Space Business Podcast #104 - James Yenbamroong, Mu Space Corp

We finally have a space startup from Asia (excl. Middle East) on the podcast. Many of you probably did not know that there is a late-stage space startup in Thailand. Mu Space is a Series C stage company manufacturing smallsats and their components. I caught up with their founder & CEO James Yenbamroong in person at the Mu Space headquarter office when I passed through Bangkok this week. Enjoy!

JUST OUT: Raphael's fully revised introductory book on the Space economy, "To Infinity" - https://a.co/d/6jIQ2LO

Upcoming newsletter - sign up: https://spacebusiness.substack.com/

Follow us:

Twitter - https://www.twitter.com/podcast_space

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/raphaelroettgen/

Instagram -  www.instagram.com/raphael_space/

Learn more about space & the space economy:

• Check out the edX/EPFL Space Economy MOOC: https://www.edx.org/course/new-space-economy
• There is now a certificate for those wanting to enter the space sector: https://www.spacecertificate.com

The Space Business Podcast is sponsored by NanoAvionics.

Support us at https://www.patreon.com/spacebusinesspodcast

 

Timestamps: 

0:00 Intro
2:44 Elevator pitch
3:09 Origin story
5:54 Thai space ecosystem
8:15 Supply chain and doing things from scratch
9:39 Vertical integration
11:42 Mu Space's satellite platforms
13:04 Use cases
14:40 Smallsats vs. cubesats
17:00 Power
18:45 More use cases
21:18 On-board computing
24:06 First missions
27:10 Launch companies in Asia
31:00 Regulatory restrictions
33:34 Funding
34:55 Satellite production and volume manufacturing
39:08 Time from order to shipping
42:00 Customers
44:23 The Thai Food Space Mission 
48:46 Mu Space's battery tech
50:16 Trends in satellite manufacturing and lay of the land
56:27 On-board propulsion systems
58:58 Space-as-a-service
01:01:05 Vision for Mu Space
01:04:33 If James wasn't doing Mu Space, what would he do in space?
01:06:25 Sci-Fi