SSPI

Who are the leaders helping guide the future of the space and satellite industry, and why do they choose to serve?

In this episode of the SSPI podcast, Why I Serve, we meet Daniel Gizinski of Comtech and a member of the SSPI Board of Directors.

Daniel shares his journey from engineering to executive leadership and reflects on how companies like Comtech contribute to connectivity, resilience, and the broader space ecosystem. In this conversation:

• how he entered the satellite and space industry
• where Comtech plays a role today
• what excites him about the future
• what challenges the industry needs to address
• and why he chose to serve on the SSPI Board

This episode is part of SSPI's Space and Satellite Futures track, focused on leadership and the next generation of the industry.

If you are interested in satellite communications, the space economy, industry leadership, and the future of global connectivity, this conversation offers a clear and grounded perspective.

Does a true Space Safety Economy already exist, or is it still emerging?

In Episode 1 of Are We There Yet?, Tamara Bond-Williams interviews Rob Scheige of WTW about space insurance, satellite insurance, orbital debris, space risk management, satellite servicing, and the economics of safer operations in orbit.

They discuss why hardware failure remains a larger insurance concern than collision risk, how insurers think about catastrophic orbital events, and what market signals would show that a scalable Space Safety Economy has arrived.

A timely conversation for leaders across the space economy, satellite industry, NewSpace, and space sustainability.

Sponsored by the American Space Exploration Children's Trust Fund.

Ryan Stevenson is the Chief Scientist and a founding member of Kymeta, where he led one of the most consequential breakthroughs in satellite antenna technology: the world's first simultaneous connection to both Ku and Ka frequency bands in a single, compact metamaterial surface. It is the kind of achievement that looks inevitable in hindsight and was anything but in practice.

In this episode of Orbited, the 2025 20 Under 35 cohort asks Ryan how he knew when to ship, what assumption he had to stop accepting before the solution became visible, and where metamaterial antennas are headed as spectrum congestion becomes an industry-wide problem. He also makes the case for why orbital debris cleanup may be the most important technology to watch, and shares what he'd tell high schoolers about entering a space industry in the middle of a massive disruption cycle.

Space law pioneer Randy Segal, 2026 Space and Satellite Hall of Fame inductee and partner and space practice co-leader at Hogan Lovells, joins the 2025 20 Under 35 cohort for a wide-ranging conversation about what it takes to build legal and regulatory frameworks for an industry that moves faster than the law. From commercial space stations to sovereign government deals to mega-constellation licensing, Randy has navigated it all, and in this episode, she brings 33 years of hard-won perspective directly to the next generation.

Topics include: how to think about contracts when no one knows what the regulations will be, what sovereigns and startups misunderstand about each other, why Elon Musk's Martian Constitution clause is less crazy than it sounds, what the current FCC environment means for operators and investors, how to protect IP in space, and what it takes to build a career in a field that only makes sense in hindsight.

Orbited is an SSPI series pairing the 2025 20 Under 35 cohort with inductees into the Hall of Fame Class of 2026.

In this episode, Candace Johnson, co-founder of SES, pioneer of direct-to-home broadcasting, and partner at Seraphim Space, is Orbited as she fields questions from SSPI's 2025 20 Under 35 cohort.

One of the most consequential figures in commercial space history, Johnson launched her career at 30 with a letter from the Prime Minister of Luxembourg and a conviction that private satellite communications would reshape Europe. Decades later, she helped build the ecosystem that made global connectivity possible and is now raising alarms about the industry she helped create.

In this conversation, the 2025 cohort presses Johnson on what it took to break the financial and cultural assumptions holding back commercial satellite operators, how she identified market demand before the language existed to describe it, and what she sees when she looks at the constellation economy today. Her answers are pointed: spectrum is being wasted, emerging space-faring nations are being locked out, and the industry that prided itself on opening access may be quietly closing it again.

Orbited is an SSPI series pairing the 2025 20 Under 35 cohort with inductees into the Hall of Fame Class of 2026.

