John Langford

Vannevar Labs is aiming for $1 billion in revenue by 2030. 💰 They are one of the fastest-to-profitability defense tech stratups... ever. 🚀 And their founders, Brett Granberg and Nini Hamrick, are two of the most candid, caring, and driven in the industry. This week's #CrossingTheValley is an absolute masterclass in what separates innovation theater from mission-impact. Check it out wherever you get your podcasts, and read on for some top takeaways 👇 1. Peers are the real support network of a business school… not (necessarily) the professors. Outside of the Hacking for Defense ecosystem, Brett got an icy reception from professors when he spoke about dropping out of Stanford. One went so far as to say, “if you drop out, I’m not going to help you.” 2. You can fundraise with problems and users… you don't (necessarily) need product. The world was different in 2018… but the Vannevar team didn't have a prototype. They had a deep background and extensive network of end users because they chose to solve a problem that they had experienced personally their previous lives. This made it easy for them to pick up the phone and get together with users who understood the problem deeply. 3. The best "first" deal is the first (real) deal you can get. “Whatever you can get, the fastest you can possibly get it, is what you should go after.” But crucially (and this will stand out from the typical deftech startup), they deprioritized SBIR, innovation money, and anything that sounded like innovation money or research funds. If it wasn't real money, it wasn't an important enough problem. 4. "Selling" in defense isn’t about sales… it’s about solving a problem with a customer who lacks existing capability. Many of the areas the team focused on were new to the government; they didn’t have to focus on competitors, and they didn’t have to obsess over a business model - they had to figure out what it would take to make the problem go away, and then deliver. Check out the full case writeup on Frontdoordefense . substack . com for the complete list of lessons and some 🌶 quotes!

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Interesting Autonomous car behavior. You'd think that GNSS would at least inform the car of what lane they are in and direction of traffic, while the camera/lidar would determine that all the other cars are pointed the other direction...

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Looking for a conference to share your work on power technology development for use in extreme space environments? Consider AIAA SciTech 2025. Abstracts are due soon (May 24th)! Advanced Power for Extreme Space Exploration: As we explore further beyond Earth, power systems will be pushed to extreme conditions and challenged more and more to enable new mission locations and extend mission durations. From the surface of Venus, the permanently shadowed craters on the moon, the moons of the outer planets, and beyond, unique solutions will be needed to generate, store, transmit, and manage and control power. This year at AIAA SciTech 2025, we plan to bring together researchers working to address the challenges that will be faced in these extreme environments, helping to ensure future mission success.   Topics Areas Include: Power Systems and Architectures: overall power systems and architectures for small and large spacecraft, as well as surface power architectures Power Conversion, Switching and Transfer: power electronics, particularly the areas of power switching and conversion, and power transfer technologies such as tethers and power beaming or wireless power transfer Power Sources: current power source technologies, and development of advanced technologies including photovoltaics (cells and arrays), radioisotope and fission power sources (including conversion technologies and new heat sources) Energy Storage: energy storage for primary power and rechargeable systems for load leveling/peak power/eclipse requirements Power Systems, Sub-Systems and Components for Operation in Extreme Environments: wide temperature operation, high radiation tolerance, very long life and high-g systems Advanced/Novel Power Concepts   Note: When submitting your abstract in the AIAA SciTech system, please select “Other Topics in Aerospace Power Systems” to be properly assigned to this area.   aiaa.org/SciTech

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"It's a strong stance." Meh, not really. It's just common sense. The term deeptech itself comes from defense industry primes. I first heard it from Raytheon back in the 1990s. ⚔️ 🛡 Tech, innovation, and defence are intertwined. They always have been, and always will be. There'd be no Silicon Valley without the DoD and US Navy. The FTC, Moffett Field, radio, transistors, nuclear power, silicon, internet, etc. Silicon Valley is there thanks to the US government and defense industry being buyers of first resort. Numerous great advancements in science, mathematics, and engineering were born in war. From Britain's Longitude Rewards, to Sadi Carnot trying to improve the efficiency of steam engines in the Napoleonic Wars which gave rise to the field of thermodynamics, there are countless examples of technology being pushed forward by defense driven innovation. The hard truth is it's going to be a challenge for Europe to lead in anything deeptech related without strong defense spending, sensible procurement strategies, and governments that act as a buyer of first resort. At the moment that isn't the case. The war in Ukraine has started to wake Europe up from a long hibernation, but Europe is an old, slow, creaky bear that might just go back to sleep. 🐻 https://lnkd.in/gZTqMfsd

