9/27/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry Bob Smith, Blue Origin’s CEO of six years, is departing the company in a move widely perceived as the end of a lackluster era. Under his tenure, Blue Origin grew from 1,500 employees to 11,000 but has yet to launch an orbital vehicle and has struggled to land key contracts. Smith reportedly discussed his departure for months with Blue Origin owner Jeff Bezos, who subsequently tapped Amazon’s senior vice president of devices and services, David Limp, to take the role. Limp’s career path doesn’t seem like one that would transfer over to launch/space access, but as the buyer of the world’s largest launch contracts (Project Kuiper), Limp spent lots of time getting familiar with Blue Origin and its competitors. Blue Origin is at a key inflection point. While Bezos pledged to invest $1 billion annually into the company, Blue’s annual costs have easily eclipsed that. “Gradatim Ferociter,” Blue’s infamous Latin motto of “step by step, ferociously” has felt more like “gradatim sine fine,” or “step by step, endlessly.” Is Limp the guy to get Blue Origin moving beyond tortoise speed? Here’s what we see: Pros: New blood. It doesn't take more than a quick tour of Blue Origin’s Glassdoor reviews to find a substellar take on company leadership. Employee complaints suggest an upper-level refresh could do a lot of good. Consumer pace. Limp’s experience with Amazon devices like Kindles and Firesticks shows an ability to move with speed to introduce modern technologies. With the BE-4 engine now six years behind schedule, having an executive who emphasizes speed could be a difference maker. Cons: Mixed record? In addition to mega-hits, Limp’s track record at Amazon includes a raft of money-losing products like the Fire Phone, Halo fitness devices, and the infamous Alexa digital assistant (the latter reportedly lost $10 billion). His bold bets on new tech haven’t always panned out. Kuiper struggles . The space project most recently under Limp’s leadership, Project Kuiper, has struggled to stay on schedule, hobbled most recently by a series of launch delays for the company’s first two prototype satellites (a gating item for the ~3,200-satellite constellation). Overshadowing Blue Origin is a blockbuster year for SpaceX, which has launched more than 60 times this year while holding onto spots in key programs like NASA’s Human Lander System and DoD’s National Security Space Launch program that Blue protested. The space sector had long thought Blue Origin would be a formidable rival to SpaceX. If the company gets launching, maybe it can be. SOURCE: https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/25/23889986/amazon-blue-origin-dave-limp-ceo

9/22/2023 - Written By Quilty Space Rocket Lab’s ( Nasdaq: RKLB ) latest Electron launch attempt Sept. 19 ended in failure and mission shutdown after an anomaly was discovered shortly after the rocket reached Max Q. The failure was Rocket Lab’s second since announcing their intentions to go public via SPAC with Vector Acquisition Corp. in spring 2021. Investors were quick to pounce on the failure, with shares down as much as 25% in pre-market trading , but ultimately, Rocket Lab’s stock fared better than its rocket, posting just shy of an 8% drop on the next trading day after the failure.   While we may be the first to assert that an 8% single-day drop in a stock is a “good” thing, compared to other launch companies, it is. Investors were far more punishing of Astra’s 2022 failures, as well as Virgin Orbit’s failure earlier this year – to the tune of 2 – 3x worse than what $RKLB experienced this week. It appears investors are less concerned about Rocket Lab’s five failures in 41 launches than Astra’s seven failures in nine launches or Virgin Orbit’s two failures in six launches (understandably so).   Source: MarketWatch Historical Price Tables If nothing else, Cathy Wood certainly was not deterred , as ARKX purchased an additional ~73k shares after the dip. With nearly 17M Rocket Lab shares trading hands on 09/19/2023, ARKX wasn’t actually a needle-mover, but it certainly bolsters investor confidence that this launch failure isn’t all that much to worry about. From the Quilty perspective, with this being their 41st launch and the failure bringing them below the 90% threshold (88% to be precise), it’s setting up to be a pivotal year for Rocket Lab in 2024. A few successful launches should bring them back into favor with insurers, but any additional failures could send their rates uncomfortably high. Going forward, The question isn’t “Will they survive?” but “How much revenue will they lose in the short term?” And “How quickly can they get back up and running without risking more failures?”  • Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket launch on Sept. 19 experienced an anomaly shortly after hitting Max Q, rendering the mission a failure and destroying Capella Space’s second Acadia synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging satellite. • Unlike its rocket, $RKLB stock fared quite well comparatively – only an 8% drop the day following the failure compared to 14%, 24%, and 26% declines experienced by competitors. • Rocket Lab has already stated its intent to revise its Q3 guidance in the coming days; as more information reaches the market, expect the stock to price this in accordingly. SOURCE: https://www.space.com/rocket-lab-electron-launch-failure-september-2023

