Newport Beach-based satellite communications company Universal Space Network Inc. has some big customers,and a big backer.
Cell phone pioneer Bruce McCaw is a director and investor in Universal Space, which provides satellite communication services to NASA, the Defense Department and Boeing Co.
McCaw and brothers Craig and John sold McCaw Cellular to AT & T; Inc. in 1993 for $11.5 billion.
Bruce McCaw provided Universal Space founder and friend Pete Conrad, a former astronaut, early funding in 1997.
Universal runs ground stations and charges customers for use of its antennas to communicate with satellites.
The company calls itself the largest in the business of outsourcing satellite communication. Last year’s revenue was about $20 million, according to Chief Executive Tom Ingersoll. It also was Universal’s second year of profitability, he said.
Most customers, which also include Lockheed Martin Corp., have the ability to communicate with satellites on their own, Ingersoll said.
Universal’s pitch is that it can save them money by sharing antenna time. Customers use Universal’s gear on a timeshare plan.
“For clients who just need to communicate with their satellites for a couple hours each day, we make it more affordable for them,” he said.
The company uses 40-foot-wide dish antennas across the globe. Most of the information retrieved from satellites is weather data for scientific purposes, according to Ingersoll.
The company recently raised $18 million in financing. The deal included a $13 million investment from private equity firm Warburg Pincus LLC, Swedish Space Corp. and McCaw’s Pistol Creek Financial. Comerica Inc. provided a $5 million credit line.
Universal used part of the money to buy Honeywell International Inc.’s DataLynx satellite communication system in Alaska.
The deal for DataLynx, terms of which weren’t disclosed, came with contracts covering 20 NASA satellites.
The company employs 55 people, including 15 at its Newport Beach headquarters. Universal also has an office in Horsham, Penn.
Ingersoll estimates that his company services about 5% of the industry.
There are few commercial players in the space market, though that’s changing, according to Ingersoll.
In El Segundo, Elon Musk, a cofounder of PayPal Inc., is testing rockets for commercial space transportation with his company Space Exploration Technologies Corp.
The idea that space one day would be commercialized was the vision of Universal’s founder Conrad, who died in 1999 in a motorcycle accident in Ojai. He was the third man to walk on the moon and served on NASA’s Gemini 5 and 11, Apollo 12 and Skylab 2 missions.
A Seattle native, McCaw’s fortune is estimated at about $925 million, according to Forbes.
McCaw and his brothers inherited a cable company from their father in 1969 and turned it into McCaw Cellular, an early provider of wireless phone service.
John McCaw owns the Vancouver Canucks hockey team. Craig McCaw develops broadband technology with his Clearwire Corp. and also owns stakes in Sprint Nextel Corp. and ICO Global Communications (Holdings) Ltd.
Bruce McCaw, the oldest of the brothers, also is known for his collection of airplanes and for being an avid racecar fan.
