{"id":18103,"date":"2019-04-02T21:27:08","date_gmt":"2019-04-02T13:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/planetary-resources-veteran-engineers-launch-first-mode-to-target-wider-frontiers\/"},"modified":"2019-04-02T21:27:08","modified_gmt":"2019-04-02T13:27:08","slug":"planetary-resources-veteran-engineers-launch-first-mode-to-target-wider-frontiers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/planetary-resources-veteran-engineers-launch-first-mode-to-target-wider-frontiers\/","title":{"rendered":"Planetary Resources\u2019 veteran engineers launch First Mode to target wider frontiers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"First
A wide-angle view provides an unusual perspective of First Mode\u2019s new lab space on Western Avenue in Seattle. Click on the image for a 360-degree view. (First Mode Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Planetary Resources was assimilated into the ConsenSys blockchain venture months ago, but a troop of engineers who used to work for the asteroid mining company is seeking out new frontiers with a new company called First Mode.<\/p>\n

And this time, asteroids aren\u2019t the final frontier.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst Mode is working with industries on and off the planet to do design and creative engineering work, but also to build hardware and build solutions that get deployed around the solar system as well as a lot of harsh and challenging environments here on planet Earth,\u201d Rhae Adams, vice president of strategy and business development, told GeekWire.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s expertise is being applied to a wide range of technical challenges, including robotic space missions as well as clean tech, mobility, agriculture, oil and gas development, high-reliability consumer products \u2014 and yes, mining of the terrestrial kind.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal for First Mode and its customers is to provide that method of looking at a problem that, at its starting point, appears to be an intractable issue \u2026 and then help the customer break that down into a set of problems that can be worked in parallel, and then brought together to form the functional whole that the marketplace needs,\u201d said Chris Voorhees, president and chief engineer.<\/p>\n

\"Chris
Chris Voorhees, First Mode\u2019s president and chief engineer. (First Mode Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Voorhees said First Mode has already solved what sometimes seems to be an intractable problem for startups: making money.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve reached a point where the company has achieved profitability,\u201d he said. The company has also expanded from its original core group of 11 Planetary Resources veterans to 14 employees, and Voorhees says there\u2019s more growth ahead.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a big change from the final days of Planetary Resources, which made significant headway on its plan to develop asteroid-prospecting spacecraft but suffered through a spate of staff reductions in early 2018 after a funding round fizzled.<\/p>\n

Voorhees and Adams were among those laid off.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a core group of engineering, scientific technical staff members that really felt like they had unfinished business coming out of Planetary, and wanted to stay together,\u201d Voorhees recalled.<\/p>\n

The new venture started out under the name \u201cSynchronous,\u201d and built on the partners\u2019 expertise and connections in the space industry. Last summer, the company said on LinkedIn that its team members were \u201cexcited to be supporting the Mars 2020 mission\u201d planned by NASA.<\/p>\n

Just last month, Synchronous moved into a 7,500-square-foot lab space on Western Avenue in Seattle\u2019s Belltown neighborhood. It also won the trademark for its geeky new moniker.<\/p>\n

Why First Mode? Engineers know that structures have natural frequencies at which they resonate \u2014 and that the most basic frequency for that resonance is known as the \u201cfirst mode.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe founding members of First Mode realized from their previous experience working together that they too had found a natural frequency,\u201d the company explained in its inaugural blog post. \u201cBy working together, our talents and expertise result in technical solutions that are stronger than the contributions of team members working alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Voorhees said First Mode draws inspiration from NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he began his career more than two decades ago, as well as from design and engineering companies such as Applied Minds and IDEO. Lockheed Martin\u2019s Skunk Works and Boeing\u2019s Phantom Works also serve as models, he said.<\/p>\n

\"Rhae
Rhae Adams, First Mode\u2019s vice president of strategy and business development. (First Mode Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Adams said First Mode is working with more than 10 different clients in business and government, while Voorhees said the company has taken on more than 40 different projects. Some work has even been done for folks on Capitol Hill, although Voorhees declined to go into specifics.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn general, there\u2019s an intimate connection between the development of new space policy and technology. \u2026 We\u2019ve had the opportunity to contribute over the past year to conversations regarding where those two things have had to intersect,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Voorhees said that First Mode\u2019s team members have \u201cgood, amicable personal connections\u201d with their former colleagues at what used to be known as Planetary Resources and is now known as ConsenSys Space. But there are no formal business dealings.<\/p>\n

Nor are there any plans to raise money from investors, at least in the near term. \u201cIt was important to us from the get-go that we were employee-owned,\u201d Adams said.<\/p>\n

Voorhees said he was grateful for the experience he and the other founders of First Mode gained at Planetary Resources\u2019 headquarters in Redmond, Wash . \u201cIt would have been very difficult for us to have gone off and done this without that experience,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

So just how scary is it to start up a startup, especially when it\u2019s self-funded? \u201d \u2018Exhilarating\u2019 is the right word, which is a simultaneous combination of excitement and terror,\u201d Voorhees said. \u201cThat\u2019s what I live under most every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adams seconded that emotion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know we\u2019ve not come across anyone else that had 11 founders who have been able to work together and build something,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s gone remarkably smoothly for the number of unique personalities and opinions we have. We\u2019re always able to take that step back and approach things logically as best we can, like any technical problem. It works for founding a company too, not just for pieces of hardware.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A wide-angle view provides an unusual perspective of First Mode\u2019s new lab space on Western Avenue in Seattle. Click on the image for a 360-degree view. (First Mode Photo) Planetary Resources was assimilated into the ConsenSys blockchain venture months ago, but a troop of engineers who used to work for the asteroid mining company is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4688,4689,4820,21],"class_list":["post-18103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-engineering","tag-first-mode","tag-planetary-resources","tag-space"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18103"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18103\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}