Flight heritage – What it is? And what it’s not

I was in a conversation recently with a founder who was wondering about the whole question of flight heritage. The founder in question mainly provides software as service.  They can provide that software on ground stations, but they can do more if they move some of the computing to orbit.

In pitching this concept, they are often asked about whether or not they have “flight heritage” and it seems, in some ways, like an odd question. Why should it matter if the software has run in vacuum, in microgravity? It can be run on the ground on the hardware that will host it on orbit. Shouldn’t that be enough?

It turned into quite a lengthy discussion, and I think it’s worth repeating the main lines of argument here. In summary, the point is that “Flight Heritage” is less about whether your technology has “flown” to orbit and more about whether it has been part of a “Flight” – the capitalization is intentional, BTW.

The term Flight Heritage gets used a lot on the space sector. But I think it means one thing to the people who say it, and another to many of those that hear it. To entrepreneurs and investors that are new to the sector the word “flight” in the heritage implies that because space is a very demanding and unique environment, it is essential that any new technology be tested in that environment in order be classified as “mature” or “TRL-9” as we say in the biz.

And this is true, but it is not the only meaning of the word. Because there’s a problem with limiting the definition in this way. Flying once, or even a few times, does not constitute true Flight Heritage. Not in space. Not in the real world of complex, multi-contractor, high-consequence missions. Because space isn’t just about proving your technology can work. It’s about proving that your entire system — your team, your process, your culture — knows how to work inside the constraints of space projects.

In other words, Flight Heritage isn’t a bumper sticker. It’s a track record. It’s not the fact that something flew once. It’s how it got there, how it performed, and what happened next.  It represents incontrovertible evidence of genuine experience that cannot be obtained or purchased any other way. Let’s call it organizational maturity. It means you are not just an innovator, but a reliable contributor as well.

It is an extremely important differentiator. It represents a very deep moat that competitors really can’t cross except by getting their own.

So, maybe let me back up a bit and start again, instead of talking about what flight heritage is not, let’s talk about what Flight Heritage is.

In its simplest form, it’s really about reputation. Having Flight Heritage means you have demonstrated the ability to deliver reliable, high-quality systems under the actual conditions of the space business. And I do mean the Space Business, not just the space environment.

To be clear, this means that you have demonstrated the ability to deliver your effects within the very constrained size, weight and power budget that you have been allocated. Frankly, it probably also means that you have engaged in multiple rounds of negotiations where you have been asked whether or not you can trade some of that budget to someone else on the mission team that needs it. And when you have been able to, you have.

It also means that you have worked within a highly disciplined project management environment. An environment where there are hard deadlines for which there really is zero tolerance for slippage. It means that you have not only delivered hardware or software that works, but that you have also delivered documentation that includes, traceability of requirements to functionality, and verifiable test results.

It means learning that delivering part of a satellite mission means a lengthy period – often many months – of integration, validation and verification with other partners and launch providers. This process  may very well delay timelines through no fault of yours (you hope) but which may, nevertheless, have a significant impact on your day-to-day operations and finances.

Finally, Space Heritage means really, REALY accepting that once your payload leaves the ground, you do not get it back.

In other words, heritage means you didn’t just make something that was innovative and technically impressive. It means that you made it real.

You made it survive.

You made it play nice with others.

You made it work when it had to, not just when you had time to look after it.

And perhaps most importantly, you did all of that with the understanding that any single point of failure could jeopardize a mission that took years to plan and maybe millions to fund. That’s the bar. Not just flying but flying with the understanding that there are no unimportant parts of a space craft. The success of everyone depends on the performance of everyone else.

All of which means that there’s another layer here that gets overlooked in most discussions about space hardware. And that is the human part. Having Flight heritage means that you’ve made, and been seen to have made, a commitment to mission success that goes beyond your contractual obligations. You didn’t stop when the spec was met. You kept going until the risk was truly retired.

It probably means that you stayed late. It probably means that you answered the call at 3am when some anomaly showed up in the telemetry that might, or might not, have anything to do with what did or did not do. But still, you dug into root cause analyses not because you were required to, but because you knew that understanding the problem was the only way to help the mission succeed and to earn the right to fly again.

And here is the crucial fact, the people who fly missions notice this. They remember it. Your peers, your partners, the primes, the government customers — they remember who they could count on when it mattered.

This is where reputation starts to form. And in the space industry, reputation is, pretty much, everything.

In other industries, your moat might be your jealously guarded intellectual property. Or your innovative processes, or that fact that you are lean and aggressive meaning you can drive down costs. In those industries the disruption almost always comes from the outside, from someone who is not wedded the “old” ways.  So, the speed with which you can spread disruption is the thing that keeps your competitors from catching you.

In space, it does not work that way.  In space, especially as a small, untried company, with a new, untried technology your moat is your reliability.

Your differentiator is your demonstrated ability to make the right decisions under pressure. To trade elegance for robustness. To get the #$%* thing out the door and know it will work. And to know when to say “no” to a request that threatens mission success. It means you deliver results. Not promises.

The only way for your customers to know you have these abilities – is to have shown others that you do.

Space is a domain that punishes arrogance and rewards maturity. It doesn’t care how brilliant your solution is if it doesn’t survive the ride. It doesn’t care how efficient your process is if your paperwork is incomplete. And it doesn’t care how cool your tech is if your team can’t deliver it when it counts.

That’s why your competitive moat in space isn’t the thing you built. It’s your reputation for delivering.

And reputations, unlike patents, can’t be copied.

I really can’t emphasize this enough.  Flight heritage isn’t just a milestone. It’s a signal. It tells the world: we know what matters. We know how to operate in an environment where failure is expensive and public and often final. We know how to be part of something larger, and how to make the parts we own worthy of trust.

Heritage isn’t earned by accident. It’s the outcome of discipline, humility, and relentless attention to the details that most people overlook.

#Flight #heritage