Small satellites deploy from the International Space Station, courtesy of a company called Nanoracks. Co-founder Charles Miller is now focusing on even smaller satellites for spaceflight.

Hot off the success of co-founding a company to commercialize the space station, Charles Miller's next frontier is going head-to-head with SpaceXs quest to provide constant cell connectivity in orbit.

Miller is best known for the success of NanoRacks, a one-stop-shopping company for firms looking to make money in microgravity on the International Space Station. Working closely with NASA, NanoRacks runs experiments on the U.S. Harmony module and manages tiny satellites launched into space using a robotic Japanese arm.

While SpaceX plans on spending billions of dollars to launch 12,000 satellites for its Starlink constellation, Miller says he can improve cell service in rural America or continental Africa for much less money and using smaller satellites. Because there are few cell towers in these regions, his company Lynk (recently renamed from UbiquitiLink) aims to recreate cell towers in orbit instead.

The market opportunity, as he sees it, is huge, as there "five billion people with a phone in their pocket" many of whom live in constant disconnectivity because they don't have a cell tower within 22 miles (35 kilometers) of their location.

Lynk has performed two "cell tower" demonstrations using Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft.

Lynk has raised $12 million to date and has already flown two prototypes in space aboard Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft. Its set to launch a third prototype Dec. 4, and plans a fourth in March 2020.

Its secret sauce is repurposing the base station software in the cell tower that talks to your phone, including tricking conventional phones into accepting talking to space-based "cell towers" as far as 375 miles (600 km) away.

As of this month, Lynk is pre-revenue with 33 testing partners, including 24 mobile network operators that serve 1.5 billion subscribers in 60 countries. Some disclosed partners include Cellular One in Arizona, Telefonica's MoviStar service in Argentina and Vodafone Hutchison Australia.

Rapidly growing and with 24 part-time and full-time employees under its wing, Lynk plans to have several thousand satellites in service within the next five years.

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SpaceX Competitor Creating Cell Tower In Space - Forbes