Ali Al Hashemi, CEO of Yahsat Space Services.

Last week, UAE’s flagship satellite provider Yahsat and geospatial solutions company Bayanat completed a merger to form Space42. The company is targeting vertical integration and regional and international opportunities in geospatial and mobility solutions, satcom, and business intelligence. 

Space42 is now publicly traded on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange and its major shareholders include artificial intelligence company G42, sovereign wealth firm Mubadala and investment firm IHC. The combined company comprises two business units: Yahsat Space Services and Bayanat Smart Solutions.

With the closing of the merger, Via Satellite spoke with Ali Al Hashemi, CEO of Yahsat Space Services, about the unique combination of a satcom and geospatial company, what this means for the UAE, and his bold vision for the direct-to-device market. 

VIA SATELLITE: What is the value of combining Yahsat and Bayanat into Space42? How will they be stronger as a combined company?

Al Hashemi: The idea is to have a multi-discipline, multi-orbit company powered by AI with geospatial and satellite communications. We believe this trend will be seen more in the market with space companies that do everything in satellite. We saw a similar move in Saudi Arabia with NEO Space Group, and SpaceX’s Starlink and Starshield. We have been courageous to take the first step. Vertical integration will become very important to enable us to send incremental advancements in our satellites and enable us to be multi-orbit. There is a lot of synergy to use similar buses for Earth observation and communication. 

VIA SATELLITE: What products and solutions will Space42 pursue that combine satellite communication and geospatial technology?

Al Hashemi: We have more questions than answers and we are exploring all possibilities. IoT will be very important to combine the two services. You can imagine monitoring a pipeline through geospatial and within the IoT segment to offer a comprehensive picture of the pipeline’s internal and external factors. That’s an example of what we are thinking about. 

Another example is road optimization — combining road sensors and IoT sensors in cars with images from a satellite. We are very serious in IoT because we believe it is across all of our segments in geospatial and communications. 

VIA SATELLITE: There are a number of examples of consolidation in the satellite sector right now with Eutelsat/OneWeb, Viasat/Inmarsat, and SES/Intelsat. Do you see this merger as helping Yahsat compete with the other satellite operators? 

Al Hashemi:  Yahsat alone would be competing with the big names without the merger because we are serious about our direct-to-device strategy and building NGSO [Non-Geostationary Orbit] for the government. We are competitive when it comes to Yashat. But as Space42, customers around the world will think of us as a one-stop-shop for all satellite and tech services. This will drive our prices down. Say a government a wants a satellite service and a geospatial service. When they come to us, we’ll be able to compete on price, simply by having a one-stop-shop for these two products. We can create one platform that is powered by AI. We can compete in the product quality and price of service. 

VIA SATELLITE: Do your role and responsibilities as CEO of Yahsat change with the merger? 

Al Hashemi: My responsibility has increased. I am the CEO of Yahsat Space Services, and my counterpart Hasan Al Hosani is the CEO of Bayanat Smart Solutions. There are two centers of excellence within the company, and we both report to Karim Michel Sabbagh, who is the managing director of the company. Both of our responsibilities increased because we have to think about the other part of the business and how to enable each other and provide synergy in products and services. 

VIA SATELLITE: Now that the merger is complete, what are the next steps for integrating the companies? 

Al Hashemi: I think the integration is behind us because we were very fast and agile to unify the two companies. [We are] thinking about the big questions of how to differentiate ourselves in the market and what to offer to the market. What IoT services? How to take D2D to the next level? How to advance AI for our services, especially when it comes to the gIQ platform for geospatial products? 

VIA SATELLITE: How does the merger further the UAE’s vision of becoming a global leader in AI and space technology?

Al Hashemi: Vertical integration that creates the transfer of technology and knowledge will be aligned with the UAE’s vision going forward. We will be heavily encouraged to create these types of services and we will be supported commercially and financially to do so. New initiatives will carry the mantra of New Space. You will see more vertical integration, more thinking about incremental technology advancement, more launches, more satellites, more services, more products. 