9/22/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry Our 2020 Maxar initiation report bluntly concluded that the combination of an EO company and a GEO satellite manufacturer was “not a combination that most strategy officers or investment bankers would put high on their priority list. It is, however, the reality that management and investors must contend with for the foreseeable future.” Well, the future has arrived, and Maxar’s PE owners announced that they are separating the two business units into separate operating companies.  How did we get here? Maxar was formed in 2017 when Canada’s MDA, which owned the famed American satellite manufacturer Space Systems Loral (SS/L), acquired DigitalGlobe – the world’s largest EO satellite operator by revenue. The merger was primarily motivated by MDA’s desire to redomicile in the U.S. Operational synergies were arguably a secondary priority, although DigitalGlobe subsequently awarded its prized Legion satellite manufacturing contract to SS/L.  The merger, which left Maxar dangerously leveraged (net debt/EBITDA of 5x, rising to a peak of 7.5x), went sideways from the beginning due to a severe commercial GEO order slump that began in 2015 and persists to this day. Less than a year after the merger was completed, Maxar attempted to sell or shut down the SS/L business, but was forced to retain the business after failing to receive an attractive bid.  Taking the long view, Maxar reoriented the SS/L business to focus on the civil, DoD, and LEO constellation markets, and hired Chris Johnson from Boeing Satellite Systems to run the business. In 2022, Maxar was awarded a pivotal 14-satellite SDA contact from L3Harris, but SS/L’s most important contract – to manufacture Maxar’s own Legion constellation – remains mired in manufacturing delays that are running two, going on three years behind schedule.  While the Legion program will keep the two companies joined at the hip for the near-term, the forced marriage between the companies has reached its logical conclusion. Moving forward, each company will pursue its independent path, which may or may not converge beyond Maxar’s current order for eight Legion satellites. SOURCE: https://spacenews.com/maxar-technologies-to-reorganize-under-two-separate-businesses/

9/14/2023 - Written By Kimberly Siversen Burke As threats of FY 2024  budget cuts  lurk in the shadows of haunting  GAO reports , recent awards may hint at which NASA programs and players will be spared. And despite the  incoming fire  for its management of the SLS program, some NASA commercial efforts continue to gain momentum. Take Tuesday’s announcement of an $18M award to Firefly Aerospace. The contract marks the third for Firefly, totaling ~ $250M  in wins from NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. NASA established CLPS in 2018 as a public-private partnership aimed at delivering payloads (not people) to the Moon. Three of the  original nine  CLPS participants – Astrobotic, Firefly, and Intuitive Machines – have pretty much eCLPSed their competitors. As  CLPS Task Order Vendors , they are all leading upcoming lunar missions fueled by steady increases in their award amounts since 2019. But can this continue? With  SLS-cost shaming  hitting record highs, the CLPS program could come under increased scrutiny. Our CLPS-Take: The good: • CLPS contracts have a cumulative max value of  $2.6B  through 2028, with only about  $1.1B  obligated so far. • In a way, recent criticism of NASA’s SLS budget underscores the original vision of CLPS and highlights the importance of collaborations between NASA and the private sector. The bad: • CLPS funding falls under NASA’s Planetary Science budget, which in FY23 was allocated  $3.2B  of the agency’s total $25.4B kitty. Important to note that Planetary Science experienced  one of the lowest  budget increases from  2022 to 2023 , with only 1% growth, as opposed to Commercial LEO Development, which saw a 120% increase. The maybe: • Recent advances in lunar exploration (thanks, Chandrayaan-3) ahead of Intuitive Machine’s first CLPS launch this  November  might be just the spark needed to reignite enthusiasm for Moon missions. SOURCE: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/firefly-awarded-18-million-nasa-contract-to-provide-radio-frequency-calibration-services-from-lunar-orbit-301924731.html

9/8/2023 - Written By Kimberly Siversen Burke Is Elon Musk feeling okay? We are slightly concerned he wasn’t spiking the ball on Twitter (ugh, X) seconds after the FAA announced Friday that the Starship mishap investigation was complete. But that’s not stopping us from wagering when the NOTAM will be issued for the second test flight of Starship. Our over/under is Sept. 22. The FAA’s “63 corrective actions,” developed in tandem with SpaceX, are likely already completed and among the 1,000 modifications Musk mentioned back in June. After all, the FAA’s role in mishap investigations is less to develop a plan than it is to ensure that a plan is being followed. Think of them as the mom making sure you eat your vegetables. Not the chef sautéing them. And, based on a Sept. 5 Tweet from Musk, Starship is ready pending the FAA’s blessing. Thanks, Mom! Unclear still is whether SpaceX will seek a permit for the estimated 350k gallons of water its newly constructed rocket bidet is expected to spray, possibly into protected wetlands. According to CNBC , a spokesperson for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) said that as of July 28, SpaceX had not applied for a Texas Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (TPDES) permit. Seeking this permit, which could have taken up to a year, might have been why SpaceX skipped implementing the water deluge system in the first place (also, Mars is an icy tundra). Will that stop Elon Musk from moving forward with test flight two? There is/was a 40-foot-tall, blindingly bright "X" shining like a Bat signal atop a building in San Francisco to suggest that the chances of it stopping him are about zero. SOURCE: https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-closes-spacex-starship-mishap-investigation