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Hot off the presses: "Building an Enduring Advantage in the Third Space Age." Some key findings: - The United States accounted for roughly half of global launches in 2023, and it made up 81% of effective launch capacity. - More satellites were launched in the past five years (2019–23) than in all previous years combined. - In 2023, 78% of satellites launched were from the United States and 84% were for commercial missions. - The US advantage in space rests largely on America’s lead in space technology. - To turn this temporary lead into an enduring advantage, the United States must build on sources of national power that run deeper than technology: the combination of free markets, an open society, and access to capital, which enable the engine of innovation behind this technology. Three Areas of Recommendations: 1. Reduce obstacles for new launch vehicles and companies. - Expand the Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation. - Increase Space Force funding for launch-range operations and infrastructure modernization. - Revise the Space Force’s launch acquisition strategy to create more opportunities for new entrants. 2. Press the advantage to accelerate US military and intelligence space missions. - Develop much larger intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office. - Deploy a tactical ISR layer as part of the Space Force’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA). - Accelerate the development and use of space logistics, in-space servicing, and spacelift. - Begin using commercial ISR capabilities for immediate combatant command support and to better inform PWSA tactical ISR layer requirements. 3. Enhance the lure of international partnerships with NASA to achieve broader space policy goals. - Expand opportunities in the Artemis program. - Develop novel deep-space missions that take advantage of new super-heavy launch vehicles. - Negotiate a new multilateral agreement that builds on the Artemis Accords and includes more specific and binding requirements. Read the full report here: https://lnkd.in/gy7aiUT3

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I was honored to be a speaker at the 39th Space Symposium last week, and many thanks to my good friend and colleague Troy Thomas at Boston Consulting for sponsoring the panel. During the panel, I advocated for the USG to provide a pathway for on-orbit operational demonstrations of new space tech through a regular cadence of dedicated launches to showcase such capabilities. Such “innovation” launches would help address the issue of flight heritage, one of the biggest obstacles to getting new space tech adopted. A very large portion of the space innovation economy is locked out of paying for their own demonstrations due to costs, and nearly all USG R&D grant programs simply aren’t sufficient to both develop needed tech and pay for a launch to demo it. This deprives our space forces from seeing and choosing from the most cutting-edge emerging capabilities they could use. The non-space part of the DoD is rich in opportunities for innovation and experimentation in operationally relevant environments, and as such, enjoys a far more rapid uptake of new capabilities when compared to our forces in space. The US can never allow itself to be in a fair fight—we must always have a technological edge over our adversaries, particularly in space. Perhaps SPACEWERX can offer such a service to the appropriate performers as part of the SBIR program? #SPACEWERX #DIU #space #innovation #USSF #SDA #AFWERX

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May 30, 2024 11:00 AM Eastern Time Please join us for a STEP Seminar that I am hosting that will define a process for using Quantified Margins and Uncertainty (QMU) information in the form of Best Estimate Plus Uncertainty (BEPU) to certify an aircraft seat using computational simulation. The FAA has initiated a project to expand the use of computational modeling and simulation in cabin safety applications that will focus on increasing the use of M&S for aircraft seats and other cabin safety components. This will be accomplished by evaluating whether more performance-based rules can supplant the current prescriptive guidance. Dr. Martin Pilch will discuss the first step in the project; the engineering study that will provide the information necessary for the FAA to properly evaluate the use of BEPU and QMU to remove the rigid factors of safety in current FAA guidance. REGISTER IN ADVANCE FOR THIS MEETING https://lnkd.in/e5Rv2HHK After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

