![](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/55325724954_232a2ea148_6k-e1781102477602.jpg?w=2048\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In the last six years, a surge of satellites in orbit has triggered what Northwood Space Chief Executive Bridgit Mendler called the \u201cinfrastructure building era\u201d of space.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen, Colorado on Tuesday, Mendler emphasized how massive leaps in launch capacity and spacecraft manufacturing are supercharging the space economy. Satellites have evolved from isolated scientific missions into large constellations of thousands. And they all require the type of network routing Northwood builds, she said.<\/p>\n
Northwood is focused on the ground segment, which Mendler described as the networking system linking Earth and space. Without this infrastructure, she argued, a satellites would be a \u201creally expensive hump of metal up in space.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a long time, the space economy has existed, but it\u2019s been pretty niche,\u201d Mendler said. \u201cThe economics are switching. You can see that that is leading to adoption and market share from major parts of the economy like telecom.\u201d<\/p>\n
SpaceX\u2019s Starlink, which beams internet access to customers on Earth, currently has more than 10,000 operational satellites in low-Earth orbit, while Amazon\u2019s Project Kuiper is racing to launch its own constellation of satellites. SpaceX and other companies also hope to eventually launch so-called orbital compute data centers. Companies are striking massive multi-billion-dollar deals to deliver AI compute services via space infrastructure.<\/p>\n
The burgeoning space industry will get a big boost this week when SpaceX is expected to make its public market debut under the ticker SPCX at a $1.75 trillion valuation. The IPO is expected to raise $75 billion, making it the largest IPO in history, surpassing Saudi Aramco\u2019s 2019 debut. <\/p>\n
Northwood recently closed a $100 million Series B funding round led by Washington Harbour Partners and Andreessen Horowitz. The company is betting heavily on Earth-based data infrastructure. Its flagship product, named Portal, uses a network of smaller, individual antennas that work together as a single, powerful system designed to replace traditional parabolic dishes.<\/p>\n
Mendler\u2019s philosophy is that space networking should be a shared resource, akin to how cloud infrastructure supports tech startups. By providing this shared layer, Northwood aims to drastically shorten the timeline for new space ventures. What took industry leaders like SpaceX 20 years to build could soon be achieved in five, she said.<\/p>\n
Mendler is a former Disney Channel actress, appearing in popular TV shows such as Good Luck Charlie<\/em> and Wizards of Waverly Place<\/em>. She said she views her Hollywood background as \u201ctraditional\u201d for a space CEO because both industries require a high risk tolerance and the ability to beat significant odds.<\/p>\n She also views space-based energy as an exciting use case, noting that there is an \u201cabundance of energy in space\u201d which could help solve terrestrial energy supply concerns.<\/p>\n \u201cData is the way that you gather value from the space economy,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, the more throughput you can get through space, the space economy directly grows.\u201d<\/p>\n More from the 25th annual Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Anthropic\u2019s Boris Cherny, creator of Claude Code, says there are days he manages tens of thousands of AI agents at once<\/em><\/p>\n The AI industry spent years chasing bigger models. Now it\u2019s chasing efficiency<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018Not an Allbirds Moment\u2019: Xbox\u2019s new CEO says she is grounding the console in gaming roots not AI<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n #space #economys #frontier #ground #infrastructure #Northwood #Space #CEO<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the last six years, a surge of satellites in orbit has triggered what Northwood Space Chief Executive Bridgit Mendler called the \u201cinfrastructure building era\u201d of space. Speaking at the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5457,3849,369,1063,4170,6750,1278,9123,354,1843],"class_list":["post-6707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-aerospace","tag-brainstorm-tech","tag-ceo","tag-economys","tag-frontier","tag-ground","tag-infrastructure","tag-northwood","tag-space","tag-spacex"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}