Planetfall - a novel payload-to-point delivery system to avoid air defences
In this episode, we speak to Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, building the infrastructure layer between air and space.
Focused on ‘near space’, Planetfall uses high-altitude balloons to lift payloads above weather and much of conventional air defence, before releasing a guided parafoil to deliver them to a target. No runway. No aircraft. No engine.
We get into the technology, the operational thinking behind it, and why near-space systems could become increasingly important to future warfare.
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Production, Design & Artwork: HIATUS ↗ The Defence Design & Communications Agency
Find Out More: https://planetfall.uk
Also By Us:
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00:00:01 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Hi, welcome to the Future Frontiers podcast from millilux.io.
00:00:05 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
In this episode, we talk to Victor Susskind, founder of PlanetFall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
00:00:12 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Focused on near space, the 10 to 30 kilometer altitude region above conventional air power and below space, PlanetFall's payload to point delivery system features a high altitude balloon that lifts it above weather and most air defense coverage.
00:00:23 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
When it releases, the payload opens a guided parafool and it flies to the target.
00:00:27 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Launch stays outside of the threat ring, the payload lands
00:00:30 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
inside of it.
00:00:30 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
No runway, no aircraft and no invention involved.
00:00:33 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
We get into the technology, the operational thinking behind it and what often overlooked technologies could become increasingly important to future warfare.
00:00:43 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Hey Victor, thank you so much for joining us on the Future Frontiers podcast.
00:00:47 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
I realise it's still very early morning for you and you've probably got a long busy day ahead of you.
00:00:51 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So to kick us off, please can you give us a really concise one minute introduction to yourself?
00:00:55 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Thank you, Chris.
00:00:56 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Honored to be here.
00:00:57 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Sure, let me do that.
00:00:58 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So I'm Victor Susskind.
00:00:59 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
I'm the founder and director of Plentiful.
00:01:02 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And I'm a German Army Reservist.
00:01:04 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
I'm a captain in the German Army Reserve, reconnaissance.
00:01:07 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
I was in German Space Command for an army training.
00:01:10 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And after that, did my aerospace degree in the UK.
00:01:12 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
I'm actually German, but I've studied there.
00:01:15 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And that's where I founded Plentiful, because after a certain time, I realized there's a gap in the market that I have to close or that I can close.
00:01:22 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Brilliant, sir.
00:01:22 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Fascinating.
00:01:24 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
I look forward to diving into this in more detail throughout the rest of the podcast.
00:01:29 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
But to get your, to give us, kick us off, could you give us your take on Europe and NATO's rearming efforts right now?
00:01:36 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
How are you seeing that going?
00:01:39 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Definitely.
00:01:40 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
I mean, it's an interesting question because when I joined the army in 2016, the German army was still in
00:01:46 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
peacetime mode or one could say in the time without a lot of money like now and it is really visible to me as a reservist as well as a founder in the defense area how that really changes that slowly especially Europe realizes how important it is to have certain capabilities by themselves to have these capabilities without relying on other partners and therefore I can definitely see that this will go a lot more
00:02:14 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
crazy in the next couple of years to say it that way.
00:02:16 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So I think it's a very good thing and I can see big progress on this side.
00:02:21 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah, that's good.
00:02:22 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
It's good to hear.
00:02:23 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
I think we really like to have kind of asked this question to all of our guests just to kind of get the general consensus for seeing it because obviously we see everyone, there's a kind of a mixed opinion around how kind of, you know, how Europe and NATO are rearming, but it's good to get your take.
00:02:38 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Thanks so much.
00:02:40 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So I guess the $1,000,000 question.
00:02:43 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
What is Planetfall and how did it come to be?
00:02:48 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
That's a very short question that can be answered and very long and very short.
00:02:52 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
I'll try to stay short.
00:02:54 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So what is Planetfall?
00:02:56 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
We are a high altitude capabilities provider.
00:02:59 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So we provide military capabilities
00:03:01 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
in the range above drones and below satellites.
00:03:04 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So in that we call it the high altitude battle space.
00:03:06 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So everything above 9 or 10 kilometers up to 80 kilometers into space.
00:03:12 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Because we see some unique capabilities that the military not really has.
00:03:16 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Partly some countries have ballooning capabilities, but most of the countries have not even understood the concept and the options of ballooning capabilities.
00:03:25 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So for example, long range strike via balloons over a couple of thousand of kilometers, also loitering balloons that provide station keeping and ISR pictures like satellites only for the fraction of a cost.
