Max Q: Umbra is a Silicon Valley outsider — they prefer it that way

Hello and welcome back to Max Q!

In this edition:

Take a closer look at Umbra News from Rocket Lab, Astranis, and others

Umbra The surname of one of the founders Gabe Dominocielo roughly translates from Latin as “lord of the sky”. It’s a fitting title for the head of a satellite imagery company — but in a recent interview with Zero2Billions, he joked that his last name should be “unit economy.”

“Space is not my backdrop,” he says. “My passion is unit economics.”

Umbra’s story can be best summed up as a marriage of technological innovation and—you guessed it—a sound economic unit.

Image Credit: Umbra (opens in a new window)

More news across TC

Amazon will spend $120 million on a new satellite processing facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for the Project Kuiper satellite internet constellation. Astranis said its first commercial internet satellite would not be able to provide full coverage to Alaska due to technical problems with the spacecraft’s solar system. The Pew Research Center found that few Americans think that going to the moon or Mars should be one of NASA’s top priorities. Rocket Lab is expanding its Electron reusability program with its latest launch, which includes a number of upgrades to the booster to make it more water-resistant. SpaceX’s Swarm Technologies is stopping new sales of its modems, in a move that appears to be related to SpaceX’s plans to move into the sat-to-cell market. Virgin Galactic is gearing up for its second commercial launch in August, which will send three citizens into suborbital space and vice versa.

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