "Access to basically free launch is quite thrilling." Since we last spoke [Editor's note: in June 2021 for our Found podcast], we have launched maybe three or four times, and we now have over 160 satellites in LEO [low-Earth orbit]—some of those are experimental.

Since the company can now guarantee latency at under one hour (i.e., a Swarm satellite passes overhead any given point on Earth at least once every hour), it has improved its overall latency and opened up a wide range of new customer categories and applications for its low-bandwidth, hyperefficient connectivity services.

In the neighbourhood, "that's like a very crucial threshold if you're doing any sort of monitoring, whether it's floods, water, forest fire detection, agriculture applications, logistics applications," said Spangelo. Because of the low [delay], many fascinating new use cases and customers have become available.

The tiny satellites from Swarm have essentially been piggybacking on SpaceX launches for other clients since, in Spangelo's words, "popping them on" is a simple process for the company. Being the smallest operating satellite in space has advantages over others, including a better likelihood of fitting under the mission payload restrictions for SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets even with additional cargo on board. Satellite launch is typically a game of ounces due to weight constraints.

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Although regular orbital delivery service is extremely valuable for a technology like Swarm, according to Spangelo, it has also unlocked a number of additional efficiencies that have helped the formerly small firm advance in terms of infrastructure and maturity.

We now have additional support mechanisms available, she said. Consequently, production, legal, accounting, human resources, hiring, and supply chain management. That has significantly accelerated both our employment pace and our production rate. We've been growing, and we anticipate selling 10 times as many devices this year as we did last year.

Of course, it works both ways; otherwise, an acquisition wouldn't make much sense, and, according to Spangelo, SpaceX is already reaping significant rewards.

She added, withholding specifics on what those projects would include for the time being, "We're also assisting SpaceX in a host of ways, from engineering and technology, to regulatory tactics, to lots of other programmes that hopefully we get to talk about in the future." She agreed that there are synergies they're exploring there when I mentioned that Starlink's consumer internet service and Swarm's connected device offerings might be combined in some way.

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According to her, "We're definitely having product discussions across the Starlink broadband chasm, to Swarm IoT, and everything in between." And a lot of the gaps between those things you're hinting at are really filled in by the roadmap. We have certainly begun to interact with some of the same business customers on the corporate side. You might envision that large agricultural, oil and gas, or maritime industries would want both satellite IoT and broadband. Therefore, we have undoubtedly benefited from our contacts with each other in both directions: some Swarm consumers are interested in Starlink, and vice versa.

Despite the current economical climate, according to Spangelo, both Starlink and Swarm within SpaceX are still expanding their teams, particularly when it comes to specific sorts of talent. This is because of new use cases, new sales relationships, and lots of demand on both sides.

Many people are unaware that Starlink is essentially a networking corporation, she claimed. "We consider [SpaceX] to be a group of mechanical engineers building hardware rockets. However, it is exceedingly difficult due to the complexity of the software, networking algorithms, back ends at core networks, and laser mesh networks. Thus, we have about 500 software engineers at [SpaceX] and, I believe, over 200 on Starlink. But there, we most surely need extraordinary talent.

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When asked about the additional use cases that have emerged since our last conversation, including wildfire detection, Spangelo listed a number of things that Swarm has been able to do, and do better, operating as a SpaceX company. When monitoring wildfires only using conventional techniques, they can spread for hours or even days without anyone being aware of it. With a maximum latency of under an hour and frequently results that refresh in minutes, you can significantly alter the approach to detection and mitigation of wildfires. There, Swarm is collaborating with a variety of businesses, including Dryad Networks in Berlin.

Another recent client, Rainforest Connection, connects basic acoustic sensors placed in the Brazilian rainforest via Swarm's IoT network.

They really just have an acoustic sensor, similar to the one on your phone, and when it detects a chainsaw, it asks for help to stop the [deforestation]. Because these items are so difficult to find, I find it amazing that such a simple sensor can have such a significant impact.

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In terms of what the future holds for Swarm, Spangelo claims that although they're seeking to develop more software solutions for enterprise customers, they're actually quite happy with where the satellite hardware and design are at the moment. She added that some "more standalone solutions are actually more fit for monitoring use cases, and some of the broader business use cases," and that these are more "on brand" with Elon Musk's "out of the box attitude," which she said has already had an impact on the product side.

While everything is going on, Swarm is still based out of Mountain View, which puts it close to a SpaceX headquarters and facilitates communication. Although the Falcon 9 launch pads are a little further distant, the cost of the ride is unbeatable.