00:03:36 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And we can dive into that a bit later.
00:03:38 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
But the question, obviously, the second question was how did it come to happen?
00:03:42 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So that is a bit interesting because I did my aerospace degree at Kingston University four years ago.
00:03:50 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And I had this initial idea, pitched it on like a uni competition.
00:03:53 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And there were a couple of judges that also had hardware startups.
00:03:56 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And they were laughing at me, telling me, oh, it's not really possible to actually make a drone that you dropped from a balloon and then hit something on the ground accurately.
00:04:04 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And I was like, surely it is.
00:04:06 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
I mean, I'm an engineer and I was in the army.
00:04:07 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
I know that this can work.
00:04:09 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And that's how I thought I'll have to try myself because everyone else didn't believe into it.
00:04:13 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
I found my co-founder and I guess we pitched UKMOD and the rest is history.
00:04:19 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
We got our first R&D contract.
00:04:21 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Now we have three.
00:04:22 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And yeah, that's how it initially started.
00:04:26 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And we had lots of problems on the way, but
00:04:29 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Now we are, we know a lot more about this area and we would definitely do it again.
00:04:33 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Fascinating.
00:04:34 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
I mean, I mean, there's so much, there's tons to unpack there and I like this concept where you're operating in the battle space layer above traditional ISR drones because, you know, I think when we think of defence, we could think, you know, planetary and then we probably think of space and that probably that gap and I don't know
00:04:54 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
the term for that, the technical term for that layer.
00:04:59 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
But if no one else is thinking about it, then obviously it gives us a huge capability gap and also something we can exploit.
00:05:07 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And so I love the disruptive concept of like, well, you can, we know we've got drones, there's some companies who are starting to use balloons, and we, balloons have been around for a long time, so we've kind of
00:05:19 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
we've kind of problem solved the hell out of them now, so we know, like what we should and shouldn't do with the balloon.
00:05:26 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So, combining 2 technologies sounds like the almost like somebody somebody should have thought of this sooner.
00:05:33 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Like, I don't mean I don't mean to take anything else, I don't mean to take everything else away because I know this involves a hell of a lot of theory and concepts, but part of me goes, Wait a minute, so we're joining two things together, which we've done separately.
00:05:46 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Why is nobody?
00:05:48 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
I mean, I think I could answer that quite simply because I guess up till now there was not enough microelectronics that was cheaply available to do this.
00:05:57 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Because for example, up there where our drones survive, it is vacuum.
00:06:02 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So it is about 10 to 20 Pascals.
00:06:04 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So it is basically vacuum and we have minus 50 degrees.
00:06:08 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
But because we have vacuum and this cold, it means that the flight computer, which is, I don't know, half a centimeter next to the battery, will overheat and the battery, which is right next to it, freezes to death.
00:06:17 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And that, of course, brings a completely new challenge to engineering because you can't use a foam drone, you can't use a 3D printed drone, that won't work.
00:06:26 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
That's why all of our drones are aluminum that is riveted and definitely not 3D printed.
00:06:33 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah, And yeah, I can see now how it's a...
00:06:37 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
It's an engineering problem which just needs the right person with the right kind of set of skills and the right approach to say, right, we can solve this problem.
00:06:47 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
We just have to define the problem and iterate it until we solve it, because clearly you identify that 3D drones won't work, metals will expand or contract.
00:06:57 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
You've got two different systems working next to each other, one which needs to be warmer, one needs to be colder.
00:07:02 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And so this is probably just a, sorry, I don't mean to use just a, this is a
00:07:07 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
engineering problem, which is a, stacking essentially.
00:07:14 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Yeah, Which of course gets overlaid with the military operational problem that you need to integrate balloons into existing C2 systems, into existing military plans and projects, because a balloon is not really usable like an HX2 or like a star strike drone.
00:07:31 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
It takes some time to get there.
00:07:32 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
It's slow with the benefit that it is also very cost efficient.
00:07:36 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
and also very hard to intercept, which is two of the key factors that our system provides.
00:07:41 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
That is nearly impossible.
00:07:42 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
I don't know of a system that can take us down at 20 or 30 kilometres altitude, so that's around 100,000 feet for any people who work in feet, without having a magnitude higher cost than our system is.
00:07:54 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah, fascinating.
