head of comms @astroforge. ex-@techcrunch. viriditas 🌱 ✝️ per aspera ad astra 💫 Signal: ariaalam.18

Austin, TX
Joined March 2018
Aria Alamalhodaei retweeted
Time to expand this image.
Look at how much of the solar system humans are actively exploring Curiosity and Perseverance on Mars. Chang'e landers on the Moon. Juno at Jupiter. Voyager 1 and 2 in interstellar space. Incredible! Source: @OlafFrohn / Writer: Daniel
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Aria Alamalhodaei retweeted
Dashed out a spicy take this AM laying out a couple ideas I've been thinking about since I left journalism nearly a year ago. Enjoy!
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Aria Alamalhodaei retweeted
WE0913A drifted through cislunar space for 7 years without being identified. Analysts initially believed it was an expended Falcon 9 stage before finally determining that it was Chinese rocket hardware. In 2022, calculations revealed it was headed straight for the Moon.
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Aria Alamalhodaei retweeted
DeepSpace-2 is a new model for interplanetary exploration. This is how we make deep space routine for resource extraction, science, planetary defense, and national security.
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Aria Alamalhodaei retweeted
Anduril Industries is set to double the size of its space unit with the acquisition of national security company ExoAnalytic Solutions, marking a significant expansion of the company’s space defense program bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
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Aria Alamalhodaei retweeted
Machina is looking for a non-traditional comms/marketing leader. Not the traditional aerospace type who hides behind safe messaging. We want the opposite. Someone articulate, sharp, and fearless who can say what is broken in manufacturing and defense and communicate bold fixes we a developing. You should be able to: - jump on news cycles and shape the conversation - write rallying messages engineers want to share - turn factory work into stories, videos, memes, and communities - be comfortable on X, Reddit, all places the next generation of builders actually hangs out - work directly with technical teams and showcase real work This is not a traditional aerospace role. DM me.
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Aria Alamalhodaei retweeted
PLAY UNDERHILL
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Aria Alamalhodaei retweeted
Personal news: Tuesday was my last day at @TechCrunch. After more than four years, hundreds of stories, and countless hours in conversation with founders and startup operators, I’ve decided to take a career break to spend more time with my family. It's been a wild ride, and I'm excited to keep tracking the space industry's progress from the sidelines. I'm rooting for you all. Ad astra! 🚀
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Aria Alamalhodaei retweeted
New: Doug Beck, the director of the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Unit, resigned today, according to a memo he sent to staffers. It comes a week after SecDef Hegseth ousted three other military leaders, including the head of Defense Intelligence Agency. reuters.com/world/us/pentago…
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Aria Alamalhodaei retweeted
Rocket Lab
@RocketLab7 Aug 2025
Archimedes full mission duration hot fire. Enjoy.
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Aria Alamalhodaei retweeted
Our first two satellites are now on station and fully operational over the United States. With just these two spacecraft we’re providing broadband coverage over the entire continental US, in the world’s first private, dedicated network from GEO. We deployed these satellites to build out a private network for our customer Anuvu, one of the world’s largest in-flight connectivity providers. They provide broadband in-flight connectivity for major airlines around the world, and broadband data connections for mobility applications like cruise lines and other maritime customers. Our two spacecraft arrived in GEO in early July, and have been undergoing a series of in-orbit checkouts and calibrations over the last 3 weeks. The payload performance is excellent, we have all systems up and running at full capacity, and the two satellites are now ready for service. This is a massive milestone for Astranis, and for our industry. And it demonstrates the power of the MicroGEO model. With just one or two of our spacecraft, Astranis can deploy a private network that covers an entire country in one shot, with all the benefits of a dedicated network that are impossible from other orbits: • Control — our customers want customization and control, and with their own dedicated satellite they get it. They can adjust capacity and coverage on the fly and can get deep insight into the details of the network operations. • Security— Astranis has a world-class cybersecurity team and with a dedicated satellite, and network, our customers know exactly where their data is flowing at all times. • Independence — our customers know that they, and they alone, have the final say in how their network is configured and how their capacity is deployed. • Zero contention — the capacity on an Astranis network is there when our customers need it. They aren’t sharing the capacity with any other users on the system, so they never have to worry if it will be there, it's guaranteed. Traditionally, to get the benefits of this approach, a large traditional GEO satellite would need to be built and launched at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, and the capacity would have needed to be shared between many users and companies. But the Astranis model puts this capability in reach of countries and companies that would never have had access to it before. LEO constellations, by contrast, ask their customers to share a network with the entire world. That’s a fine trade for many customers, particularly consumers, but it’s not acceptable for enterprise customers that want real security, independence, and control. Those customers need their own systems dedicated to their needs, and Astranis is now providing this dedicated service from GEO, live, today, for the first time in history. It’s been a long road to get here, but now that we’re operational, Astranis is set to scale up extremely quickly. Astranis now operates five satellites on orbit, has more than $1B in contracted backlog for more commercial satellites, and, with these two entering into service and more on the way, we have proven out the private-network thesis. For now, stay tuned. Our satellites work. And they’ve created the world’s first private network from GEO — but certainly not the last.