9/8/2023 - Written By Kimberly Siversen Burke A 1-for-50 reverse stock split on Aug. 23 was hardly the "last mile" space tug startup Momentus (NASDAQ: MNTS) envisioned when it went public through a $1.2B SPAC merger with Stable Road Acquisition Corp (NASDAQ: SRAC) in 2020. But its fate seems to have been written on the hood of an El Camino driven by a Russian entrepreneur accused of having a long-distance relationship with the truth. “The purpose of the El Camino Real mission was to flight demonstrate our core propulsion technology so customers, investors, and stakeholders can have absolute confidence that Momentus will deliver their payloads to a given orbit,” Momentus CEO Mihkail Kokorich told Space News in 2019 . “Some early results have already been shared with our stakeholders, which include customers.” Mired from the beginning in national security concerns, lawsuits , and SEC fraud charges of overhyping the space readiness of its tech (see above), Momentus hemorrhaged roughly $180M in cash during its first two years of going public. The company struggled to secure customer contracts due to delays and the disappointing debut of its Vigoride-3, which suffered from communications issues and a solar array that failed to deploy. Even after ending this last quarter with just $21.6 of cash and equivalents, Momentus still has a pulse thanks to its original backers. According to SEC filings, the managers of SRC-NI Holdings LLC (the Stable Road Acquisition Corp sponsors) purchased  $10M of newly issued stock in February and another $5M this month to delay an otherwise certain death for Momentus. Now, with just about a month of runaway left, Momentus is hoping to complete a Hail Mary. It threw the ball to the SDA this summer hoping to score a Tranche 2 Transport (Alpha) Layer contract. It is also undoubtedly evaluating a range of long-odds financing and M&A transactions. But absent a big win or financing breakthrough very soon, the El Camino will be lucky to get auctioned off for parts. Anyone in the market for an M-1000 bus, patent-pending water plasma thrusters, or Tape Spring Solar Arrays? SOURCE: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230908517384/en/Momentus-Regains-Compliance-with-Nasdaq-Minimum-Bid-Price#:~:text=To%20regain%20compliance%20with%20the,listing%20matter%20has%20been%20closed. %20compliance%20with%20the,listing%20matter%20has%20been%20closed

8/25/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry To state it bluntly, 2023 has not been a good year for Viasat. One satellite malfunction is bad enough; two have us wondering where the Viasat voodoo doll is and who’s torturing it.   Viasat disclosed Aug. 24 that Inmarsat 6-F2, a 5,500-kg satellite that took a whopping eight years to build and launch, has suffered a power system malfunction that could render it useless right as it was supposed to enter service.   Key Ramifications for Viasat:    • The two Inmarsat-6 satellites were built mainly as replacements for Inmarsat’s (now Viasat’s) L-band I-4 fleet, which consists of four satellites. The oldest two I-4s launched in 2005 and are now 18 years old – three years past their design life (the youngest, Alphasat, is 10 years old). Viasat needs three L-band GEO satellites to maintain global coverage, which is critical for these satellites as they are the backbone of myriad safety services in maritime, aviation, blue force tracking, and elsewhere.   • Between the four I-4 satellites and the recently launched Inmarsat 6-F1 satellite, Viasat has sufficient assets to maintain global coverage. Still, if Inmarsat 6-F2 fails, it will put the company in the uncomfortable position of having to order a replacement to protect its continuous global L-band coverage. The Inmarsat-6 satellites also carry Ka-band payloads, but with only 4 Gbps of capacity each, we are treating these as a rounding error.   • Viasat’s plans to leverage L-band spectrum to explore direct-to-device services could experience a setback.  Most significant impacts for industry:   • If Viasat-3 and Inmarsat 6-F2 are both deemed irreparable failures, the resulting insurance claims will surely wipe the market’s capacity for 2023. We wouldn’t be surprised to see insurers exit the space business, not unlike some did after 2019’s expensive Vega launch failure.  • L-band competitors may see an uptick in business as a result. Iridium and, on a regional basis, Thuraya, also provide L-band connectivity services, which have low data rates but durable signal strength. Since these characteristics make L-band a popular choice for safety services, L-band users may consider their options in the (unlikely) event that the anomaly impacts Viasat’s service.  While Airbus called the malfunction “an unprecedented event,” Inmarsat reported a  partial loss of power  on its I4-F1 satellite last April. Like the Inmarsat 6-F2, the F1 was built on an Airbus Eurostar 3000 platform. Once an Airbus mainstay, no Eurostar 3000s have been ordered in the last three years as Airbus has shifted to ESA-sponsored Eurostar Neo and the software-defined OneSat platforms.  SOURCE: https://www.satellitetoday.com/technology/2023/08/24/inmarsat-6-f2-satellite-suffers-unprecedented-anomaly/

