Disney Star Bridgit Mendler Launches Satellite Startup

Photo: Mindy Best/Getty Images for SXSW

Bridgit Mendler is one step closer to inventing time travel, as she is now building her own Skynet. Or really, connecting the Skynets of others. The Good Luck Charlie star just announced the formation of Northwood Space, a startup that is focused on creating a “data highway between Earth and space,” as she told CNBC. “Space is getting easier along so many different dimensions but still the actual exercise of sending data to and from space is difficult,” Mendler said. “You have difficulty finding an access point for contacting your satellite.” Northwood Space wants to mass produce “teleports,” or ground stations that connect terrestrial servers with satellite networks. She is acting as CEO alongside her husband, Griffin Cleverly, as chief technology officer and Shaurya Luthra as head of software. The company already has $6 million in funding.

Mendler says the company essentially started as a lockdown hobby: “While everybody else was making their sourdough starters, we were building antennas out of random crap we could find at Home Depot … and receiving data from [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] satellites.” Hey, it wasn’t all sourdough back then! Some people also took up rugtufting.

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