TAMPA, Fla. — The company that makes flat panel antennas, Kymeta, is updating its leadership team as it gets ready to send out its first broadband user terminal for multiple orbits.
On March 11, Kymeta announced that co-CEOs Walter Berger and Doug Hutcheson, who were also president and chair, are stepping down at the end of March after leading the company for five years.
Rick Bergman, who was recently in charge of computing and graphics at chipmaker AMD, is taking over for Berger as president and CEO. Bergman also led computer touchpad maker Synaptics from 2011-2019.
Aerospace industry expert Nicole Piasecki, who has been a member of Kymeta's board since May 2022, will become its chair as the company moves away from the co-CEO leadership setup.
Kymeta told SpaceNews The company recently mentioned that it was close to commercial deployments for Osprey u8 HGL (hybrid GEO/LEO), a terminal for military vehicles that can connect to Eutelsat broadband satellites in geostationary and low Earth orbit.
The company also sells LEO-only and GEO-only flat panel terminals for government and commercial customers.
According to Kymeta, Osprey u8 HGL is set to be the first flat panel terminal in the market capable of connecting across operational GEO and LEO satellite networks.
Israel’s GetSat is also developing a GEO-LEO flat panel antenna designed for military land vehicles in partnership with satellite operator Intelsat, the Multi Orbit Tactical Terminal (MOTT), with installations slated to start this summer.
Kymeta Kymeta collected $84 million from investors in 2022 to support product launches that would compete with these and other flat panel developers in the works. While low-profile, multi-orbit antennas are crucial for unlocking the full potential of hybrid networks that promise to combine large amounts of broadband capacity in GEO with the low latency and pole-to-pole coverage of LEO, analysts say costs are currently a barrier to their widespread adoption outside government and aviation.
“The inherent need for the antennas to be flexible and future-proof drives up costs,” said Euroconsult consultant Alix Rousselière. He added that these prices should come down as the technology matures.
Kymeta, which makes flat panel antennas, is updating its leadership team as the company gets ready to start sending out its first broadband user terminal for multiple orbits. SpaceNews, adding that these prices should come down as the technology matures.