8/24/2023 - Written By Quilty Space Axiom Space is continuing its march towards making commercial human spaceflight a reality with the close of a $350M Series C round on August 21st, 2023. Backed by Korean pharmaceutical company Boryung Co. and Saudi Arabian investment firm Aljazira Capital, the round complements recent Axiom wins for  EVA spacesuit development  and  flying commercial astronauts , and gives the company a small war chest of cash to play with. The key question, however, is will it get them to flight? Diving deeper into Axiom’s current financial position provides some clues. Here is what we know so far:  • Raised at least  $505M to date  from outside investors since 2016  • Completed two flights with SpaceX; four astronauts each at an estimated  ~$55M per astronaut   • U.S. government obligations (guaranteed payments)  of ~$170M to date   By these calculations, we can estimate total cash inflow for Axiom is ~$1B to date, +/- 20% to account for potentially lower commercial flight revenues, additional smaller development contracts, or bootstrapped capital from the original founders. On the high side, reserves of $1.2B put Axiom in rarified air as far as NewSpace companies go, but with  750 employees now , they’re likely burning upwards of $100M per year in personnel alone. Throw in the additional hardware and facilities costs, not to mention the revenue pass-throughs to SpaceX on past commercial flights, and it’s likely that they didn’t just pick up $350M to pad the bank – they  needed  to close this round.  With the round now in the background, they can breathe easier knowing that they have solid runway for at least a year or more and enough cash to start purchasing their long-lead hardware items. As for whether this round will get them through first-flight, that seems like a stretch. Human spaceflight is notoriously expensive, and most recent habitat programs have cleared $2B in cost easily: Northrop Grumman's  HALO habitat's   cost-to-first-flight  is estimated at $2.1B (NextStep-2 + FFP procurement award),  SpaceX's Crew Dragon  at $2.6B (incl. first six flights), and  JAXA's Kibo Module  at $2.0B. So, how does Axiom close the gap? To start, they’ll need to cut out as much new design and development as much as possible without sacrificing the customer experience. Early  peaks at their design  indicate a highly modular approach, so with the appropriate accounting method, they can share development costs across several different modules. That should help, but it won’t resolve their free cash flow problems. NASA may step in and offer support, but awards for Commercial LEO Destinations have been disappointing, to say the least, with competitor Voyager Space / Nanoracks pulling down  only $160M to design their Starlab module . Perhaps their best bet is on the extravehicular spacesuit program, where despite only ~$140M in guaranteed obligations, Axiom has been  awarded $370M in task orders (up from $228M initially) with a potential cap of up to $3.5B . No word on the margin profile for these efforts, but even a modest government contracting markup of 10% could add 100s of millions to their cash reserves over the next few years. Make no mistake – even with all the above, there will need to be more funding rounds before flight. Expect to see additional capital raises before we see Axiom astronauts orbiting on their own station.  • Axiom closed a $350M Series C round in August, bringing total investment in the company to $500M+ • Korean pharmaceutical company Boryung and Saudia Arabian investment fund Aljazira Capital led the round • Axiom’s customer demand continues to accelerate, with two more planned flights this year and nearly $370M in announced awards for their spacesuit program • Current capital reserves are likely not enough to get Axiom’s station operational – expect to see additional rounds from the company SOURCE: https://spacewatch.global/2023/08/axiom-space-raises-350m-in-series-c-round/

