When Viasat went public in December 1996, most of its revenue came from one kind of military radio gear. Its UHF DAMA technology let many users share scarce satellite channels, and the Pentagon and its contractors were the main buyers. The Carlsbad, California company raised under $20 million. Few investors would have guessed it would one day launch some of the largest communications satellites ever built and sell internet service to homes and airplanes.

Three Engineers in Carlsbad

Mark Dankberg, Steve Hart and Mark Miller founded Viasat in 1986 near San Diego. They designed networking and signal processing gear for satellite links, mostly under Department of Defense programs. In the six months before the IPO, UHF DAMA products made up 71.2 percent of revenue. The plan was to take that defense expertise into commercial satellite markets, where demand for data was growing.

Building Its Own Satellites

Viasat sold 2.2 million shares at $9 each in December 1996 and listed on Nasdaq as VSAT. It kept growing in defense while moving into consumer broadband. In 2011 it launched ViaSat-1, a high-capacity satellite for home internet, and it later added in-flight Wi-Fi for airlines. In 2023 Viasat bought Inmarsat, the British satellite operator. It still trades on Nasdaq under VSAT.

Cover: I Adore You as I Adore the Vault of the Night Sky, O Vessel of Sadness, O Great Taciturn One, Odilon Redon. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for the vault of the night sky (satellites).