Appraising and grading Near Earth Orbit Objects - From Academia to Start-up

In this episode we discuss Earth's first on-orbit satellite inspection service, Australian startup HEO Robotics, on a quest to "Make Space (Assets) Transparent". We dive into how they pivoted from Asteroid Mining to Space Situational Awareness, the methods they used to find Product-Market Fit, and future possibilities to scale their business to the Moon, asteroids, and beyond!

Joining us for this conversation, we have an enthusiastic leader in space technology research, development, and innovation, Dr. William Crowe, Founder and CEO of HEO Robotics. William holds a Bachelor's of Aerospace, Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering and PhD in Space Flight Dynamics from the University of New South Wales Sydney.

CONTENT
00:01:44 Intro
00:02:35 May the force be with you / Star Wars Planetary Exploration
00:03:03 Low cost Asteroid Mining
00:04:59 The right time of funding / Competition out of business
00:06:04 Pivoting from Asteroid Mining to Space Situational Awareness / Finding Product/Market Fit
00:08:16 Observing Oumuamua?
00:11:11 Operational vs technical constraints
00:13:12 Flybys / Slingshots / Change of Economics of Launch
00:15:18 Shift from Academia to Start-up
00:17:42 Accelerators/Incubators / Lean Start-up & Academic becoming Founder
00:20:05 Sizing the problem / Investigating the problem / Trends that helped to raise the company
00:22:47 How to expand the value chain / Extending the business / Use Cases
00:28:25 The technology of swarm constellations / Starlink
00:33:05 Experimentation Framework & Prototyping
00:38:08 Licensing
00:39:08 LEO, HEO or Lunar Orbit?
00:40:08 The solutions customers want
00:42:34 SpaceX & Blue Origin
00:44:05 Australian Space Agency & Space Market
00:47:25 Why Space

SHOWNOTES
[1] https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-crowe-space/
[2] https://www.heo-robotics.com/