8/21/2023 - Written By Kimberly Siversen Burke Even more confusing than why the Space Development Agency’s (SDA) 72 Tranche 2 Transport Layer ( T2TL ) “Beta” satellites precede the 100 T2TL “Alphas” is: - Why have the satellite costs increased 53%? - Why has the expected three -vendor award been reduced to two ? Hey, York. We’re looking at you. When SDA announced on Aug. 21 that the $1.5B in contracts would be awarded to Lockheed Martin ($816M) and Northrop Grumman ($733M), the absence of Tranche 0 and 1’s dark horse winner made us a little uncomfy. I mean, we haven’t yet forgotten that back in June, the SDA tweeted about an “assembly issue” found on one of the 10 (two SpaceX; eight York) T0TL satellites launched on April 2. This seeded concerns about possible performance issues with York’s “Checkmate” satellites. In that same thread, the SDA said eight T0TL satellites remained in their “initial orbit” – something that even Harvard Astrophysicist Dr. Jonathan McDowell was questioning – because they needed to complete “initial tactical testing” before orbit raising. Now, four months later, the Checkmates remain in that same orbit, and the uncharacteristic silence of the SDA is getting a bit louder. Especially as York – fresh off its acquisition of Emergent Space Technologies – just cut ribbon on a new $20M, 60,000-SF manufacturing and testing facility designed to produce 1,000 satellites a year. While the fate of the Checkmates and York’s role in future SDA programs like Alpha, Gamma , and T2DES is still TBD, we can’t help but wonder if its omission from Beta signals a bit of a stalemate for the Denver-based smallsat manufacturer’s positioning as a top PWSA bus supplier. Despite its compelling per-satellite price point that resulted in nearly $700M in wins with T0 ( $94M ), T1 ( $382M ), and T1DES ( $200M ), York is under a lot of pressure after AE Industrial Partners’ $1.125B majority stake investment in the company last year. As for the rest of us who applauded SDA's efforts to end vendor lock by including nontraditional defense contractors and small businesses in its Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA)? Well, we're just hoping "checkmate" doesn't signal the end of that game. SOURCE: https://sam.gov/opp/3e3eb41990ef4098b893b10cd6d297b6/view

8/10/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry U.S. defense company Kratos Defense and Security Solutions announced Aug. 9 plans to buy up to 20 Dart AE hypersonic vehicles from Australian aerospace startup Hypersonix. The deal, while focused on bringing Australian defense tech to the U.S., also could further Hypersonix’s pursuit of a small launch vehicle.   Sydney-based Hypersonix is developing hydrogen-fueled Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) powered by 3D-printed scramjet engines. One such Dart AE vehicle is slated to launch on a Rocket Lab suborbital mission in 2024. The U.S. Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) is supporting that mission.  The Pentagon remains concerned that the U.S. military lags China in developing hypersonic weapons despite billions spent on their development. Through the trilateral AUKUS agreement, Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. are deepening ties on key defense capabilities, a policy move of which Hypersonix is the latest beneficiary.  Hypersonix is using Dart AE as a steppingstone to a reusable, space-capable UAV called Delta-Velos, designed to launch smallsats to LEO. The company also plans to develop a reusable first-stage booster called Boomerang.   Small launch remains an intensely crowded and challenging market, but that hasn’t stopped companies from pursuing it. Hypersonix may have an advantage by starting with hypersonic defense work, creating a revenue stream, a means of technology maturation, and access to the U.S. market. Many historic rockets (Atlas, Delta, Proton, etc.) got their start as missile programs before scaling up to space launch vehicles. In the modern age of blazing-fast weaponry, hypersonics could be that new onramp to space access.   We also wouldn’t be surprised if the company entertains point-to-point cargo transportation, given DoD’s interest and similar pursuits by peer spaceplane companies like Radian and Sierra Space.  SOURCE: https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/2023/08/09/kratos-hypersonix-team-up-on-hypersonic-systems-for-us-market/

8/1/2023 - Written By Chris Quilty Planet’s decision to lay off 10% of its workforce did not come as a complete surprise following Q1 results that saw the company lower FY24 revenue and AEBITDA by 11% and 49%, respectively, citing extended sales cycles and declining deal values. During the call, management indicated that it expected to exit FY24 with run rate savings of $35 million/year by “significantly throttling back its headcount expansion plans.” Apparently, the foot is off the accelerator and now on the brakes. Compared to other remote sensing companies (and especially those that deSPAC’d after covid), Planet grew its headcount considerably faster – adding as many employees as BlackSky, Maxar, and Satellogic did altogether between 2021 and 2022 – while facing the same macroeconomic headwinds. This made the company more vulnerable to layoffs, not that they are unique – rival Satellogic let go 18% of its employees in late 2022 and another 8% in the first quarter of 2023. Notably, Planet is taking these actions from a position of relative strength. At the close of Q1, Planet held $376 million of net cash, and we are forecasting Planet to burn an incremental $116M through FY25. Many of Planet’s peers are not as fortunate and may use Planet’s actions to justify reexamining their staffing and spending levels. SOURCE: https://www.planet.com/pulse/a-note-from-our-ceo/

