SpinLaunch CEO Massimiliano “Massi” Ladovaz paints an ambitious picture of a rapidly shifting space industry driven as much by geopolitics and sovereignty as by engineering innovation.
Ladovaz argued that SpinLaunch’s Meridian system, meant to employ smaller, highly-efficient satellites, could make sovereign constellations financially attainable for countries and regional operators that previously lacked the resources to compete.
He spoke with SpaceNews about the company’s nascent launch technology, which uses kinetic acceleration rather than traditional rockets, and the broader strategy aimed at radically lowering the cost of deploying satellite constellations.
The following conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
David Ariosto: Your company became famous just by virtue of the nature of the technology, essentially using centrifuge acceleration that uses a mechanical arm inside a large vacuum chamber to fling payloads into orbit, rather than using rockets.
