Infostellar, a Ground-Segment-as-a-Service (GSaaS) provider, has expanded their services and the assignments of key executive staff to support customer onboarding and operations — the company just completed a highly successful, Series B raise of ¥1.2B ($10.36 million) and is rapidly expanding its global reach for GSaaS and dedicated antenna operations. The firm has now expanded their service to include U.S. operations.
Infostellar U.S. Inc. was opened for business on January 3, 2022 and this new subsidiary of Infostellar will be headed by former Universal Space Network and Swedish Space Corporation executive, Tom Pirrone, Infostellar’s current Chief Strategy Officer. This subsidiary will build on the company’s global ecosystem to include government and commercial clients in North America.
“We are all very pleased that Tom has agreed to lead our U.S. operation as its founding chief executive”, said Naomi Kurahara, Infostellar CEO. “Tom has been with Infostellar since September of 2020 as our CSO. His experience and skills in developing the GSaaS industry ensures that our US and Global operations will enable Infostellar to become a market-leader.”
Tom Pirrone said, “I’ve been asked many times why I chose to join Infostellar at this stage of life and career. Actually, this decision was quite easy for me. Naomi Kurahara is a visionary who has cast a view of the future of global space communications that is compelling and exciting. She and our team in Tokyo have also demonstrated the ability to attract a world class investor team that is encouraging us to dream big and be bold. So, that’s what we are going to do. I’m looking forward to another exciting ride in the space industry as we execute our growth plans for our US and global operations.”
Expansion of Hosting Services in Japan
In addition to providing GSaaS services from the firm’s shared network of satellite ground stations, the company also announced that it is now providing dedicated, ground station services from its new location. These services complement the company’s shared GSaaS by providing dedicated antennas for space missions. Taiki, a northern Japanese city in the Hokkaido prefecture, is well known for its northern location that makes it especially suitable for spacecraft communications and is also is a center for rocket and stratospheric balloon operations for the Japanese space agency, JAXA.
Kurahara said, “We have a long-standing relationship with Taiki and have now established our first Japanese location in a city that truly understands the importance of Earth-based services for space communications, navigation and travel”. Hosting and dedicated antenna services will commence operations at Infostellar Taiki by mid-2022. “Once springtime weather arrives, we will be very busy with construction of Taiki.”
The company also has plans to open similar hosting and dedicated antenna services in Okinawa and multiple Tokyo-area locations in the near future to support its growing customer base.
Infostellar is a satellite ‘Ground Segment as a Service’ (GSaaS) provider. Infostellar provides flexible and scalable ground station services enabled by our cloud platform, ‘StellarStation’, which virtualizes ground station networks. Infostellar also provides support for ground segment operations necessary for satellite operations, such as radio license acquisition and frequency coordination operations. By lowering the barriers to entry in the ground segment, Infostellar empowers new space businesses to build better missions and improve the quality of their service. Founded in 2016, Infostellar is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan and has its European office in the UK.