If you want to get an advantage over your business competitors, and have half a million dollars or more to spare, maybe consider keeping an eye on things from outer space with a small spacecraft from Irvine-based Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems Inc.
Chief Executive Anthony Previte said insurance companies, hedge funds and brokerage houses can use the information from the orbiting vehicles to track commodities such as field crops and mining yields.
“Some of them have actually bought satellites [because] they’re specifically interested in orange production,” Previte said of one hedge fund. “They want to keep eyes on what’s being taken from the field, what trucks are being loaded.”
Small-sized satellites—some the size of a laptop—make for big business at Tyvak; the Business Journal estimates Tyvak’s Irvine-based parent company, Terran Orbital, having annual revenue in the $130 million range.
Terran ranks No. 26 on this week’s Business Journal list of Orange County’s largest aerospace and defense contractors (see list, page 17). It’s one of several firms on the list whose work now reaches outer space.
‘Space is Expensive’
Tyvak has two main groups of commercial customers that seek an advantage by peering down to Earth from outer space by means of small satellites.
The first are firms interested in the utilization of resources—including oil production, forestry, water levels—and production chains of raw materials into finished goods.
The second category includes those interested in remote sensing for models or analytics. That includes the erosion of ocean sand dunes for insurance companies or the number of ships within a port, and how such data changes with time.
“How much copper is being pulled out of this mine? Do you trust industry metrics?” Previte asks rhetorically. Space-based radar systems and other space-based vehicles are capable of answering a lot of business questions, according to Previte.
“A lot of our commercial customers will turn around and sell to the government,” Previte said.
“Space is expensive. You don’t put objects into space unless they really need to be there.”
“The radar systems we make are sub-meter resolution,” according to Previte. “You can see quite a bit with them.”
The privately held company has 110 employees in Irvine while another approximately 65 are spread across the globe, and between three and seven people added per month.
Low Weight Systems
Tyvak’s least costly satellite ran about $500,000 while the most expensive is in the tens of millions of dollars. The company said it can produce between 60 and 90 nanosatellites weighing less than 25 kilograms—55 pounds—each, as well as 30 to 40 microsatellites above 25 kilograms, per year.
“We’ve done space-based radar systems, we’ve done communications systems, we do science missions,” Previte said, including working on a mini-satellite launch with students from six Irvine high schools last November.
Previte estimates the company is divided about 50-50 between commercial and governmental business; efforts related to the latter includes work for the Department of Defense and NASA.
Last month, NASA awarded a $13.7 million lunar project contact that will include a spacecraft built by Tyvak that is the size of a small microwave oven.
High Security
Tyvak moved into its 40,000-square-foot office space along Barranca Parkway, near the city’s Amtrak station, a little more than a year ago. About 24,000 square feet of the facility is set aside for laboratories.
The company’s labs shake, heat, freeze and otherwise do everything they can to simulate an outer-space environment. All parts are meticulously checked for authenticity, coded and X-rayed for authenticity.
“I think at last count we’ve been on 18 launch vehicles,” Previte said. “At this point we’ve launched 213 satellites between ours and other people’s.”
Government-mandated security at the site is rigorous, including anti-drone protection on the roof and round-the-clock guards.
“The financial houses probably have a higher level of security than the U.S. government,” Previte said. “They don’t want anyone to know what they’re looking at or what they’re doing.”
He said the company has been profitable “every single year since inception in 2011.” And when they raise money it’s for hugely expensive capital expenditures such as X-ray equipment at $1 million apiece.
Rocket Lab
The company provides end-to-end service from design through operating a satellite for a customer, a service that he said is unique and includes making the machine intelligence, as well as guidance systems, control systems, and radar.
“What we tend not to make is if someone makes an exquisite optical instrument and wants to look at forest fires or someone is looking for missile detection,” he said. “We typically have a partner that comes in.”
Rocket Lab of Huntington Beach, ranked No. 28 on the Business Journal’s aerospace and defense contractors list; the Indian Space Research Organization, Arianespace, SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, and Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems are among the companies that have launched Tyvak satellites, according to the company. Parent company Terran has raised about $42 million in capital, with investors including Lockheed, Beach Point Capital and Goldman Sachs.
CEO Previte said takeover queries do come in.
“Ultimately, we’ll be acquired by someone,” he said, either because Tyvak is such a good partner that there is no other choice, or because Tyvak is a threat to another company’s business.
