Interviewee
Jeromy Grimmett, Founder & CEO of Rogue Space Systems, the company creating orbital robots that will repair satellites using AI. Founded in 2020, the Rogue team is using its 50+ years of combined aerospace and defense experience to perform a variety of services for orbital assets in LEO, MEO, and GEO including inspection, maintenance, refueling, cargo transport and more.
Transcript
Jeromy Grimmett: So my name is Jeromy Grimmett. For those of you that don't know, I'm CEO of Rogue Space Systems and we build space robots. R2D2 or Exocomp, if you're a Star Trek fan, that's what we do. We build and engineer space robots to go and remove debris, do inspection and observation, or repair another satellite. That's what we do here at Rogue and they're all powered by artificial intelligence and some of our unique compute capability and hardware in robotics. So as a matter of fact, this is one of the brains right there. It's what we call our SCP, Scalable Compute Platform. And it's basically a little supercomputer. And it performs sensor aggregation. So we can process all of the sensor data coming in in real time, just like a human brain.
Elisa Muñoz: Wow, that’s great. And how long does it take you in order to build one of those?
Jeromy Grimmett: Well, this one's been in development for well over a year. It was just fabricated and we're on our second iteration right now, but there was no rework. There were just a couple of improvements that we made. So we're really, really pleased with it. It's very exciting.
Elisa Muñoz: I'm glad that everything has been working out for you guys. And especially now that we're here, I wanted to ask you about the recent partnership that you guys created with SAIC that was developed in September.
Jeromy Grimmett: So SAIC is typically a systems engineering and consulting firm for the defense community. And they've got about 28,000 employees. They've fired up a business unit, a space business unit within the organization. And it's got a very startup culture. We have a lot of alignment between Rogue and SAIC in that respect. And they are looking to go into the integration and test assembly integration and test. of business and Rogue has some needs for assembly, integration and testing because we are a services company. Rogue is not selling our stuff. We don't sell our robots. We design, engineer the technology to get those robots into space and then we use those robots to deliver a service. Well, SAIC has a very long storied history of doing AIMT for weapon systems, defense systems, and writing and doing the requirements and working with NASA on several projects. So we have been very lucky to partner with them and they are our partner to perform those services and help us build our spacecraft, get them ready to go to space.
We get access to the network and the resources that SAIC has, and they get access to an innovative team to help move their space business forward. It's very cohesive.
Elisa Muñoz: Wow, and that's going to be next year, right?
Jeromy Grimmett: That's correct. We got three spacecraft going up next year, one going up in June and then two more going up in October.
Elisa Muñoz: Wow, that's really, really soon. What do you think this announcement means for the company, you know, the recent partnership?
Jeromy Grimmett: You know, it's, it's, being a startup is really challenging in the market because you're having to try and prove and demonstrate to everyone around you that you're capable of doing and delivering the things that you say you can do and deliver. So what it really means to us is we get access to this knowledge base, we get access to the network and the resources that SAIC has, and they get access to an innovative team to help move their space business forward. And it's very cohesive. It's really going to help legitimize a lot of what we're doing here at Rogue and help provide some assurance that the spacecraft that we send up are going to work the way that they're designed and engineered. because we have that legacy experience from SAIC backing us up. So mission assurance is definitely one of the biggest motivators for us getting that partnership in place.
Elisa Muñoz: Can you share about the progress that has been made to date since you actually started the partnership? Sure.
Jeromy Grimmett: They've been coming up. SAIC or Rogue has either been going down to see them or them coming up to see us probably once a month by now, at least about once a month or we're meeting somewhere else. They're currently building out the assembly integration and testing facility. Right now it's targeted down in Charleston, South Carolina. Yes, Charleston, South Carolina. And there's a couple of other options that we're doing up here in New Hampshire. Rogue just completed the build out of our clean room. So we actually have our own facility here at Rogue for us to do our own AIMT and our work here if necessary. And of course, we're also working with the University of New Hampshire as a potential location for other work that we need done. So we're very busy.
Elisa Muñoz: I bet you are. And I mean, now that you're mentioning everything that you need to get done before launching, what about the legal resources?
Jeromy Grimmett: Well, the beautiful, fascinating thing about space is, some of the most fascinating things about space is actually the legal and regulatory environment around it. It's truly fascinating subject matter. It genuinely is. The downside is it's an incredibly complex subject and it requires a lot of attorneys. So Rogue happens to have some of the best attorneys between Chris Kiercy, Daniel Porous, Aegis Trade Law. We've really brought together a legal team that's helping us get all of that work done between the NOAA, the FCC, everything that we need is getting and taking care of and we got a really strong legal team knocking that stuff out for us. So we're all covered there.
Elisa Muñoz: Oh, I'm glad. I'm happy to hear that. What do you think are the next steps for Rogue Space Systems? You know, maybe talking about expanding or future partnerships.
Jeromy Grimmett: Yeah, so since we talked, we were probably around 20 people and now we're at just right at or just over 30. Wow. And we'll probably have two or three more hired by the first of the year. So we are scaling the team very quickly. But really, Next step for Rogue is launch, launch and launch. And did I mention launch? That's it. We're solely focused on getting these systems into space, getting these demonstrations done. And that's gonna be very exciting. Come June, that'll be really exciting, but I really... So that's our first one in June, but the one that I'm most looking forward to is actually our second launch.
Elisa Muñoz: And why is that?
Jeromy Grimmett: That's the one where we're sending Laura. Laura is the highly agile, fully functional inspection observation spacecraft.
Elisa Muñoz: I do remember now that you mentioned in our last interview, for those who haven't seen it, that you mentioned how you guys named each spacecraft after someone, right?
Jeromy Grimmett: Yeah, yeah. That's right. Laura's named after my adoptive mother and Barry is named after the little bat that flies around our office. So, you know, we're sending Barry one and Barry one, Barry two is in one spacecraft that goes up in June. Then Barry three goes up with Laura one in October. So we're sending these up, but the one I'm most excited about is the Laura launch in October. I'm going to be thrilled with June. That's a huge milestone, but getting Laura into space in October is really, that's the one I'm really, really excited for to see.
Elisa Muñoz: Okay well I am super excited about this announcement. Thank you so much Jeromy for taking the time.
Jeromy Grimmett: Until next time. Until the next launch. Thank you so much, it was a pleasure.