00:07:56 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
You got me thinking, we visited the Defence in Space conference last year in London, and there was only the two schools of thought that was people were looking at
00:08:05 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
satellites, how you protect satellites, how you kind of intercept satellites, but no one was really talking about the kind of the below, you call it high altitude space, I think, below orbit space.
00:08:19 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So we would call it the high altitude battle space and it's basically below the stratosphere because the stratosphere would be a bit higher and we're not really going into the area of 80 kilometers where even low earth satellites would go, mainly because you could go up there, but then you need a lot more expensive ballooning tech to go.
00:08:37 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And that's what we kind of try to stick between these 15 to 30, 35 kilometers in altitude.
00:08:43 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And that's one of the capabilities that we are obviously quite proud of, that we are able to provide this
00:08:49 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
mainly to NATO because the wind always blows to the east, which is also one of the biggest problems that we initially encountered when we were speaking with the British and the German military, that they were like, oh, the wind is very unpredictable.
00:09:00 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
How can we use this?
00:09:02 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And we were like, sure.
00:09:02 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And that's why we had to make our own C2 system, Loki, that predicts the wind pattern, because there's loads of open source weather data out there.
00:09:08 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
There's loads of companies that have balloons as well, small, tiny weather balloon, probe balloons.
00:09:13 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And we take all of this weather data, wind data, and then calculate, reverse calculate, predict the path of our balloon.
00:09:21 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And with that, we can do seven days in advance the path to a certain target or a certain staging area or delivery area.
00:09:29 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah.
00:09:29 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So I guess that puts you firmly in the kind of strategic capability field then.
00:09:34 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
This isn't something which is a tactical use like we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan where we had the
00:09:41 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
observation balloons around the forward operating bases.
00:09:43 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
This is more of a strategic asset, a bit like the kind of like nuclear capabilities we have on submarines, but I guess the other kind of end of the end of the scale.
00:09:55 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Fascinating stuff.
00:09:56 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Yeah, for sure.
00:09:56 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
I mean, the Terrans is definitely one of the that we have because you could launch 1000 of them from autonomous launchers from containers that you just placed somewhere and then the enemy has to either take them all down or let them all through and then you already reached your goal.
00:10:10 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So for sure.
00:10:14 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Real quick, if you want to hear when new episodes and articles are released, be sure to sign up to our newsletter at the Mililux website or find a link in the show notes below.
00:10:22 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Otherwise, back to the episode.
00:10:25 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Fascinating.
00:10:25 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Well, it gets very convenient to my next question, which was, what problems does your company solve?
00:10:32 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And I realise we've touched on it lightly already, but I'll ask it anyway.
00:10:36 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Yeah, I know that's a very good question as well.
00:10:38 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So the main problems that we're obviously trying to solve is to give the NATO countries that we work with deep strike capabilities for the fraction of a cost and with a kind of fire and forget option.
00:10:49 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Because the balloons can be launched and a couple of days later, a bit like the Germany has the Panzerbitz 2000, which is like a very modern artillery system and it can shoot 3 artillery shots and they all arrive at the same time because they are getting launched with different angles.
00:11:04 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So the artillery shoots three times and they all hit
00:11:08 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
10 minutes later, the exact same point.
00:11:09 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And kind of the same thing is what we can do with our balloons.
00:11:12 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
We can launch 100 balloons and calculate the path that they all arrive around the same target at the same time.
00:11:18 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So that kind of also gives you an overkill of the target as well as having, if you continuously launch them, these continuous capability providing.
00:11:25 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And that could be either strike or payload delivery with our Hermes system or of course, other kind of ISR options, electronic warfare, jamming, all kinds of
00:11:35 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
military capabilities you can imagine below a balloon.
00:11:38 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah, fascinating.
00:11:40 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And so kind of what I'm imagining is that, forgive the metaphor, so it's almost like a shipping container based in strategic allied countries around the world.
00:11:51 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And when the need is required, physically and metaphorically, the balloon goes up and you then have capability
00:12:01 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
in that kind of geospatial area, which can then give, it then gives kind of government administrations options for how to deter and raise the kind of the threat level in a sense, I understand.
00:12:16 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Yes.
00:12:17 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Additionally, obviously, we have a more technical advantage as well that once they are in the air, you can have different kinds of payloads.
00:12:23 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And then the soldier in the front line can call down a Valkyrie strike.
00:12:27 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And that strike could be either like an artillery shell kind of like on our drone as a payload or like explosive payload.