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Aria Alamalhodaei retweeted
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has agreed to invest $2 billion in xAI, investors close to the companies said, nearly half of the Grok chatbot maker’s recent equity raise on.wsj.com/3IozIX8
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Aria Alamalhodaei retweeted
🚀 Honored to accept this mission. Time to take over space. Let’s launch. 🇺🇸🛰️
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Aria Alamalhodaei retweeted
A bit of clarification--though I don’t think my circumstances are particularly interesting or consequential. That said, and regardless of the points below, the President is entitled to assemble the leadership team he believes will best serve his administration. I have been relatively apolitical--a right-leaning moderate--and my political donations across both parties (though 10x more to Republicans) were disclosed in writing, with rationale, before my nomination was ever submitted to the Senate. As for the perceived conflict--I only know Elon professionally, but having flown to space twice on SpaceX rockets, I have a firsthand appreciation for what he and his companies have accomplished. It is also worth pointing out that SpaceX remains the only way American astronauts have been able to travel to and from orbit since the Space Shuttle was retired in 2011. I hold no direct or indirect equity in SpaceX--or in any aerospace or defense company for that matter. Like all nominees, I signed an ethics letter and would have honored it. Personally, I don’t regret anything--it was an honor to even be considered by the President. I loved DC and my brief time in the arena. The real disappointment is the time lost by Senators and staff who invested six months into a confirmation process that was ultimately withdrawn. This leaves NASA without a confirmed leader for what may stretch on for over a year. That is not ideal for the world’s most accomplished space agency--or for America--especially as our geopolitical rivals move at impressive speeds to overtake our edge in the high ground of space. Hopefully, a new nominee will emerge soon as NASA needs leadership during this uncertain time. I have been lucky to live the American Dream and if you know anything about me--you know this was never about political ambition, personal gain or enriching others. I love my country and I care deeply about America’s competitiveness and leadership in space. 🇺🇸
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Aria Alamalhodaei retweeted
A big thanks to the FAA for the partnership, especially over the holidays. Here’s to NG-1 -- we are really close, folks.
The FAA issued a Part 450 commercial space license authorizing the first launch of @blueorigin's New Glenn vehicle. The FAA determined Blue Origin met all safety, environmental & other licensing requirements well ahead of the statutory deadline. bit.ly/4j5ecoi. #FAASpace
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Aria Alamalhodaei retweeted
A power outage at SpaceX's Hawthorne, CA building during the Polaris Dawn mission in September knocked out ground control of the spacecraft for at least an hour before Jared Isaacman and his crew conducted the first-ever private spacewalks. Story w/@marisaataylor
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Aria Alamalhodaei retweeted
We are all clear to complete a wet dress rehearsal this week ahead of hotfire for #NewGlenn
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Aria Alamalhodaei retweeted
Shotwell: it won't happen in my lifetime or my kids', but I want humans to travel to other star systems. Mars? It's a fixer upper planet. Ppl will get there and wonder why they went. Want to find other Earth-like planets. Some version of Starship will do that.
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Aria Alamalhodaei retweeted
A potential SLS cancellation deal: "No final decisions have been made, but a tentative deal is in place with lawmakers to end the rocket in exchange for moving US Space Command to Huntsville, Alabama."
Who is Jared Isaacman? Why is his nomination as NASA administrator being welcomed in most quarters of the spaceflight community? And how might he shake up the space agency? arstechnica.com/space/2024/1…
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