Basalt Co-Founder and CEO, Maximillian Bhatti, sits down with Balerion Senior Associate, Aidan Daoussis, to discuss the rise of fully autonomous satellite constellations.
00:00–00:30 — Introduction
Aidan opens the session, welcomes participants, and introduces Maximillian Bhatti, CEO & Co-Founder of Basalt, a YC-backed startup building autonomous satellite constellations.
00:30–01:10 — What Basalt Does
Max explains Basalt’s core product: dedicated, fully autonomous satellite constellations that give each customer complete and continuous control without human operators.
01:10–02:10 — Industry Landscape: Why Space Operations “Suck” Today
The satellite industry is highly technical, fragmented, and not optimized for customer workflows. Basalt positions itself as the bridge between aerospace engineering and real-world users.
02:10–04:15 — Max’s Background
Cold-emailing labs at age 14 → working at Caltech fusion group → joining MIT AeroAstro at 17 → SpaceX Starship landing team → dropping out for YC, where Michael Seibel told him he would be dropping out.
04:15–07:00 — How Satellites Actually Operate Today
• Modern satellites often run radiation-hardened Linux or RTOS.
• Autonomy has improved but still requires teams of operators.
• Basalt’s goal: reduce operators from one or two to zero, enabling massive scaling.
07:00–09:00 — What Basalt’s Autonomy Stack Actually Is
Initially focused on spacecraft OS, now expanded to a full autonomy system covering:
• On-orbit decision-making
• Ground control workflows
• Customer-facing integration
Their 2026 mission will demonstrate fully self-coordinating satellites.
09:00–10:40 — Future Use-Cases for Satellites
Space will look like AWS: once cost and expertise barriers fall, use cases explode. Expect:
• Oil & gas
• Infrastructure
• Insurance
• IoT
And entirely new applications we cannot yet predict.
10:40–12:20 — Customer Integration (12–18 Month Timeline)
Half the timeline is design workshops understanding:
• What data the customer needs
• How the constellation fits daily workflows
Basalt tunes autonomy to each industry’s operational reality.
12:20–14:00 — Fundraising and Momentum
Basalt raised from Initialized Capital and General Catalyst.
Investors were convinced by extreme execution speed:
• Team of 5 built full demo constellation in <9 months
• Achieved regulatory approvals no private company has obtained
• Built an international grant network
14:00–16:30 — Who Needs Basalt Most?
Two groups feel acute pain:
National security space — proliferation, SDA, cislunar ops
Private enterprise — especially insurance, logistics, oil & gas needing guaranteed, 24/7 imaging without queues
16:30–18:20 — Autonomy for Space Warfare & Multi-Satellite Coordination
Basalt’s stack enables satellites to cooperate without human coordination — analogous to Anduril’s Lattice for defense robotics.
Applications include:
• Cislunar tracking
• Rendezvous and proximity ops (RPO)
• Rapid-reaction SDA
18:20–20:00 — Removing the Expertise Barrier
Operations costs can be 70–80% of a mission.
Autonomy removes:
• Operator salaries
• Training
• 24/7 mission control staffing
Result: constellations become cheap enough for non-space companies.
20:00–22:00 — Working with Old vs New Satellites
Interoperability with 1980s systems will always be needed. But the industry will increasingly “step around” legacy hardware by launching modern proliferated systems.
22:00–24:00 — Customer Control vs Autonomy
Technical customers (defense) can define custom behaviors.
Commercial customers rely on Basalt’s full autonomy stack.
Max compares Basalt to Waymo rather than Tesla — the system handles edge cases without human takeover.
24:00–26:30 — AI & Control Theory in the Basalt Stack
Inspired by self-driving architectures:
• Low-level orbital control loops
• Mid-level decision-making
• High-level mission logic
Basalt integrates hardware from multiple suppliers into a low-cost, high-autonomy constellation.
26:30–29:00 — Hardware Selection & Integration
Basalt sources payloads/buses to match customer workflows.
Old-constellation integration is mainly for national security, not commercial clients.
29:00–31:30 — Long-Term Data Value & Vertical Integration
Basalt anticipates creating one of the most valuable datasets in the world—a corpus of autonomous satellite behavior and Earth observations.
Future: possible vertical integration into SpaceX-style full-stack space infrastructure.
31:30–33:40 — Which Industries Are Ready for Their Own Constellations?
Industries already using tasking:
• Logistics
• Insurance
• Oil & Gas
• Infrastructure
These sectors are unknowingly on the verge of adopting dedicated constellations.
33:40–35:30 — Milestones: 1–2 Years vs 10–15 Years
Near-term:
• All tech complete
• Regulatory pathway open
• Commercial orders next major milestone
Long-term:
• Whether space supply chains can scale fast enough
• Possible need to build hardware in-house
35:30–39:00 — The Future of Space Warfare
Space war will extend into cislunar and lunar space.
Expect:
• Jamming
• Directed energy attacks
• Autonomous interceptors
Kinetic attacks unlikely. Silent autonomy becomes a strategic advantage.
39:00–41:00 — Basalt’s Defense Roadmap: Hypersonics & SDA
Two priorities:
Hypersonic tracking / Golden Dome
Space domain awareness
Autonomy enables:
• Millisecond response times
• Networking hundreds of sensors
• Distributed perception
41:00–42:40 — Autonomy Beyond Satellites (Lunar & Stations)
Basalt’s algorithms could extend to:
• Lunar mining robots
• Surface infrastructure
• Space stations
Anywhere high-latency environments need local decision-making.
42:40–43:30 — Satellite-to-Satellite Comms & Space Data Centers
High-compute in orbit massively increases the value of autonomy software.
Basalt expects exponential capability growth.
43:30–45:00 — First On-Orbit Demo & 2026 Mission
Basalt’s 3-satellite autonomous constellation will be among the first private missions where all coordination decisions are made on-orbit.
Initial plan to revive a defunct satellite was blocked legally, leading to the new demo architecture.