00:12:33 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
as well as just payload like blood conserves, acoustic sensors, mines, whatever you can imagine, you can basically call down from the balloon to where you are, kind of like a rapid support as well.
00:12:45 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And that goes because from the balloon down to earth, it takes around 8 to 15 minutes.
00:12:50 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So it is quite quick.
00:12:53 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And obviously you don't danger any system because
00:12:56 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
is made to be one-time use.
00:12:57 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So you don't have to care about what happens to the drone.
00:13:00 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
The drone and all the software and the hardware on it is made to only be used once, cannot be recovered and cannot be taken care of by the enemy.
00:13:07 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah, fascinating.
00:13:08 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So I guess, so I guess, can you paint us a picture then what it would look like?
00:13:13 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And I'll have a quick go first, because to make sure I've got the right understanding.
00:13:17 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So essentially, the platform would be
00:13:22 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
held strategic locations around the world, it would be deployed to the balloon would go up.
00:13:27 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And the balloon has got, what, like a number of different platforms attached to it, almost like a strike platform.
00:13:36 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
There's a support logistics platform.
00:13:38 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
There's a sensor array platform.
00:13:41 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Is that the right kind of space area?
00:13:45 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Yes, with a small differentiation that we launch these balloons wherever we are, like let's say 100 kilometers from the front line, they're getting launched autonomously or let's say by a team, doesn't matter.
00:13:54 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And then we normally do launch a lot of individually smaller balloons and below every single balloon, we have our
00:14:01 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Heimdall control system of the balloon and then below that we have the actual operation capability.
00:14:06 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And the Valkyrie is the strike providing system, basically an unpowered glider that brings up to 10 kilos of payload with an 18 kilos weight.
00:14:14 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So we have a higher payload than the body weight ratio with something we're very proud of, bringing it down to where we need it.
00:14:19 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And the other option would be instead of having this strike glider below, we have our Hermes system.
00:14:24 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So basically our PowerChute payload delivery that then with the same balloon, the same balloon controlling system,
00:14:30 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
We just have instead of strike payload delivery or sensing delivery or hermes with a camera in a way that we have ISR, synthetic aperture radar, all kinds of military reconnaissance options.
00:14:42 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And the base thing is basically that controlled balloon and then
00:14:47 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
derived from the different capabilities that you need below.
00:14:50 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And we always have one capability per balloon because it gives us the option to launch 10 strike, 10 with payload delivery, another 10 with ISR, another 10 for electronic warfare, another 10 for building our own network connected navigational mesh so we can work in electronic warfare environment and all of that can work together but it builds on the same cheap system because with that we have the option if someone takes our balloon down the cost is even higher for them because the balloons are quite
00:15:17 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
quickly dispersed on a couple of kilometer distances up there.
00:15:20 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So we don't know of a weapon system that can take us down at all for the same price or logical understanding.
00:15:28 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So if we have 10 or 100 balloons up there, it's even harder.
00:15:31 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah.
00:15:32 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So I guess what it's the problem it's kind of solving then is it's moving the I guess if you just put strike capabilities
00:15:41 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
at the ground level in strategic locations, then obviously you can launch your own one-way strike drones to defeat the other one-way strike drones, whereas if you place them economically viable options much higher in that kind of space where actually there isn't a direct, and I'm guessing, forgive me, I'm not from an engineering perspective, but I'm guessing if you're loitering at a height which is
00:16:09 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
almost space and I'm guessing a conventional missile or rocket will get to a point where it can't it can't accurately attack your balloon.
00:16:20 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Is that is that about right?
00:16:21 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Yes.
00:16:22 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So the biggest problem to intercept us would of course be the height because you can see right now with the drones that it's kind of like in the first Second World War we have a lot of propeller drones that's already saturated the market from my eyes.
00:16:33 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And slowly everyone's swapping over to rocket propelled boosters or jet propelled engines.
00:16:39 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And all of these systems will not be able to go higher than 9, 10 kilometers.
00:16:43 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So basically the normal plane height because jet engines don't work higher.
00:16:47 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
You need a rampage or any kind of other jet engine because you don't have any air.
00:16:51 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And we're double the height.
00:16:52 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So we can go up to 20 or 30.
00:16:54 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So that's triple the height of a normal plane.
00:16:57 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And at that altitude, you kind of reach us with a jet engine or propeller.
00:16:59 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
You can reach us with a rocket
00:17:01 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
But then at that point, you need a rocket that covers these 20 kilometers or 30 kilometers.
