Satellite production scale-up
Company
Satellogic
Role
Process and Industrialisation Engineer
Year
2022
Satellogic had secured funding to set up a satellite production facility in the Netherlands with a target of 100 units per year, roughly twenty times their existing output. I led the analysis of their current production process and developed a standardised process modelling framework that gave the team a shared, structured view of how production needed to work at scale. The operation was ultimately shut down before it became active, but the work produced a rigorous process baseline that could be picked up immediately by any future team.
Context
Satellogic is a company building and operating low-orbit earth observation satellites. Following a significant funding round, the company decided to establish a production facility in the Netherlands to leverage the engineering expertise and supplier network in the region. At the time I joined, the existing production model was small-batch and engineer-driven. Effective for prototyping but not designed with scale in mind.
Challenge
The target was 100 satellites per year, roughly twenty times the existing output. Getting there required more than speeding up the current process. The production model itself needed to change: from a system that relied on individual engineering judgement at every step, to one that was structured, documented, and repeatable enough to be run by a broader team at a consistent quality level.
