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Outbound Aerospace hits the end of its financial runway

Outbound's Jake Armenta wheels prototype aircraft down a runway
Outbound Aerospace's Jake Armenta wheels a prototype aircraft along a runway during a flight test earlier this year. (Outbound via YouTube)

Only a few months ago, Outbound Aerospace was on its way up — literally — after raising more than $1 million in pre-seed funding and flying a prototype meant to pave the way for a blended-wing passenger jet. But now the Seattle startup’s fortunes have fallen back to earth.

Outbound’s co-founder and chief technology officer, Jake Armenta, announced on LinkedIn last week that the company was shutting down. He joked that the news would be greeted with celebration by “competitors such as Boeing, who have been rightly terrified of us.”

During an interview, Armenta took a more serious tone as he discussed why Outbound fell short: “The simplest answer is that we ran out of money, and hadn’t really secured customer commitments that were strong enough to secure the next stage of investment,” he told me.

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Lumotive goes global with optical 3D sensor chips

Lumotive 3D sensor module with golf ball shown to give a sense of scale
Lumotive’s LM10 LCM module, shown here next to a golf ball for scale, serves as a 3D sensor. (Lumotive Photo)

Months after raising $59 million in venture capital to commercialize its miniaturized 3D sensors, Redmond, Wash.-based Lumotive is going global.

The company says it has opened offices in Oman and Taiwan to help bring its products to market — and has added two senior tech industry leaders to its management team.

“These milestones mark a pivotal moment for Lumotive as we move from innovation to large-scale commercialization,” Lumotive CEO Sam Heidari said today in a news release.

Founded in 2017, Lumotive is one of several startups that were spun off from Bellevue, Wash.-based Intellectual Ventures to take advantage of an innovation known as metamaterials. The technology makes it possible for signals to be “steered” electronically without moving parts.

Lumotive’s Light Control Metasurface platform, also known as LCM, can steer laser light to capture a 3D rendering of its surroundings, using a device that’s smaller than a credit card. Such laser-based location sensing is known generically as lidar (an acronym that stands for “light detection and ranging”)

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Amazon gears up for beta test of satellite internet service

Worker installing satellite antenna on building roof
A worker installs an Amazon Leo antenna at a Hunt Energy facility. (Amazon Photo)

Amazon Leo — the satellite internet service provider formerly known as Project Kuiper — says it has started shipping its top-of-the-line terminals to select customers for testing.

Today’s announcement serves as further evidence that Amazon is closing in on providing space-based, high-speed access to the internet to customers around the world after years of preparation. Amazon Leo is still far behind SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network, but the Seattle-based tech giant has lined up a wide array of partners to help get its network off the ground.

The top tier of Amazon Leo’s global broadband service, known as Leo Ultra, will offer download speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second and upload speeds of up to 400 megabits per second, Amazon said today in a blog post. That’s the first time Amazon has shared details about uplink performance.

During an enterprise preview, some of Amazon’s business customers will begin testing the network using production-grade hardware and software. Amazon said the preview will give its Leo teams “an opportunity to collect more customer feedback and tailor solutions for specific industries ahead of a broader rollout.”

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Universe Today

Super-quiet X-59 supersonic jet makes first test flight

X-59 aircraft flying over Mojave Desert with mountains in background
The X-59 low-boom supersonic aircraft flies over California's Mojave Desert. (Credit: Lockheed Martin)

In partnership with NASA, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works has executed the first test flight of the X-59 quiet supersonic aircraft. This week’s first flight was subsonic, but eventually the plane will demonstrate technologies aimed at reducing sonic booms to gentle thumps.

“We are thrilled to achieve the first flight of the X-59,” OJ Sanchez, Skunk Works’ vice president and general manager, said in a news release. “This aircraft is a testament to the innovation and expertise of our joint team, and we are proud to be at the forefront of quiet supersonic technology development.”

Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy called the X-59 “a symbol of American ingenuity.”

