Close your eyes and imagine you’re holding a grilled cheese sandwich. Better yet, make one. Now, holding this crispy, gooey sandwich in your hands, would it surprise you to know that a device this small is capable of connecting the world?

When we picture a satellite orbiting the Earth, we tend to imagine huge, complex machines. But the next generation of satellite technology has arrived, and it’s quite literally the size of that sandwich in your hands. 

These tiny satellites have great potential for the world at large. Their size and affordability mean they’re accessible to more people across the globe, and that they are able to reach where bigger, more robust satellites cannot. Forty-five of these satellites are already orbiting the planet, and the significance of that for farmers in remote regions, truck drivers on the road, water preservation, and the monitoring of the Earth’s magnetic field, is huge. 

In this episode of the Women Driving the Future series, Ed Bernardon interviews Sara Spangelo,  the Co-Founder and CEO of SWARM, a satellite company working to link the world through reliable, low-cost internet connectivity. Her expertise in small satellites and autonomous aircraft, paired with her background as a lead systems engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab and Google X, has uniquely positioned her to become an industry leader in the pursuit of global connectivity. 

Today, we’ll talk about how the concept of such tiny satellites came to be, the numerous benefits of their use from individuals to companies alike, and the impact they’ll have on the future of transportation and space travel. 

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