door Runa Swiggers
published on Tuesday, February 20, 2024 at 11:37 AM •
2 min read
Bridgit Mendler, better known as Teddy Duncan from Good Luck Charlie, is launching her own company: Northwood Space. The idea for the business came about during the pandemic while she was spending time with family in New Hampshire.
Former Disney actress Bridgit Mendler studied in recent years at the University of Southern California, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Law School, where she obtained several degrees. Her work at the International Bureau Satellite Division Policy Branch made her fall in love with space law. She started the company with two other people: her husband, Griffin Cleverly, and Shaurya Luthra. In the meantime, they have already received over six million dollars in funding.
Company
Mendler told CNBC that her vision is to create a data highway between Earth and space. She also says that it is still difficult to send data to space and find an access point with a satellite.
She has no plans to build rockets or satellites. Instead, it aims for mass production of ground stations. These are the large and round antennas on Earth that make contact with the satellites in space and are also known as teleports. She thinks this is an important part because she wants to bring the impact of space to people. Northwood Space strives to build these ground stations with rapid production and flexibility in mind.
There is currently a bottleneck at the shared ground stations with customers struggling to find availability on existing teleports. Northwood Space is now focusing on companies that do not want to build a ground station network themselves. In doing so, it allows space companies to respond much more quickly to use cases and missions that arise. This year, the company wants to conduct a first test to come into contact with a spacecraft in orbit around the Earth.