EP 127 — Fortastra's Sahil Desai On Why Orbital Warfare Becomes A Quantity Problem And How To Build Space Defense For Scale

Ten of the most capable satellites in the world still could not defend against a large volume of threats. Orbital warfare becomes a quantity problem, and Fortastra is building orbital defense with cost and scale at the center.

Sahil Desai, Vice President of Product at Fortastra, tells Steve how the cost shift he watched in munitions applies to space. He explains why staffing thousands of spacecraft with seven-to-eight-person teams does not close, how a digital-to-physical simulation pipeline tests autonomy, and why Watchdog V0 was built on company capital.

Topics discussed:

- Applying forward operating base security logic to orbit

- Treating orbital warfare as a quantity problem

- Driving space system costs down like modern munitions programs

- Scaling spacecraft operations through agentic autonomy

- Testing autonomy with a digital-to-physical simulation pipeline

- Giving engineers AI tools while meeting CUI and ITAR rules

- Managing product tension between engineers and government customers

- Splitting orbital defense between government and commercial operators

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