00:00It's been a busy few days. It's been very busy. Let's focus on the funding round first.
00:04Where do you deploy that capital? What really injects the growth for the business?
00:07We're really stepping up alongside Guardians in the Space Force. The Space Force budget in FY27
00:13is expected to be $72 billion. That tells you a lot about the kinds of capabilities the United
00:17States Space Force needs to build to counter China and Russia. We are investing in the staff
00:22and the products and the infrastructure that's necessary to come alongside Guardians to build
00:27combat capability for space warfare. Let's talk about your products. What makes you unique,
00:31distinct and additive to the others? Because it's ferocious out there in the world of defense tech.
00:36It's a really hot space. So I served 10 years in the Air Force and then transitioned into the United
00:40States Space Force. And what I saw from the defense industrial base is a focus on dual-use technologies.
00:45And there's good reason for that. But because space is now a warfighting domain, it's very clear that
00:50the operational concepts for space warfare necessitate dedicated space warfighting systems.
00:54They have a completely different performance envelope than commercial capabilities. They're
00:58quite literally going to get shot at. And so our focus is on clean sheet design to deploy
01:03operational concepts into the domain. So Jackal, for example, our first product is a clean sheet
01:08space-to-space engagement platform. It's not designed to do anything else other than protection
01:12and surveillance of the domain.
01:15Evan, we're very excited about this domain, right? Space is a warfighting domain, the technology
01:20you're doing. But I'm going to try and bring it back down to Earth a little bit for the
01:24Bloomberg Tech audience. So Jackal, you mentioned, it's a highly maneuverable vehicle. It moves
01:29around other satellites in orbit. Explain the basics of that, right? Our audience are tuning
01:34in and going, OK, so space is a warfighting domain. You make vehicles that are in space and
01:40it moves around other satellites. Take it from there.
01:43That's right. Our adversaries deploy into orbits that we don't necessarily have capabilities
01:47in. For example, geosynchronous orbit, which is 22,000 miles from the surface of the Earth,
01:53is a long way for a ground-based telescope to be able to really characterize what our
01:57adversaries are doing. So we need systems that have the maneuverability, the fuel,
02:01the acceleration to be able to chase those targets down and take pictures of them. The first,
02:06the foundation of combat capability is intelligence. And so the first order of business is to really
02:12understand what our adversaries are up to in space. And Jackal is purpose-built to go after
02:16highly maneuverable targets. Evan, who's the counterpart to True Anomaly? Does China have
02:22a company or a competence in the same domain that you think about? China doesn't have necessarily
02:28a company that's focused on space warfighting, but their entire military industrial complex is
02:33blended with their commercial manufacturing infrastructure. So everything that China does
02:39really for civil or for commercial has military applications. And we're starting to see that,
02:45particularly in their intelligence platforms. China, over the last several years, has deployed
02:49about 1,300 spacecraft into low-Earth orbit. About 500 of those are intelligence platforms.
02:55Those intelligence platforms are designed to track terrestrial forces, so maritime forces,
03:01aviation systems, and ground capabilities. So there's really, it's very difficult for the
03:05United States to maneuver globally without China seeing where we're going.
03:10Let's talk about the United States a bit, because you build exclusively, from what I understand,
03:15for the United States government. Will that expand? Will there be others that you want to serve here?
03:21Right now, we focus on the United States, because that's where the problem is. And also,
03:25where there are substantial budgets focused on space superiority. But we're starting to see our
03:29allies build the rhetoric and build the policy to support space warfighting. The UK, France,
03:35Japan, in particular, are really leaning forward into space warfighting. They have their own
03:39dependencies on space capabilities. But the budgets need to follow. We are happy to partner
03:44with our allies, but the budgets are really not following, and there's a focus on nationalized
03:48capabilities.
03:49The budgets have been there, but some would still say, perhaps, the spending on smaller companies
03:56by the Pentagon still somehow needs to be shown a little bit more. Are you really confident
04:03that the spending will be there for you? I mean, already, you've been announced on Friday to be
04:07part of Golden Dome.
04:08There is a shift in the way that the Defense Department, or rather, the Department of War
04:12is acquiring systems. And it really biases and creates an opening towards new companies like
04:18True Anomaly. They're focused on firm fixed price contracts, capital partnerships, long-term contracts
04:24that allow for a rational ROI. And that's an opening for True Anomaly to step into that gap
04:28and deliver capabilities. And we're truly unique in the marketplace. I mean, space warfighting
04:33is one of the most rapidly growing areas of investment for the Department of War.
04:39$40 billion this year in spending, $72 billion this year, $20 billion of which is in space control.
04:44It's the highest growth market, and we're stepping in.
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