“The American spirit knows no bounds. It’s part of our DNA – the desire to go farther, faster and even quieter than anyone has ever gone before,” he said. “This work sustains America’s place as the leader in aviation and has the potential to change the way the public flies.”

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Radical flies full-size prototype for stratospheric drone

Radical prototype plane in flight
A prototype for Radical’s Evenstar stratospheric solar-powered airplane flies over its Oregon test range. (Radical Photo)

Seattle-based Radical says it has put a full-size prototype for a solar-powered drone through its first flight, marking one low-altitude step in the startup’s campaign to send robo-planes into the stratosphere for long-duration military and commercial missions.

“It’s a 120-foot-wingspan aircraft that only weighs 240 pounds,” Radical CEO James Thomas told me. “We’re talking about something that has a wingspan just a bit bigger than a Boeing 737, but it only weighs a little bit more than a person. So, it’s a pretty extreme piece of engineering, and we’re really proud of what our team has achieved so far.”

Last month’s flight test was conducted at the Tillamook UAS Test Range in Oregon, which is one of the sites designated by the Federal Aviation Administration for testing uncrewed aerial systems. Thomas declined to delve into the details about the flight’s duration or maximum altitude, other than to say that it was a low-altitude flight.

“We take off from the top of a car, and takeoff speeds are very low, so it flies just over 15 miles an hour on the ground or at low altitudes,” he said. (Thomas later added that the car was a Subaru, a choice he called “a Pacific Northwest move, I guess.”)

The prototype ran on battery power alone, but future flights will make use of solar arrays mounted on the plane’s wings to keep it in the air at altitudes as high as 65,000 feet for months at a time. For last month’s test, engineers added ballast to the prototype to match the weight of the solar panels and batteries required for stratospheric flight. Thomas said he expects high-altitude tests to begin next year.

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Tech pundits get snarky over the coming AI bubble

Cory Doctorow, Whitney Beltran and Ed Zitron at Seattle Public Library presentation
Cory Doctorow, author of “Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It,” makes a point at a presentation at the Seattle Central Library while moderator Whitney Beltrán and commentator Ed Zitron look on. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

How will the companies that have invested tens of billions of dollars in the infrastructure for artificial intelligence fare when the enshittification hits the fan? That question came in for a lot of attention — and snark — when tech pundits Cory Doctorow and Ed Zitron sat down in Seattle to muse about what’s happening in the world of AI.

Both men know a thing or two about enshittification, the process by which tech offerings gradually turn to crap due to the hunger for profits. Doctorow’s Seattle stopover was part of a publicity tour for his newly published book on the subject, “Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It.”

For this week’s appearance at the Seattle Public Library, he was paired with Zitron, a public relations specialist, podcaster and writer who surveys the tech scene with a critical eye.

The way they see it, the bursting of the AI investment bubble is a given. And that’s not by any means a contrarian view. Even Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos have acknowledged that the AI tech sector seems likely to go through some retrenchment, while insisting it will be followed by a resurgence that will bring huge benefits to society.

That’s where Doctorow and Zitron part ways with Nadella and Bezos.

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Uncategorized

Former asteroid miners start fresh with Special Teams

Special Teams CEO Clara Sekowski at Seattle workshop
Special Teams CEO Clara Sekowski discusses a hardware mockup build with teammates at the company's Seattle facility. (Special Teams Photo)

Nine years ago, Clara Sekowski was part of the engineering team at Planetary Resources, a Seattle-area startup that planned to mine precious metals on asteroids. Six years ago, she joined other veterans from Planetary Resources at First Mode, another trailblazing startup that focused on clean energy for industrial applications. Now she’s the CEO of Special Teams, a consulting firm founded with fellow engineers from First Mode.

“Third time’s the charm, right?” she says.

Both of those earlier startups attracted high-profile backers for their ambitious plans, only to face setbacks as reality set in. Special Teams is starting smaller, but it’s gaining traction: The bootstrapped venture and its team of just over 10 engineers recently moved into a 7,400-square-foot office and workshop facility in Seattle’s SoDo neighborhood — and it’s already exceeding its revenue target.