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How it feels when everything goes wrong: (The hardships of hardware development) [𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁 5] I have to rewind from the spring of 2023 to the fall 2022. We hired an agent to help us fundraise in the fall of 2022. The agreement was the first part of the money on our account in February. When they failed to do that, our own investors pulled the bridge financing. Now we had 3 months before we ran out of money. It was fair enough. We had struggled with motor problems for 6 months. The progress on the flying prototype seemed very little. In the end, we found out there were manufacturing errors on them. The countdown timer is 3 months now. Fugg!! Well, Travis James Mathers and I were not ready to give up. We geared up, prepared ourselves for war. I had to fire the whole team due to Danish rules around responsibility. Here is the status at this point: - A fired team with 3 months of resignation, - A prototype with motors that had been causing problems - There is no regulatory approval to fly outside. Okay, here we go! We put in all our efforts to get regulatory approval so we could fly outside and do a demonstration for a potential customer, which would probably get us our bridge financing back. 1.5 months later, we got our regulatory approval as the only ones in Europe able to do onshore and offshore operations with this heavy drone for cargo delivery for wind turbines. 2 months later, we fly outside for the second time, and at about 25 meters of height, we have a small glitch on a motor that causes instability that makes the drone crash into the ground. At this point, all the escape hatches are open for us to jump into and give up. Double FUGG!! Follow me for the next part of the story. If you love what you do, fight for it with everything you have. -MK

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Thanks to Ron F. from General Atomics' Electromagnetics Division for inviting me to opine on the challenges and opportunities of space nuclear power and propulsion. As it turns out, we have quite a bit of both. Opportunities first. I've said it before but it's worth repeating: Elon and his superb team at SpaceX have dismantled the LEO bottleneck. And that has opened the door to innovations of every kind - at least in LEO. But what it's really done is enable us to envision how we will go to (and play in) higher orbits, offering us a chance to define what sort of infrastructure we will build the future space economy *on*. The future is not LEO - it's the entire solar system. So: It won't be chemistry or solar power that get us moving, not if we're serious about creating a gold rush to orbit. Both are too constrained and deficient (i.e., insufficiently energy- and power-dense) to rapidly and efficiently connect the dots in cislunar space, and provide the megawatts on demand we know we'll need, whether the use case is civil, commercial, or defense. That leaves us with nuclear - and it's going to be fission for awhile, despite noteworthy quantities of money flowing into fusion. We can make this work - but we have to get to orbit and prove ourselves now. If we don't? Well, sunk cost is very real (see SLS). If you have it, you use it - even if it doesn't make sense. Let's make sure that what we put on orbit makes sense - commercial sense, defense sense, civil sense. Challenges? Well, we're all capital-intensive plays with some uncertainty in our regulatory story and that combo tends to scare the 💩 out of most private investors. I'd love to be introduced to any visionary folks out there with some discretionary dollars who share my passion for the space gold rush and want to find a way to get involved that gets us out and moving during our lifetimes - while we can have some fun. We can do this. 🚀 https://lnkd.in/ezq6yv_G

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Solving the space plus critical infrastructure challenge is a big next step in protecting the future. Check this out 

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I wanted to share some exciting developments from the past week that have left a mark on both Seraphim and the broader space sector. Here's a quick overview: Space Report: The World Economic Forum released their April 2024 report that projects revenues from commercial Earth Observation satellites will surpass $700 billion, contributing to the abatement of 2 gigatonnes of greenhouse gases annually. Portfolio Space Venture: Privateer, the space situational awareness startup co-founded by Apple’s Steve Wozniak, raised $56.5 million in a Series A round and acquired data analytics company Orbital Insight. Portfolio Space Growth: Xona Space Systems secured an additional $19 million to build an alternative to GPS in LEO. Seraphim Space Investment Trust and Future Ventures led the funding round; Iceye took a significant leap forward by announcing the opening of their platform to customers. This allows customers to directly task Iceye's constellation via an API, ensuring they get precise results tailored to their needs. Remember that radar data can see the ground day or night, whatever the weather 24/7 anywhere on earth - today at every 2 hours or better in certain regions. This is a powerful capability now directly in the hands of customers; D-Orbit announced an agreement with Seraphim Accelerator portfolio company Starfish to execute satellite rendezvous, a crucial step in space debris removal. #sustainability #space #spacetech #vc #venturecapital