00:17:06 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And at that point, the rocket is magnitude more expensive.
00:17:09 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And even if you could definitely bring that example, it's like shooting on pigeons with machine guns because it would be a complete military overkill.
00:17:17 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
It makes no financial and military economic sense.
00:17:21 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And that's exactly why we are trying to keep the balloons so cheap and so costly.
00:17:25 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So, so, so inefficient.
00:17:27 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
expensive, because, of course, there are providers out there that make balloons for half a million or a million even.
00:17:33 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
But at that point, it gets worthy already, kind of like the Chinese US spy balloon scenario, where at some point you can launch a couple of Hellfire missiles up there.
00:17:41 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
But we are exactly below the threshold or quite far below that threshold where it doesn't make sense to use these high worth military assets to take us out.
00:17:50 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah, fascinating.
00:17:51 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And just kind of thinking of a
00:17:54 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Obviously, you're a defence company, but it kind of sounds like there is also dual use capabilities for this.
00:18:02 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
I'm kind of thinking in a sense almost like a like a Starlink.
00:18:07 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
I think Amazon had this concept of using balloons to kind of provide data link services to, you know, kind of like it's hard to reach places.
00:18:16 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Have you are you looking into kind of other other other industries as well?
00:18:24 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Absolutely.
00:18:25 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
We've definitely done a couple of very interesting studies about short-term communication networks.
00:18:30 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So in a way that below our balloons we have LTE modules or some kind of other radio comms.
00:18:34 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And then in crisis scenarios you can launch 50 or 500 up just launching them out of a container as simply as it gets.
00:18:41 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And then you can provide self coverage for a certain amount of time.
00:18:44 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Obviously, station keeping is kind of the holy grail in ballooning.
00:18:47 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So station keeping, meaning you can keep the balloon in the same area for a longer time.
00:18:52 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And it's not realistically possible to achieve it long term.
00:18:56 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
But if we're talking about 3 to 10 or 15 hours, that's definitely something where multiple companies are working on us as well, obviously.
00:19:04 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
But it is right now not our main focus, mainly because we have been founded to
00:19:10 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
a clear military goal to provide these capabilities that no one else can.
00:19:14 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And the dual use factor is definitely there, but because we are a small team, we're trying to not go into too many areas at once and more specialize on the clear gap in our market.
00:19:27 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So you know, we're always interested to hear from organizations that want to contribute their thoughts to our articles.
00:19:32 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
If this is you, send it to the e-mail newsletter to stay up to date on what we're working on.
00:19:36 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
There's a link in the show notes.
00:19:37 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Otherwise, back to the episode.
00:19:41 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah, fascinating.
00:19:43 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
and I can imagine this having a conversation probably in five years' time where you've excuse, excuse the pun, ballooned into a big machine.
00:19:51 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
That only occurred to me.
00:19:53 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah, exactly.
00:19:54 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah, that only occurred to me literally is coming out of my mouth, doesn't.
00:19:58 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah, no, fascinating.
00:19:59 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
I can see lots of, you know, we always love to talk kind of about these dual use
00:20:04 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
capabilities because it's from a business perspective it seems like those companies who are thinking of dual use at an early stage are the ones who are kind of thinking about the succession plan.
00:20:15 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
if Europe is sufficiently rearmed and we deter the threats is that kind of what comes next is the next logical conclusion.
00:20:24 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So always good to hear.
00:20:26 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
I mean, that is an interesting question as well, because when you say Europe being sufficiently rearmed, that's obviously an interesting definition of between politicians and the industrial military complex.
00:20:39 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
All right, I realise that I try to stay as objective as possible some days and realise sometimes my own kind of biases or assumptions come out in my words, but it's a very good point.
00:20:50 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah, I mean, how you define
00:20:53 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
across 20, what, twenty-six, twenty-eight major states of the EU.
00:20:58 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
I kind of forget off the top of my head.
00:21:00 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
What sufficiently rearmed looks like is that, yeah, at the moment I'm talking to you from the government, the Nordics, which have got a very different history and a different
00:21:10 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
baseline threshold of what sufficiently rearmed looks like versus say maybe more Western Europe, kind of UK, which has a different sort of a different problem scenario and what that might look like.
00:21:22 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So yeah, it could be a point which we never actually really achieved given the threats are constantly changing, dynamically changing around us.