“In our first year, we’re almost at $2 million, which is above and beyond a goal we had set for Year One,” she told GeekWire.

The Special Teams roster includes engineers with experience in aerospace, software development, and even the gaming industry.

“We use systems engineering to bridge the gap between innovation on paper and operational deployment,” Sekowski said. “We design and build prototypes and custom simulations to prove that concepts can work in real-world conditions.”

Special Teams’ to-do list includes helping BHP lay the groundwork for deep-mining automation; working on a confidential nuclear project; and advising Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus, a high-performance car company, on its plan to create a hydrogen-powered pickup truck.

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Hubble Network raises $70M for Bluetooth satellites

Illustration: Hubble Network satellite in Earth orbit
An artist’s conception shows one of Hubble Network’s satellites in orbit. (Hubble Network Illustration)

Seattle-based Hubble Network says it has raised $70 million in additional investment to accelerate the growth of its satellite-powered Bluetooth network.

“Our vision has always been to connect billions of devices seamlessly and cost-effectively, without requiring hardware or infrastructure,” Alex Haro, the company’s co-founder and CEO, said today in a news release. “This round confirms the strong demand for scalable, low-power, global IoT connectivity.”

The Series B funding round builds on $30 million in previously announced investments. This round was led by Ryan Swagar, co-founder of Swagar Capital. Other investors include Tom Gonser, co-founder of DocuSign; Mike Farley, co-founder of Tile; Marc Weiser, managing director and founder of RPM Ventures; Tuff Yen, founder and managing partner of Seraph Group; and Y Combinator.

“Hubble is doing what many thought was impossible, making space accessible for everyday devices,” Swagar said. “Their unique architecture, strong technical execution and proven customer demand position them to define the future of global connectivity.”

In July, Hubble Network unveiled a system that uses satellites and low-power Bluetooth signals to monitor devices and sensors around the globe. The network relies on a technology called Bluetooth Low Energy, also known as BLE, plus proprietary enhancements that make it possible for Bluetooth signals to be picked up by phased-array antennas on Hubble Network’s satellites.

The company has no connection to NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Instead, Hubble Network’s name plays off the idea that its network can serve as a hub for BLE transmissions. It currently operates seven satellites but plans to grow that constellation to 60 satellites by 2028.

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Amazon touts gigabit data speeds in satellite test

Screenshot of internet speed test with 1287.25 Mbps showing on dial
A screenshot shows a data downlink speed in excess of 1.2 gigabits per second. (Panos Panay via X)

Amazon executives are showing off evidence that the company’s Project Kuiper satellite constellation is capable of transmitting data at speeds in excess of a gigabit per second.

The evidence is in the form of a video posted to social-media accounts, displaying an internet speed test that hit a peak downlink transfer rate of over 1.2 Gbps.

Panos Panay, Amazon’s senior vice president for devices and services, said Project Kuiper team members used Amazon’s enterprise-grade customer terminal for the test, and connected as their satellites flew above at their assigned altitude of 630 kilometers (390 miles).

“So pumped to see this, and looking forward to bringing this level of performance to our customers,” Panay wrote on LinkedIn.

Rajeev Badyal, Amazon’s vice president of technology for Project Kuiper, weighed in on LinkedIn as well. “The team set a high bar from the start, and as far as we know, this is the first commercially phased array antenna to deliver 1+ Gbps from low Earth orbit,” he wrote.

“P.S.: Uplink numbers generated as much excitement (if not more),” Badyal added. “We’ll save those for another day though…”

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Satellite phone service raises its orbit into the data zone

Photoillustration: Hiker using mobile phone in countryside with magenta-tinged satellites in the sky above
T-Mobile says satellite access will get rid of “dead zones” for mobile phone apps. (T-Mobile Photoillustration)

T-Mobile subscribers who buy one of the phones in Google’s newly announced Pixel 10 lineup will be able to explore a new frontier in mass-market mobile connectivity: satellite access to data-dependent apps, including Google Maps.

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