7/28/2023 - Written By Quilty Space Starlink on July 19 tweeted that “Nearly 300 cruise ships are now set to use Starlink to keep their passengers and crews connected with high-speed internet while on rivers and at sea.” The announcement prompted the Quilty team to look into what percentage of the cruise industry now uses Starlink and what does that mean for other providers, particularly SES O3b mPower? Background on the Global Cruise Industry – Four Operators Account for ~80% Here are a few industry basics that provide useful context: 1. There are ~300 ocean-going cruise ships worldwide . The Cruise Line Industry Association (CLIA) listed 270 member ships operating in 2021 and projects total ocean-going vessels will exceed 300 for the first time in 2024. Another source, Market Watch, listed 323 such ships in 2022. The “average” cruise ship is estimated to carry 3,000 passengers though some have capacity for over 6,000 while many others are below 1,000. 2. The Starlink Tweet references nearly “300 cruise ships… on rivers and at sea.” There are hundreds of small passenger vessels that navigate many of the world’s famous rivers, serving as floating hotels for travelers who visit popular sites along the way. Such river cruises may have satellite broadband, but passenger numbers are far fewer than on ocean-going ships and rivers are sometimes in cell range. Consequently, satcom demand for river cruises is far smaller, per ship and in the aggregate, than comparable demand by ocean-going vessels. 3. Four Cruise Operators Account for ~80% of the Market. The “Big 4” are: Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian Cruise Line and MSC . Combined they have 195 ships, carry 80% of cruise passengers worldwide and account for over 80% of industry revenue. Satcom Services Play an Essential Role in Keeping Cruise Passengers and Crew Connected Leading cruise operators rely on a multi-orbit strategy for communications, making significant use of GEO and MEO capacity while rapidly adding Starlink in LEO. Satcom integrators like Speedcast and Anuvu provide GEO capacity, purchasing it wholesale to deliver as a managed service. Cruise lines get connectivity (satellite and terrestrial), terminal equipment, maintenance and support. Starlink and SES O3b also provide a full, end-to-end service to cruise lines by selling direct, bypassing integrators. If Starlink proves successful in delivering high levels of cruise operator satisfaction at low cost, it along with other LEO broadband systems like Kuiper and OneWeb, could reduce GEO business given global LEO coverage. The Value of the Cruise Industry to Global Satcom’s Commercial Success The announced capex of new MEO-LEO satellite broadband systems – mPower, Starlink, OneWeb Gen 1 and Gen 2, Amazon Kuiper, Telesat Lightspeed and others – could exceed $40 billion if all are deployed. It’s common for these companies to highlight the importance of the cruise market to their plans. The obvious rationale: there is no land-based alternative for delivering high-performing broadband to ships at sea. But how much satcom revenue can ~300 cruise ships, many of which carry 1,000 or fewer passengers, produce? The answer lies in an assessment of how much capacity a cruise ship needs. Estimates vary. Euroconsult forecasts that the average bandwidth consumption per vessel will increase from 40Mbps in 2020 to 340Mbps by 2030. SES offers three mPower service packages for cruise ships with two of them providing MEO bandwidth up to 1.5Gbps. In the current satcom market, low-cost pricing for space segment – just satellite bandwidth – is ~$100 per megabit per month. Providing a gigabit service at this rate works out to $1.2 million per year per site (1,000 Mbps x 12 months x $100 per megabit). If every cruise ship had 1 gigabit of capacity, satcom revenue for the global cruise industry would be $360 million. This is a best-case scenario that in the real world, given varying size and communications needs of ~300 cruise vessels, will be far smaller. There is potential for additional revenue from terminals, terrestrial links and other network elements, but these are low margin and may be passed through at cost to the cruise line or even absorbed by the satcom broadband provider. Our Take: While the cruise industry is a valuable market to companies pursuing new satellite broadband systems, that value will be a small component in LEO capex recovery – not a major contributor in realizing attractive returns on billions of investment. So Why is Starlink Pursuing the Cruise Market? In August 2022 (less than a year ago), Royal Caribbean Group said it has become the first cruise liner to adopt SpaceX’s Starlink LEO satellite broadband services. Since then, Starlink has signed most major cruise lines with the exception of MSC Cruises. We believe Starlink's cruise business is largely driven by the company’s interest in building awareness for, and interest in, its residential service. Starlink has always been clear on its goal of attracting millions of subscribers. In May 2023 the company announced it had reached 1.5 million subscribers two and half years after start of service. Each million subs result in ~$1.3 billion in Starlink revenue. That’s a lot more than they’re ever going to realize from the cruise industry. SOURCE: https://twitter.com/Starlink/status/1681690744313241600

