# More ground connectivity raises the return on every spacecraft

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/more-ground-connectivity-raises-the-return-on-every/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Bridgit Mendler](https://realalpha.app/people/bridgit-mendler/) · Bridgit Mendler is co-founder and CEO of Northwood. · Co-founded Northwood Space, building shared satellite ground infrastructure; earlier a Disney Channel actress and singer.
- Host: [Erik Torenberg](https://realalpha.app/people/erik-torenberg/) · General partner, Andreessen Horowitz · Helped build Product Hunt; founded On Deck, Village Global and Turpentine.
- Show: a16z Podcast
- Episode: [Inside The $100M Bet on the Future of Space | Northwood CEO on a16z](https://realalpha.app/v/jHECsr9GCs8/), Mar 23, 2026
- Moment: 29:33 to 33:10 of the episode (4 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/more-ground-connectivity-raises-the-return-on-every/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/jHECsr9GCs8/?t=1773

## Quote

> “ground is quite literally how you **increase the ROI of your spacecraft**.”
> — [Bridgit Mendler](https://realalpha.app/people/bridgit-mendler/) at [32:08](https://realalpha.app/v/jHECsr9GCs8/?t=1928) · a16z Podcast

## Takeaways

1. Proliferated missions need more ground infrastructure on a shorter timeline.
2. Some government spacecraft have launched without a ground plan.
3. Commercial operators say limited ground capacity restricts throughput and customers.

## About this segment

Bridgit Mendler describes the Space Force contract as a shift toward commercial procurement for urgent, proliferated missions. She explains how limited ground capacity can waste spacecraft investments and constrain customer growth.

From “Inside The $100M Bet on the Future of Space | Northwood CEO on a16z”, Mar 23, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/jHECsr9GCs8/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[29:39](https://realalpha.app/v/jHECsr9GCs8/?t=1779) will lead to really unlocking the benefits of that. You just won a $50 million contract with Space Force to help modernize. What does it mean to say that the Pentagon would rather, you know, buy commercially than build themselves? Yeah, I think it's a pretty fundamental switch that represents the timeline urgency and the change in a ground paradigm that we're confronting. Like you can't have the same models of procurement if you're talking about proliferated systems where you need to just have such a huge increase in ground infrastructure in such a short period of time.

[30:21](https://realalpha.app/v/jHECsr9GCs8/?t=1821) you need to look at different models and so yeah we were we were fortunate to be aligned with some of the great thinkers over on the space force side that are really developing what that model would look like and really fortunate to be entrusted with such a significant program so early in our company's lifetime and to the whole you know taking missions further faster point like being involved in missions of national significance is something that, you know, that's what we're all about.

[30:51](https://realalpha.app/v/jHECsr9GCs8/?t=1851) So I think it's very aligned with that satellite control network. That is a common resource for U.S. government where, you know, every launch runs through a satellite control network. It tracks missions across a really wide set of U.S. government use cases ranging from, you know, GPS to NASA missions, you know, our missile track systems and the likes. So it is a great opportunity for us to kind of demonstrate the cross-cutting capabilities that we are working on.

[31:24](https://realalpha.app/v/jHECsr9GCs8/?t=1884) Yeah. There are 13,000 active satellites right now. Is that accurate? Sounds about right. And I think you said that they're collecting millions of data that can't be captured because there's not enough ground capacity. How bad is the bottleneck? Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, you can think of a satellite as basically like as soon as it launches into space, it's just a depreciating asset. It's just a really expensive depreciating asset. And you're trying to maximize the value that you can get off of that asset.

[31:58](https://realalpha.app/v/jHECsr9GCs8/?t=1918) and the way that you do that is by sending data because that is like the economic value of the spacecraft is the data that it can produce and the data that it can produce is directly proportional to the amount of ground connectivity that you have. So ground is quite literally how you increase the ROI of your spacecraft. It really matters for both commercial and U.S. government missions. You know, for U.S. government missions to launch a spacecraft and like, Literally, there have been a bunch of missions that have been launched with no ground plan.

[32:30](https://realalpha.app/v/jHECsr9GCs8/?t=1950) And so that's like, A, you might just lose your spacecraft, which could be a very consequential loss of an investment. Or you just miss out on being able to make good use of those taxpayer dollars. And same for commercial missions. You know, we've heard from a number of different commercial companies, like, we are throughput limited. We're limited in how many customers we can serve because we don't have a big enough ground footprint.

[32:54](https://realalpha.app/v/jHECsr9GCs8/?t=1974) Yeah. We just talked about the contract. What's the next bid? milestone as you think about your guys' development? Yeah, I think building upon the use cases that we have,