We have two big investors with us, Mubadala and G42, and these two giants are very serious when it comes to space and AI services. Microsoft invested $1.5 billion into G42, which increases our credibility when it comes to AI. G42 is one of the top 10 players in AI today. We will be empowered by AI and offer products and services that are appealing to the market. 

We are very serious when it comes to D2D, building a LEO [Low-Earth Orbit] constellation for Earth observation, and the traditional telco types of services. We will be thought of as New Space more than before. 

VIA SATELLITE: What is the progress on the Thuraya 4 launch? 

Al Hashemi:  We will launch Thuraya 4 by the end of the year. I can classify its services into three buckets. The first bucket is broadband, mobile services – sea, air, and land. The second bucket is radio translators T-TAC, which translate UHF and VHF to L-band signal, also for land, sea, and air. The third bucket is asset tracking. 

The Thuraya satellites are around 20 years old. This is the first launch in 20 years. This is the first big investment of Thuraya and will recognize us as a serious competitor when it comes to traditional L-band services. 

VIA SATELLITE: You mentioned at WSBW that Yahsat is looking at LEO capability for direct-to-device, and Yahsat is part of the new MSSA organization. What are Yahsat’s plans here and how big do you think the opportunity is in direct-to-device (D2D)? 

Al Hashemi: That’s the $1 billion question. If you look at the research available today, we are more on the conservative side. But we believe this is the next frontier, the market is very attractive. If you are going into this market, you have to target to be No. 1. If you can bring unified spectrum globally or regionally versus the most advanced technologies — spectrum will always win because you will be able to service more people. We are focusing our strategy on how to bring unified spectrum. AST SpaceMobile and Starlink have supplementary spectrum, telco spectrum. We are bringing space spectrum that is unified, tested, and clear from interference. This is the winning formula, especially if we partner with someone to have a global reach.

We are going in three stages. The first stage is building a mobile phone. It is an Android device, with the profile of an iPhone but it has a satellite antenna. A simple Android device that you can use on a daily basis and when you are disconnected, use it for text and voice. This will be launched this year. 

The second stage will be narrowband IoT.  We are trying to enable our current Geostationary satellite for narrowband IoT. If your phone is enabled with L-band or S-band through [3GPP] Release-17 or higher, you will be able to receive and send texts with your phone. We are trying to launch this next year. The third stage will be talking to MNOs to determine the size of the market and launch satellites accordingly. Our differentiator will always be the spectrum. 

VIA SATELLITE: Are there other markets you see as top targets for growth? 

Al Hashemi: I am very bullish on direct-to-device. We need to approve our investment mandate for Space42, but there is  exciting news coming forward. This is the first time in the history of space we can say that we have a real product that will address the next three billion. All you need is a phone enabled with S-band and L-band. To seriously achieve this, you need unified spectrum all over the world. You can have the best system in the world, and without unified spectrum, it’s going to be chaos and interference.  

At the heart of this is human needs. We can finally launch a product that will not leave a person who has a mobile phone unconnected. I applaud Elon Musk for making SOS services free. I’m inspired to do the same, if not more. It’s not always the profit. The mandate for Yahsat Saves Lives was if someone calls customer care and needs help, we have to do so. We have saved around 300 lives with around 300,000 subscribers. Imagine the magnitude of that if we could cover the other three billion.

VIA SATELLITE: I can tell that you are very inspired about the potential here. 

Al Hashemi: I am very inspired to have SOS be a human right mandate. I don’t view it only as a way to create financial gain, but as a mandate and a human right. I want to do it in a way that really works and doesn’t pollute space. We are thinking about a way to not pollute space, to serve as many people as we can, and to create it in such a way that we allow other nations to join in and not compete with terrestrial networks. Nothing in satellite is easy. But building the technology and launching satellites is the easiest part. Figuring out how to do it respectfully to regulation and policies and humanity and space — that’s the hardest part.