7/26/2023 - Written By Chris Quilty Earlier this week,  Viasat nixed  Inmarsat’s  “ORCHESTRA”  V-band filing with the FCC, presumably ending the company’s lukewarm attempt to assemble a hybrid LEO/GEO/5G “dynamic mesh network.” The fate of Inmarsat’s LEO broadband filings with the ITU is unclear, but this move certainly puts the company’s NGSO efforts on hospice. Details of the 198-satellite LEO constellation were never very well defined. And signs of ORCHESTRA being shelved cropped up as recently as last February when Inmarsat’s VP of Corp. Dev Larry Paul declared at the SmallSat Symposium that the LEO initiative  “…just doesn’t make sense at this point”  – a statement Inmarsat later walked back. Inmarsat’s five-year budget (2021-2026) of $100 million for ORCHESTRA hardly inspired confidence that it was a priority. In fact, Inmarsat and, perhaps not coincidently, Viasat have been the two harshest critics of NGSO business models, arguing that GEO bandwidth economics will always trump that of an NGSO system. That said, Viasat already filed for a  288-satellite  NGSO constellation (a 14-fold increase from its originally planned 20-satellite system), so it’s possible that it’s simply cannibalizing Inmarsat’s filing to feed its own (and to adhere to FCC guidelines which prohibit multiple holdings for unbuilt systems). What is clear: Viasat has higher priorities (i.e., ViaSat-3 replacement) right now and less wiggle room (net leverage of ~4.0x) to embark on new initiatives. Holding its course might make Viasat the last true champion of the theory that a standalone GEO constellation can compete with a multi-orbit model in today’s space economy.  SOURCE: https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/10724268872946/1

7/19/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry Amazon’s launch costs for Project Kuiper, its constellation of ~3,200 broadband satellites, are much higher than initially estimated, according to a recently surfaced SEC filing.   The internet giant signed launch deals covering a firm 68 rockets – 38 missions on Vulcan rockets from ULA, 18 missions with the Ariane 6 from Arianespace, and 12 New Glenn rockets from Blue Origin with contract options for 15 more – in spring of 2022. At the time this was believed to be a $5-6 billion deal, with discounts for bulk orders, new rockets and filling the backlogs of launch-starved companies. Turns out that was not the case.   In the disclosure, Amazon said it “expects to pay approximately $7.4 billion for satellite launch and related services through 2028” to Blue Origin and an unnamed third party.   Amazon is required to disclose purchase agreements between founder Jeff Bezos and his other companies, a rule that led Amazon to share launch pricing info for Blue Origin (which Bezos owns) and which ID’s the third party as United Launch Alliance (which is buying engines from Blue Origin). Of the $7.4 billion, some $2.7 billion goes to Blue Origin. The remaining $4.7 billion, by process of elimination, goes to ULA.   Since Bezos has no stake in Arianespace, Amazon was not required to share the size of that purchase, however Arianespace has described it as “ the largest we’ve ever signed .” Quilty Space estimates that value of the Arianespace contract is $2.5-3 billion, inclusive of upgrades to the Ariane 64 solid rocket boosters that are needed to fulfill the mission.   Altogether, these three contracts cost about as much as Amazon had initially pledged to spend on Kuiper , and mean the actual price tag for the Gen-1 constellation will be considerably higher when including satellite manufacturing, ground station deployment and user terminal production.   Launch contracts are typically front-loaded, and Amazon’s are no different. The company has paid “approximately $1.7 billion under the agreements,” of which ~$585 million went to Blue Origin. Counting Arianespace, Kuiper has undoubtedly paid more than $2 billion for launch without placing a single satellite in orbit. And recurring delays with all three vehicles mean a steady launch rate is unlikely until late 2024 at the very best, a timeline that constrains Amazon’s ability to meet FCC regulatory deadlines. The company has until July 2026 to deploy half of Kuiper (1,618 satellites) and the full constellation by July 2029. Falling short of these milestones caps Kuiper at the number of satellites launched by whichever deadline is missed.  SOURCE: https://twitter.com/breadfrom/status/1681013367559913474