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In the summer of 1958, Frank Rosenblatt (a Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory researcher) demonstrated his “perceptron” at the Office of Naval Research (soon to be renamed Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency [DARPA]). In front of a room of reporters, Rosenblatt showed his perceptron a deck of cards that had colored squares on either the left side or the right side. After “seeing” about 50 cards, the perceptron was able to consistently tell left-side cards from right-side cards. Importantly, it could also do this with cards it hadn’t previously seen. For many, this was the birth of neural networks (although Rosenblatt’s perceptron only had a single “neuron.”) 65 years later… In the fall of 2023, the U.S. Air Force staged its inaugural AI-human dogfight under the Air Combat Evolution (ACE) program. This aerial duel featured a manned F-16 going head-to-head with its technologically advanced sibling, the X-62A VISTA – an experimental F-16 variant equipped with live AI agents, installed less than a year prior. The development of this AI system, spearheaded by DARPA in December 2022, aimed to autonomously pilot a fighter jet while rigorously adhering to the Air Force’s stringent safety protocols. During the encounter, the two jets engaged in intense “high-aspect nose-to-nose engagements,” demonstrating their aerial prowess as they maneuvered within 2,000 feet of each other at breakneck speeds of 1,200 miles per hour. Notably, DARPA has remained tight-lipped about which aircraft emerged victorious from the engagement. To date, a total of 21 test flights have been conducted, with the program set to continue through 2024. Just a quick reminder that in 1969, ARPA (the Advanced Research Projects Agency, renamed DARPA in 1972) launched ARPANET, which evolved into the internet. Thinking about AI in the context of national defense, one has to ask: “Is Stargate (Microsoft and OpenAI’s proposed $100 billion AI supercomputer) being funded by DARPA, or is the Pentagon working on one of its own?” If the U.S. Government is working on its own $100 billion AI supercomputer, where are they getting the engineering talent to build it? -s #ai #artificialintelligence #darpa #aidogfights #military #usairforce 

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The tech industrial base is the new defense industrial base, according to this article. I would be a bit more specific that it's the deep tech industry that's emerging as a competitor to the historic defense industrial sector. It's no secret that the private sector is where most of the big #deeptech advancements and nascent technological developments occur, particularly in areas such as #quantumcomputing, #biotech, #space, and #AI. With a higher concentration of talent, capital, and competition to drive commercialization, it's crucial for the #USA 🇺🇸 and its Allies to lean in on this resource. We can't out centrally plan our adversaries or steal more #IP, but we can win through capitalism. One easy way is to better engage technology companies in considering dual-use applications. Dual-use is a term for the approach whereby a technology or application can be used for both a commercial opportunity and a national security need. Capitalists, #VCs, and capital markets love dual-use because that means adding a customer in Uncle Sam with deep pockets and a second source of income for one product. -GSP- #spaceeconomy #4thindustrialrevolution MilkyWayEconomy United States Space Force #DoD @The Space Economy

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Interesting article on Sierra Space's LIFE (essentially inflatable) modules and how they plan to make these really outsized over the course of their program. I'd love to know more about how these modules are outfitted after they are deployed. Do all the facilities need to be launched separately and integrated after the module is deployed? #commercialspace #spacestation #spaceresearch

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This is a perfect example of a lack of an executive command level sanity check to ensure the system is limited to viable decision options by a highly robust set of “mission level” parameters. It should KNOW this was a one-way from a map database on board and should have thrown out the left turn as even being an option. We must do better or “autonomy” is DOA. Systems need to enforce safe outcome by purposeful architecture design and hierarchy of command structures.

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Thanks Defense Advancement for picking up news on the release of Skyborne Technologies Cerberus MI armed Group 2 UAS - still one of the only types of kinetic and non-kinetic modular payload small UAS on the market. Value proposition: 1. Cost per shot (lower than an FPV with a warhead) 2. Organic strike capability in a man-packable form 3. Re-usable and re-loadable 4. Minimal training (if you can fly a ISR Group 1/2 UAS, you can fly and target with Cerberus) 5. Using standard military inventory ammunition (approved by DoDs)

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This one has me puzzled. I agree friendly drone ID is now a major problem, but the commercial drone industry has fifty-cent piece-sized remote ID/ADS-B systems, and the US Army has card-deck-sized NATO Mode V IFF systems from companies like uAvionix Corporation. Why don't the UAS program offices put these systems on every drone they acquire? What about NATO and the US treaty partners? Can they add drone IFF to their priority "to-do lists?" (And, yes, the measurement provided uses the English measurement system and not the metric.) #counterUAS #usarmy #usmarines #uas #drones

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I already shared a previous version of this interesting article questioning safety definitions. Since it was updated and I discussed about the impacts of safety and risk definitions on the scope of safety standards and functional safety standards only yesterday, I share it again.

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