Former OneWeb Satellites CEO joins Akash Systems

Former OneWeb executive Brian Holz, has joined Akash  Systems as chief architect to help the San Francisco startup create communications systems for small satellites.
SpaceNews.com

            WASHINGTON — Former OneWeb executive Brian Holz, has joined Akash  Systems as chief architect to help the San Francisco startup create communications systems for small satellites.
Akash raised $3.1 million in January to build cubesats with diamond-infused components. The company makes satellite amplifiers with patented integrated circuits that use gallium nitride on a synthetic diamond substrate. The use of diamond as a conductor draws heat away from more sensitive parts of spacecraft, making them operate more efficiently, according to Akash.
Holz, after six years at medium-Earth-orbit operator O3b Networks, worked at LEO startup OneWeb for two years and satellite manufacturer OneWeb Satellites for a year and a half before leaving last year, according to LinkedIn.
“Today the satellite industry is massively hindered by bandwidth constraints and Akash’s components will be game-changing for the entire industry,” Delian Asparouhov of Khosla Ventures, the investor firm that led Akash’s January seed round, said in a statement. “Brian is a key component of helping us transform communications in space.”
Akash applied to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in July for approval to operate a 12U cubesat from low Earth orbit in late 2019 into early 2020. The purpose of the demonstration is to test an Akash-built Ka-band transmitter with a ground station in Australia operated by Swedish Space Corp.
The satellite will use a software-defined radio from Blue Canyon Technologies for S-band telemetry with a KSAT ground station in Svalbard, Norway. Akash intends to operate the satellite for six months in a 500-kilometer orbit.
SpaceNews.com

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