00:21:33 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Yeah, No, I definitely think that as well, that at some point, obviously the classic military will be kind of
00:21:39 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
put into its shadow by cyber, AI, like we already see now, even if it may be a bubble or not, doesn't matter at some point, the military will have to shift away from the big tanks, the big fancy jets, over to more cheaper, more reliable probably, but at the same time more expendable systems as well to just keep up to date.
00:21:59 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah, for sure.
00:22:00 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
and this cost asymmetry is something we've covered in some of our articles recently.
00:22:04 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And even the term attritable, it's one which you kind of see thrown around a lot now.
00:22:10 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
I left the Marines in 2016 and this kind of concept of attritable wasn't really ever spoken of.
00:22:16 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Everything was bought for, you know, these through long procurement cycles, which were then supposed to be in service for a number of decades, so to speak.
00:22:26 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So nothing was ever really attritable.
00:22:27 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Everything was always serialized
00:22:29 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
and it has to be accounted for.
00:22:32 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And so I kind of, have a bit of a wry smile when I hear about the term attritable thrown around so often like it is common language now because it's only a very recent concept in the British military, certainly the British military's eyes is having something which you can use once and once only.
00:22:51 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Yeah, that's definitely part of our system because all of our systems are made to be a critical.
00:22:57 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
We try to keep the system's price so low that it actually does not make sense to reuse them, which of course for us as a small startup has some benefits because we don't need the reliability of a cruise missile of one to a million or something, but it can be made to only fly once.
00:23:12 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And even if one or two of them fail out of 50 or 100, it's still an acceptable ratio because in the end we're not trying to make the next goal
00:23:20 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
golden perfect system, trying to make something that protects the war fighter and gets the job done.
00:23:28 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
However that may look like, providing assistance or in that case, providing strike capabilities.
00:23:34 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah, for sure.
00:23:34 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah.
00:23:35 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And something that is exciting as somebody looking into it as well is how this, how the kind of the Ukraine conflict has helped
00:23:43 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
innovation move on, I'd say leaps and bounds, but it's clearly been a slow-moving beast of small iterations stacked up, whereas, pre-pre kind of the Iraq-Afghan era, it was big, slow chunks, you know, as we need to commission a new armoured fighting vehicle or a new combat jet for 10 years' time, so the project starts
00:24:08 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
now, and then you'll see the outcomes in sort of 10 years' time.
00:24:12 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
But now it's like, you see an outcome.
00:24:14 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And we talked to Ukrainian defence companies and we're planning to get more on the show over the coming months about how literally they're making huge leaps and bounds every other week and it's kind of upsetting, it's upsetting the balance a bit.
00:24:28 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
I mean, that's definitely the case here.
00:24:30 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And we see that as well from our Ukrainian context and from our connections there that they are definitely ahead in some ways.
00:24:37 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
For example, we are raising right now, and one of the biggest problems that we see in our race is that ballooning or the high altitude capability that we are in is, especially by VCs, not really seen as existent yet.
00:24:50 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Because even though the Ukrainians use some balloons, they've shown that it's very feasible to do these long-wave strikes and our systems have proven themselves
00:24:57 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Everyone is still thinking of a balloon as like a boring conventional thing that you just blow up with hot air.
00:25:03 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Most people don't even know there's helium or hydrogen as two different filling options.
00:25:09 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And that's one of the biggest things that when you talk about balloons, people think about the unsexy things of the past and not about the actual future capabilities.
00:25:17 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Kind of like when you think of like an old Nokia phone compared to like a modern Samsung Fold phone, which is something we're trying to change actively, of course.
00:25:26 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah, for sure.
00:25:27 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
that's and that's I know we've got we've got several investors who listen to the podcast and kind of like follow the e-mail newsletter which is just to go out on, so I'm sure I think it's a good thing to highlight that the perspective or that the biases or assumptions around seeing balloons as military capabilities.
00:25:48 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
is something that people need to, do some inward reflection on and say, Right, actually, this delivers a really strategic capability.
00:25:54 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
look, I have to look past what I think about balloons, either the Zeppelin era or the, kind of like the balloons from the Iraq-Afghan era, and say, Actually, this is delivering A strategic capability.
00:26:04 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
It doesn't have to be, doesn't have to be overly machined.
00:26:07 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
We know the physics around it for probably, what, 900 years or more now, however long, drones are relatively new.
00:26:15 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
invention compared to compared to balloons.
00:26:18 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
We've just we've just iterated them to the point now where the two can be coupled, compounded into producing one complete system.
