Logos Space, a one-year-old startup backed by Thomas Tull’s U.S. Innovative Technology (USIT) fund, has secured the financial backing needed to launch 1,000 satellites for global broadband coverage. The company is led by Milo Medin, a former Google executive and NASA project manager.
Medin said Logos would only need 1,067 satellites to serve government and enterprise customers globally, spread across two shells in low Earth orbit (LEO). “We are funded by USIT and have the financial commitments necessary to launch the first shells,” he said, adding that there is investor interest coming from other firms.
The proposed constellation would be larger than the 3,236-satellite Project Kuiper network due to begin launches next year for Amazon, which has outlined plans to invest more than $10 billion to become a space company, including building spacecraft in-house.
“Obviously, we raise money in tranches, but we believe we have a strong path to see this through to launch and full system operation that delivers the product we are aiming to build,” Medin added.
“We are not trying to build a huge team and do everything ourselves. The space ecosystem has evolved to the point where we don’t think that is the best way to build a satellite service anymore. We are also not trying to build a system with a consumer focus that needs large numbers of people around the world. We think we can be a company very focused on engineering and operations, working through partnerships for distribution, and satisfying an area of proven demand.”
Logos satellites would fly 870-925 kilometers above Earth, higher than Project Kuiper and SpaceX’s Starlink but lower than OneWeb, Rivada, and the Lightspeed constellation Telesat aims to begin deploying in mid-2026.
When Logos can start deploying satellites largely depends on when the FCC approves its application, Medin said, but the venture is targeting 2027 for its first set of launches.
The FCC set up a standalone Space Bureau last year to help process applications for more than 60,000 new satellites, mostly in LEO, driven by falling costs to build and launch increasingly powerful spacecraft.
Logos’s constellation would leverage inter-satellite links to reduce the need for ground infrastructure and use high frequencies and high elevation angles to minimize interference on the ground, Medin said, employing narrow beams to reduce signal disruption and guard against jamming.
“To share spectrum efficiently, spatial diversity is very important,” Medin said.
“Regardless of spectrum priority, we need to build resilience into the system to deal with jamming, which we believe will be commonplace in the not-too-distant future. That is why we are fans of using higher frequency spectrum and narrow beams in this type of environment. We simultaneously improve our ability to survive interference from other systems, protect current systems from interference, and avoid intentional interference from jammers and electronic warfare.”
Logos sees soaring demand for more satellite bandwidth in general, especially for fiber-like speed ranges that can supplement and back up terrestrial connectivity.
“As someone who has built a ton of terrestrial consumer broadband infrastructure in my career, I can tell you it’s difficult to build one transport system that simultaneously meets enterprise needs and also supports viable consumer service price points,” Medin said. “This is even harder in satellite systems where it’s difficult to support highly varying capacity needs across large geographies.”