Superconducting satellites. Progress in nuclear fusion. Why performative AI is overrated. All that and more in this week’s Prototype. To get it in your inbox,sign up here.
For decades, getting things to space and moving them around once they are there has been accomplished in a simple way: by lighting chemicals on fire.
But just as the world is moving away from combustion for powering vehicles on Earth, we’re starting to see that in space, too. Just a few weeks ago, I wrote about Auriga Space, which is building electromagnetic launchers to replace the first stage of rockets.
Once satellites are in space, there’s a number of companies looking for ways to reduce the amount of fuel needed. One of those is Zenno Astronautics, which is building solar-powered superconducting magnets that can tap Earth’s own magnetic fields to re-orient spacecraft, ensuring that they are pointed where they need to be.
“In order for us to prosper and to be sustainable in space beyond Earth, we have to learn how to live off the resky told me
To that end, the company has built what it calls a Supertorquer. From the outside, it looks just like a metal box that can be plugged into an existing satellite. Using superconductors, the Supertorquer creates a magnetic field that can be adjusted in strength and direction relative to Earth’s natural magnetic field. This in turn changes the spacecraft’s orientation while in orbit–no fuel needed.
While magnetic orientation isn’t new, Zenno’s technology enables it to happen at higher orbits where Earth’s magnetic field is weaker. And the Supertorquer is a solid-state technology, meaning there’s no moving parts that will wear out over time, extending the lifetime of satellites.
Earlier this month, the company announced that the Supertorquer has been installed on Portal Space Systems’ Starburst-1, which is currently scheduled to launch in October. That mission will give Zenno the chance to test another potential benefit of its Supertorquer: using magnets to shield sensitive systems from radiation. Zenno has included a charged-particle counter that will let the company test this potential in real time.
“We have essentially unlocked a new paradigm for space, and that paradigm is an electromagnetic platform,” Arshavsky said.
On Monday, Pacific Fusionbroke ground on its billion-dollar bet: an R&D campus in Albuquerque, New Mexico aimed at building a fusion reactor that can generate more energy than is put into it–on a commercial scale. Using an approach first developed at nearby Sandia National Laboratory, the company is aiming to hit that net positive milestone by 2030.
And Pacific Fusion isn’t the only company to announce a big milestone in the past few weeks. The race to be the first company to reach grid-scale fusion power is, ahem, heating up. (Get it? Because fusion reactors get really hot… Oh, never mind.)
First off, there’s Commonwealth Fusion Systems, an MIT spinout backed by the likes of Bill Gates, which at the tail end of July announced it hadraised another billion dollars in investment, bringing its total funding to $4 billion. That capital will be used to accelerate the commercialization of its fusion technology. But it’s hardly alone in attracting the attention of investors: Japan-based Kyoto Fusioneeringrecently raised more than $160 million in new investment, and Wisconsin-based Shine Technologies isreportedly exploring an IPO.
While we’re still a few years away from commercial scale fusion power (or possibly decades–it’s hard to say right now!), we’re inching ever closer to the dream of nearly unlimited clean energy that the technology represents. Which just goes to show what can happen when you throw thousands of scientists and billions of dollars at a problem.
Each week, I ask investors for their take on tech trends within their industries. This week, I talked toKristina Simmons, founder and managing partner ofOverwater Ventures, which invests in early-stage startups focused on human health and sustainability.
What tech is being overhyped right now?
AI is incredibly powerful, but AI for AI’s sake is overhyped.What matters is whether technology is solving a real problem. The most interesting companies start with a meaningful problem and use the best technologies available to solve it.
What should more people be talking about today?
The intersection of AI with other breakthrough technologies.There are some amazing companies being built with AI, and we’re especially interested in problems where AI works alongside technologies like biotech, robotics, sensors, and advanced hardware. These businesses can be harder to build, but that complexity can create deeper technical differentiation and stronger long-term defensibility. We think the opportunity is then to commercialize these businesses — bringing them from R&D projects into iconic, scalable businesses that have the right application for people.
What are we all going to be talking about in five years?
Health will be completely revolutionized in five years. A company like Adaptyx [an Overwater portfolio company – AK] is a good example: imagine knowing what is happening in your body in real time. If you can continuously monitor biomarkers and combine that data with AI, you could identify disease, inflammation, or illness far earlier than we can today. We think that creates an entirely new paradigm for healthcare, moving from a system that primarily reacts to illness toward one that continuously understands and supports our health. It will be enabled by a combination of technologies, including AI, biology, sensors, robotics, and others, and it could fundamentally change how we think about health and wellbeing.
AI dichotomy: It was interesting to read Bill Gates’ thoughts on the challenges AI will hold for the future, especially in the resulting unemployment, the very same week in which Reuters published a deeply-reported feature by Katie Paul on how Meta’s plans to drastically cut staff in favor of AI imploded. Here’s a company with thousands of technical experts, particularly in AI, whose plans failed not only because of internal employee pushback, but also because the “technology at the heart of the strategy was failing to deliver hoped-for productivity gains.” Despite the market improvements in models over the past couple of years, translating those improvements into business advantages is still the major hurdle.
Anthropic vs The Pentagon, week 26:Yesterday, a federal court ruled that the Department of Defense illegally designated AI giant Anthropic a supply chain risk, calling the move “unlawful retaliation in violation of the First Amendment.” While that’s a major win for Anthropic, the Pentagon can appeal this ruling and there’s another suit pending against other aspects of the Defense Department’s decision, so it’s not over yet.
SpaceX stuff: SpaceX will launch NASA’s Roman Space Telescope this weekend, which astronomers hope will shed light on dark matter and dark energy. The company also announced it’s building “the biggest launch site on Earth” in Louisiana, with a price tag of $100 billion.
Other space tech news:Rocket manufacturer Ursa Major will be going public in a SPAC deal that values the company at $2.3 billion. And earlier I talked about Auriga Space, which has successfully tested its Hermes electromagnetic launch platform, completing over a dozen supersonic speed launches of drone interceptors.
Cool tech alerts:Researchers made cookies from plastic bottles. A team at Washington State University found a cheaper way to 3D-print space-grade alloys. MIT engineers invented reconfigurable smart devices.
Lately I’ve been giving Oli Love, quite a few repeat listens. I find it to be an interesting evolution for Rodrigo–the tracks are still rooted in her comfort zone of ’90s alt-rock but she’s definitely experimenting a lot more, and it works. My two favorite tracks are “stupid song” (an earworm that will not let go of my brain) and her amazing duet with the Cure’s Robert Smith, “What’s Wrong With Me.”
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