00:26:25 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Yeah, absolutely.
00:26:27 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And then the next question always comes is, but then balloons are slow and how can you accurately go to a target?
00:26:33 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
We're like, for sure, balloons are slow, but our drone, actually, the strike system, we fly faster than Mach 1.2, so we break the speed of sound on the way down, even though we don't have an engine, just by gravity, because
00:26:43 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
it's a bit of cheating because obviously the air is thinner and therefore the speed of air is easier to break.
00:26:49 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And then we hit the target, we reach the target with around 550 kilometers per hour, so about half the speed, because when air gets thicker, we get slowed down again.
00:26:57 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
But in the end, we do all of that without an expensive or heavy engine, without an expensive battery, just by simplifying the minimal viable product that we actually need to achieve the target.
00:27:06 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah, fascinating.
00:27:07 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And it comes right back to cost asymmetry again, doesn't it?
00:27:10 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
If you can launch
00:27:12 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
one platform with multiple strike options on it, which use, and they use gravity, free energy, so to speak, free stored energy to hit the target, is it then you can, the cost, the cost balance equation becomes right, how many of these platforms do you put up because they're using, you know, they're using trapped air gravity to lift the platforms high enough into the sky and then you use gravity to put them down.
00:27:36 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So the cost is the production.
00:27:40 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Absolutely.
00:27:40 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
I mean, and we combine that on the other side as well with modern manufacturing techniques.
00:27:44 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So we do all the drones in injection molding and all the internals are riveted and bent.
00:27:49 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So we only have a couple of screws.
00:27:51 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
These are the screws actually that hold our flag computer.
00:27:53 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Everything else in the system is riveted.
00:27:55 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So we don't use screws to make it more mass manufacturable and more easy to make.
00:28:00 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So it takes less than 15 minutes right now without a full production cycle because we're still a startup to make one.
00:28:08 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And because we realized in the end we cannot make a drone and 3D print everything, having to assemble everything, having to quality check everything on the scale that we're thinking of making.
00:28:18 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Fascinating.
00:28:18 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Well, I realize your time's getting on now, so I'll jump into my penultimate question.
00:28:25 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah, this is brilliant.
00:28:28 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So as a defense company, what are your main problems and opportunities you're experiencing right now for your journey?
00:28:35 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Yeah, so the main problems, obviously, they have changed a bit.
00:28:37 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So from the beginning, we had massive problems with banking and insurance because when we were founded three years ago, we had our first R&D contract from the UK MOD, we got debanked.
00:28:49 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
The same day we got money from the UK government, we got thrown out of our bank.
00:28:52 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Wow.
00:28:53 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
I'm not gonna say the bank, but because three years ago we were on the same level as horse betting, prostitution, or gambling.
00:29:01 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Because we were a defense setup, we had obviously no ESG points because if you make a one-time use product, there is no ESG rating you will have ever or credit line.
00:29:10 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And that was a big problem.
00:29:11 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And because one-time use strike systems can be seen as ammunition or as expendables, one-way use attack drones, we are also very offensively seen.
00:29:21 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And that definitely doesn't help us to find the right
00:29:26 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
bank and the right insurance.
00:29:27 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
It is all fine now after like 3 years and a bit of pressure in us talking to UKMOD, asking for support, asking for help because a small startup, how can we solve this by ourselves?
00:29:37 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
We have a proper high street bank now, but it was initially a big, big problem.
00:29:41 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And I would say now the bigger problem that we have is actually penetrating other militaries.
00:29:47 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So obviously Germany and the UKMOD, we're in far talks.
00:29:50 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Like I said, we had R&D contracts with these
00:29:53 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
countries.
00:29:53 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
The bigger problem is more now to be able to scale it.
00:29:56 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And we cannot do that without, at the end, partnering with a bigger prime.
00:30:00 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And with a prime, I don't mean someone like Quantum or Stark.
00:30:04 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
I mean an existing prime in the industry.
00:30:06 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So someone like Kinetic or Heimertel to help us in production or obviously a car manufacturing supplier that helps.
00:30:12 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
That's also valid options.
00:30:14 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
But that is one of the bigger problems because the way, the speed we are working with is a lot quicker than a lot of these companies work with.
00:30:21 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And that is also an opportunity because some of these classic suppliers have realized that and have sped up their work with companies like us to be able to provide the parts that we actually need very quickly in higher numbers.
