Albedo

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SITUATION EXPLAINED: SpaceX has launched more satellites than the rest of humanity combined all time. Now they are filing for 100,000 more in the hardest orbital regime that almost nobody has operated in. We asked @pronounced_kyle, partner at a16z American Dynamism. "All the satellites were out in geostationary orbit, 22,000 miles away, where you can park a satellite and it basically looks over one part of the Earth. DirecTV had five satellites and was making $11 billion of revenue in today's dollars. One satellite could do a whole lot. That was the only thing that was possible when we were launching stuff on literally the space shuttle." "Then we started to explore low Earth orbit in earnest once we had reusable rocketry. Turns out that was what it took. It was impossible to really get anything in volume into low Earth orbit unless you had a reusable rocket. So SpaceX did that, and SpaceX launched their low Earth orbit satellites." "Very low Earth orbit is defined as under 250 miles above Earth. You're starting to hit the atmosphere. The atmosphere's pulling you in over time. You have to have a lot of active propulsion to keep yourself afloat. Pretty much nobody has done it." "To deploy 100,000 satellites into very low Earth orbit is like a classic super impossible SpaceX task that if anybody else said they were gonna do it you'd be like, 'No way.' But SpaceX said they're doing it and you're like, 'Okay, let's go. I guess we're doing it.'"

Fly low at @albedo

Today @Nominal_io is announcing an additional $80M fundraise at a $1B valuation, led by @FoundersFund. AI has already reshaped how software gets built (for the third time in 4 years, apparently). Hardware engineering should be seeing the same impact. It's not. The reason isn't the models. It's legacy tools that can't evolve, dot-com-software that was never built for the stakes, and the fragmented data they leave behind. That's why we built Nominal. Hardware teams deserve tools built on a data supply chain where "make no mistakes" is a standard, not a prayer.

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ANNOUNCEMENT: Albedo is going all-in on VLEO systems For years, the space industry has competed on resolution, altitude, and scale — bigger optics, higher orbits, more satellites. But what if the next advantage doesn’t come from going higher, but from getting closer? We started @Albedo to build the next generation of Earth-imaging satellites. What we built to take better pictures became something much bigger: a way to operate reliably in Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) — 275 km above Earth, where drag and atomic oxygen used to make long-duration missions impossible. This breakthrough changed our focus. From this point forward, we’re no longer selling commercial imagery. We’re building the infrastructure that makes an entire orbital layer operational and scalable. Our full effort is going into building the systems that make sustained flight in VLEO possible. The economics of getting closer Satellites today operate in three established orbit domains: GEO - Farther MEO - Middle LEO - Closer VLEO is roughly half the altitude of LEO. Getting this close to Earth doesn’t just improve performance; it also changes the economics of space. Satellites in VLEO can: → Capture higher-resolution data with smaller, cheaper payloads → Maintain stronger downlinks and uplinks at lower power → Deliver faster latency for real-time applications → Maneuver dynamically to balance endurance, precision, and autonomy The physics are simple: signal strength ∝ range², and for two-way systems, performance ∝ range⁴. Halving the distance delivers roughly 4× the signal power — or 16× for two-way systems — enabling smaller optics, lower-power transmitters, and lower mass. These efficiencies compound. Smaller spacecraft mean lower build and launch costs, faster iteration, and more frequent refresh cycles — a new economic curve for every market that depends on satellites, with a similar compounding cycle that transformed cloud infrastructure and semiconductors. Clarity’s proof through Solar Max Our first spacecraft, Clarity, has been on orbit for seven months through Solar Max, the most demanding period of the solar cycle. Clarity is performing 12% better than design predictions in drag efficiency, has executed 150 km of controlled maneuvers, and has maintained strong power generation while its solar arrays are exposed to atomic oxygen — a reactive element that corrodes conventional spacecraft materials at hypersonic speed. We’ve also uploaded 12 flight-software updates while in orbit, adding novel control modes and solving issues in real time. Clarity was designed for an average five-year lifespan at ~275 km, proving that long-duration, low-altitude operations are sustainable with the right architecture. VLEO isn’t experimental anymore. It’s operational. Our reliance on satellites requires redundancy LEO is crowded and vulnerable. VLEO offers the opposite: a naturally self-cleaning layer that clears debris in weeks, not years. Everyday life runs on space: ATMs to national security. As launch costs fall and cadence rises, redundancy shouldn’t mean “more LEO” — it means adding a second layer in VLEO. In testimony to Congress last year, John F. Plumb (Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy) warned that a high-altitude nuclear detonation could render LEO unusable for up to a year. Diversifying architectures ensures continuity of communications, intelligence, and warning missions even under extreme conditions. VLEO sits below the radiation belts and in a naturally debris-clearing regime, making rapid reconstitution assured. What’s next for Albedo We’re dedicating our full engineering and operations teams to VLEO systems: buses, integrated satellites, and turnkey missions. These past few years proved the physics. Now we’re scaling the infrastructure that will make VLEO the next productive, sustainable orbit in space. If you believe the next edge in space isn’t higher but closer, please reach out. More to come.

Spy Satellites, Road Cameras, Phone Trackers. How Alternative Data Companies Are Changing Investing. trib.al/rWGr6xx