Orbited brings together the 2025 20 Under 35 cohort and the Space & Satellite Hall of Fame Class of 2026, where one industry legend takes the center and the next generation rotates through with questions designed to draw insight from experience. The clock is running. The buzzer is real. And every participant gets their moment in the orbit.

In this debut session, Steve Hart, whose work over four decades helped shape military satellite security, IP-based commercial networking, and the ground network algorithms behind high-capacity satellite systems, faces off with a cohort that arrives with serious questions. They want to know about sunk costs and when to let go of good work. They ask about cybersecurity threats then and now, about navigating defense acquisition culture, about how you build a company that stays innovative when the billionaires move in. And they close with something bigger: whether multilateralism in space can survive a world that keeps pulling toward sovereignty and silos.

Hart doesn't hedge. He talks about his time as what he calls "Chief Saboteur" and what it takes to break things on purpose when stagnation sets in. These conversations are part of SSPI's Space and Satellite Futures mission, cultivating and recognizing the talent that keeps our industry moving forward.

In this episode of the SSPI Space and Satellite Futures podcast, Executive Director Tamara Bond-Williams sits down with Despina Panayiotou Theodosiou, Co-CEO of Tototheo Global, to explore how a 40-year maritime heritage is shaping the future of satellite communications. Despina breaks down how Tototheo helps organizations across maritime, enterprise, and government sectors turn connectivity into real operational value, why hybrid satellite-terrestrial architectures are replacing one-size-fits-all solutions, and how the lessons learned at sea are now transforming industries from energy to logistics.

The conversation goes beyond technology to tackle one of the industry's most urgent challenges: building inclusive leadership pipelines for a rapidly converging space and satellite ecosystem. Despina shares her five years leading WISTA International, the 2024 IMO Gender Equality Award, and her conviction that stronger industries require stronger, more diverse leadership pathways. SSPI's role in creating those pathways, through community, visibility, and cross-disciplinary dialogue, sits at the heart of this discussion. Whether you're a maritime professional, a satellite industry newcomer, or a leader thinking about the future of global connectivity, you'll leave with a sharper sense of where the industry is headed and what it demands of the people in it.

Part of the Better Satellite World podcast, From Connectivity to Intelligence is a new quarterly series underwritten by Quvia, exploring how AI and satellite connectivity are changing what's possible in the world's most demanding operating environments.

In the debut episode, SSPI Executive Director Tamara Bond-Williams speaks with Quvia Founder and CEO Benny Retnamony about what happens when connectivity stops being just a pipe and starts becoming intelligent. From aircraft and cruise ships to offshore energy and other remote environments, Benny explains how vast amounts of valuable data remain trapped at the edge, why traditional policy-based network management is no longer enough, and how AI can help orchestrate data movement across complex hybrid networks. The conversation explores multi-orbit connectivity, quality of experience, cloud-edge integration, and the emerging future of "physical AI" in connected operations.

Happy International Women's Day! Celebrate by tuning into this SSPI-WISE Presents podcast, based on the conversation conducted at the SSPI-WISE meeting on February 24. WISE speaks with special guest, Nicole Stott, former Astronaut.

Nicole Stott is a veteran NASA astronaut, aquanaut, engineer, artist, and author of Back to Earth. With 104 days in space, including service on the International Space Station and Space Shuttle, she brings the life-changing perspective of spaceflight into her creative and advocacy work on Earth. Through art, education, and environmental stewardship, Nicole champions the spirit of STEAM, uniting science, engineering, and creativity in service to our shared home.

How do you keep a remote school connected — not just on day one, but for years?

In this episode of Signal to Soar, Vaibhav Magow, Vice President of the International Division at Hughes, explains what it really takes to make rural school connectivity reliable and scalable. From satellite backhaul enabling 4G and 5G expansion, to the role of the Jupiter System and hybrid GEO/LEO networks, this conversation explores how infrastructure decisions shape educational access across Africa and Asia-Pacific.

When connectivity holds, classrooms expand. And when classrooms expand, communities grow.