00:30:36 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Fascinating.
00:30:37 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
I'm really, really excited to hear that you are debanked and I hope, I mean, I know we've got politician government administration
00:30:45 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
government organisations in defence and innovation and the exports team who are probably listening to this right now saying this is something that somebody used to get a grip of because this is counterintuitive to what NATO and the UK is trying to achieve.
00:31:00 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
But appreciate three years was a lifetime ago and things may well have changed.
00:31:06 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Fingers crossed, I hope it has.
00:31:08 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
But thanks for sharing.
00:31:09 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Much appreciated.
00:31:12 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So it gets me on to my final question though.
00:31:14 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So I guess
00:31:15 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
What is the future of Planet Fall?
00:31:16 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
If we were talking in say 5 years time, what would we be talking about?
00:31:23 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
That's something that keeps me awake at night every day.
00:31:26 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Sorry, let me bring back my memories.
00:31:30 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
I guess in five years down the line, we want to be the European provider for high altitude capabilities, military as well as some civilians as well, mainly military in a way that
00:31:42 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
any military operation that will happen in five years will at some point rely on the capabilities we provide to protect the soldiers and to also increase the lethality that the European or NATO countries have.
00:31:55 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
So the whole spectrum, like I said, from offensive to defensive capabilities, adjusted and I would say boosted with our ballooning capabilities.
00:32:05 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Because we see that this is not there yet.
00:32:07 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
This is not even in the starting
00:32:09 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
steps of what ballooning can provide for modern militaries and it is similar to a modern satellite network and at the same time in a full-on artillery brigade but combined for the fraction of a cost and a lot more modularity and that's what I'm hoping that down the line in five years at least European countries have understood and have actively integrated like we are trying to do now
00:32:32 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
I guess company wise for us at that point, we will have partnered with an existing bigger prime, a neo prime most likely to be able to vertically integrate with their products to have that whole suite from the ground from a UGV or even submarines all the way up to space, the whole spectrum.
00:32:51 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Wow.
00:32:51 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah.
00:32:52 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And I mean, that does literally.
00:32:55 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
completely term that vertical integration from, deep sea submarine all the way up to kind of, high altitude semi-space, almost space.
00:33:04 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Wow.
00:33:05 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah, fascinating.
00:33:06 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
I mean, it's exciting.
00:33:08 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
You know, we have a space media brand as well.
00:33:11 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So I've got no doubt that probably in the next few years, we'll be getting you on to the space media stratospheric podcast as well.
00:33:17 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
It is a funny question because.
00:33:21 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
I always wanted to go into space.
00:33:23 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
I never really wanted to go into drones and balloons.
00:33:25 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
I mean, that's why I did aerospace engineering.
00:33:26 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
I always wanted to asteroid mining.
00:33:27 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
My master is in asteroid mining, was space resource mining.
00:33:30 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
And somehow I got stuck with balloons half the way.
00:33:35 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So I'm laughing because I love the I love the journey.
00:33:37 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
I started off, you know, as a designer, found my way into the British military and then kind of coming I've come out the other end of it and looking into, you know, looking into how we can help innovation in space, for example.
00:33:48 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So
00:33:49 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
we look at companies like Hades, the kind of the Astro mining companies.
00:33:54 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Hades mining, yeah.
00:33:55 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
It is, yeah.
00:33:56 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
They're the ones who are looking at kind of like mining onto asteroids and stuff.
00:33:59 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
It sounds like the work of science fiction films I watched as a youngster and now it's playing it in the real life.
00:34:04 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And I'm like, I like a kid in a switch.
00:34:06 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
I'm like, this is brilliant.
00:34:07 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
This is so fascinating.
00:34:09 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
But yeah, you know, this stuff is equally fascinating.
00:34:12 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
It's got a real mission behind it.
00:34:13 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So I realise that time is getting on and you're probably looking at your
00:34:19 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So Victor, I'm going to say thank you very much again for joining us on the Future Frontiers podcast.
00:34:23 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Wish you the very best and we look forward to checking in like 6 months or a year's time and find out how you're doing.
00:34:31 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Perfect.
00:34:31 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Thank you very much, Chris.
00:34:33 Victor Süsskind, founder of Planetfall, a company building the infrastructure layer for the gap between air and space.
Thanks for the opportunity.
00:34:36 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
It was really great chatting to Victor.
00:34:37 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
If you want to find out more about what they're working on, check out the showments below and we'll see you next time.
