Aug 31, 2026 · 46 min

Bridgit Mendler scales the infrastructure behind space missions

Inside Bridgit Mendler’s New 185,000 sqft Northwood Space Factory

The episode shows why reliable ground infrastructure, not just spacecraft, is becoming central to the growth and security of the space economy.

3 key takeaways

1Northwood is expanding production of Portal and Prism antennas inside a 185,000-square-foot Torrance headquarters.
2Ground stations connect spacecraft to Earth, but deploying them requires land, power, fiber, regulation, and resilient operations.
3Scaling space infrastructure means balancing a nearly $50 million government contract with security, supply-chain, and leadership challenges.

Don't miss

Bridgit Mendler explains how anechoic chambers block surrounding signal noise so Northwood can test antenna performance accurately.

The brief

Bridgit Mendler tours Northwood’s new Torrance headquarters, where planned production lines for Portal and Prism antennas occupy a facility inherited with a movie theater, pool table, and NASA astronaut statue.

Mendler argues that ground stations are the connective tissue of space missions, transmitting data, enabling communications, and controlling spacecraft while infrastructure has lagged behind orbital hardware.

Northwood’s global ambitions depend on more than antennas: each ground site needs land, power, fiber, regulatory approvals, secure systems, and teams capable of running missions.

A nearly $50 million Satellite Control Network contract puts those requirements into sharper focus, especially as Northwood protects hardware, software, networks, and local systems from tampering.

The standout tour reaches the future manufacturing floor, where anechoic chambers isolate antennas from signal noise so Northwood can measure performance accurately before scaling production.

Mendler closes on the leadership and supply-chain lessons behind Northwood’s growth, including unconventional component sourcing and a former movie theater imagined as a mission-operations space.

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