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At Ground Control #6 in August, Frank Udnæs traced the small satellite revolution from the first CubeSat standard in 1999 to a market heading towards more than 40,000 satellites in orbit. The technology works. The economics work. The question that follows is harder: who can actually build at that scale, and what does it take?
NewSpace opened space to more than superpowers and established primes. That much is settled. Over the past few years an entire industry has formed around the question of what is possible on commercial terms — and the answer turned out to be: more than most expected.
The sector is now entering a different phase. A newly established middle class of space companies has demonstrated its technology and is being asked to do something harder: industrialise it. Deliver at volume, on commercial terms, while meeting the reliability and quality demands that come with building infrastructure society depends on.
Kongsberg NanoAvionics sits at the front of that shift, with contracts for serial satellite production and deliveries to civil, commercial and defence customers who expect NewSpace pricing delivered with credibility and quality.
At Ground Control #7, Fredrik Aarrestad — CFO of Kongsberg NanoAvionics — takes us through what that transition actually demands. Where the growth is, what the company has learned about scaling satellite deliveries, and how expectations from customers and the wider ecosystem are reshaping not just how satellites get built, but where value is created across the industry.
Speaker
Fredrik Bendz Aarrestad is Chief Financial Officer at Kongsberg NanoAvionics, the small satellite mission integrator and subsidiary of Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace. He has previously held roles at Kongsberg Aviation Maintenance Services and the European Space Agency, holds a master's degree in economic analysis from the University of Stavanger, and is an alumnus of the International Space University.
As CFO, Fredrik is central to strategic planning and decision-making — and is also the person who has to make the numbers work when ambition meets industrial reality. This is a first-hand account of a company in the middle of the transition it is describing.
Date: Wednesday 16 September 2026
Time: 17:00–20:00 (programme 17:00–18:30, networking 18:30–20:00)
Venue: Mesh Youngstorget, Møllergata 6, 8, 0179 Oslo
Price: Free (registration required)