7/17/2023 - Written By Quilty Space During his historic visit to the U.S. in late June, Indian Prime Minister Modi signed a number of high-profile deals with the U.S. spanning defense, renewable energy, technology collaboration, climate change, and, of course, the space industry. Most notably, NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) agreed to a joint mission to the ISS in 2024, and India became the 27th signatory to the Artemis Accords. While geopolitical agreements dominated the headlines, Voyager Space emerged as the biggest commercial space sector beneficiary – signing a two-part Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with ISRO to explore using:  1. ISRO’s Gaganyaan crewed vehicle for flights to Voyager’s Starlab.  2. ISRO’s well-established Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) for launching small satellites.  The MoU marks India’s commitment to inclusion in humankind’s next greatest space race. It also sends a clear signal that space station operators are not looking to be solely dependent on SpaceX for getting their new astronauts to space.  For Voyager, ISRO holds the potential to serve as both partner and customer. While the MoU highlights the usage of Gaganyaan as a transport vehicle, the space agency also has four civil astronauts of their own that have already gone through training and are awaiting flights to space. Starlab isn’t set to begin initial operations until at least 2027, but that is a full three years before ISRO’s own station is expected to be finished (approximately 5 – 7 years after the completion of the Gaganyaan spacecraft). Competitor Axiom’s rumored all-in mission cost was around $50M per astronaut ... assuming a $20M/head price for just the Starlab stay (no launch/transportation cost in this case) could mean station hosting revenues alone of >$80M per year for Voyager.    Of course, here at Quilty, we know that MoU’s are often not worth the paper they are written on, so investors have a right to be skeptical. The Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) – an independent agency focused on engaging non-government entities for space exploration – also signed an MoU with Blue Origin earlier in June to explore the use of ISRO assets to provide access to the company’s Orbital Reef space station. It seems that as much as space station operators are hedging their bets across launch vehicle providers, launch vehicle providers are also hedging their bets across space station operators. SOURCE: https://www.eurasiantimes.com/us-seeks-collaboration-with-india-to-send-crew-to/

7/5/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry The chip war has finally caught up with the space industry. Two days ago, Beijing declared that gallium, a unique material used in several spacecraft technologies, will require “special permission from the state” to export. The move is an apparent retaliation against the U.S. and some European nations imposing limits on semiconductor sales to China. Roughly 80% of the world’s gallium comes from China, per figures from the Brussels-based Critical Raw Materials Alliance. Gallium is often used as a part of the core substrate for semiconductors, making it critical for myriad devices. The space industry uses derivations of the material (typically gallium arsenide or gallium nitride) in solar arrays, power amplifiers, signal converters, transceivers and other components that enable satellites and ground stations to function. It took until this year for the satellite industry to shake off most of the supply chain and inflation headwinds that trailed covid. The Quilty Space team will be monitoring industry activity to gauge the impact of these new gallium restrictions, which could easily result in higher satellite manufacturing costs worldwide. SOURCE: https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/03/business/germanium-gallium-china-export-restrictions/index.html

7/3/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry Commercial geostationary communications satellites, long the lifeblood of the industry, remain chronically below historic order levels to the point where changes in how the sector functions are becoming apparent.   By our count, there are approximately 300 full-sized GEO comsats in orbit. Using a conservative assumption of 17.5 years for an average lifetime, operators would need yearly “replacement orders” of ~17 – nearly twice the order rate since 2015. What does this mean for the industry? Our takes:  Abandoned plans. Satellites, once slated for replacement, are being reevaluated. Operators generally keep quiet when they plan to let satellites retire (i.e., run out of fuel) without replacement plans, but at the rate renewals are happening, this is an eventuality. In some special cases (like Eutelsat’s Hotbird series ), operators can replace multiple satellites with fewer. But the slump in GEO orders has persisted for more than six years now, meaning some plans have simply been shelved.   More life extension. Operators that let satellites retire (i.e., run out of fuel) without replacements risk losing valuable orbital slots (think parking spots) in GEO. Those not ready to pay $200-500M on a new satellite are increasingly turning to life extension through in-space services companies. Intelsat has been leading this trend, having signed deals with Northrop Grumman to extend the lives of four satellites. Intelsat also has agreements with startups ClearSpace of Switzerland and Infinite Orbits of France that could turn into additional life-extension contracts.   Pivots to LEO/MEO. The “Big Four” operators – Intelsat, SES, Eutelsat and Telesat – have considerably reduced their GEO order rate as they plan or implement constellations in LEO or MEO. As global operators that often purchased one to three GEO satellites a year, their reduction in buying appetite has had a large dampening effect on the manufacturing market.   Orbital paralysis. Regional operators typically lack the deep pockets needed to fund large LEO or MEO constellations, but don’t want to order satellites that struggle to compete against these new systems. The result is steep decline in regional satellite orders as operators deliberate on how to deploy satellites that can withstand the accelerated pace of obsolescence driven by bigger operators.   Small GEO resurgence. Of the six GEO orders placed this year, five were for satellites weighing less than 1,000 kilograms. Two of those orders, to Astranis, have design lives around eight years – half that of a typical GEO satellite. These smaller spacecraft are cheaper to build and launch, and have smaller coverage areas, which can make for easier business plans. Satellite operators have shown fickle interest in small GEO satellites the past several years, but 2023 is the first time they constitute a majority of GEO orders.   Will large GEOs comsats ever return to an order rate of 10 or more yearly? Quilty Space expects such an increase will remain challenging for the industry near term. Operators are evaluating a wide range of strategies while seeking to better understand the impact of LEO and MEO networks.   SOURCE: www.quiltyspace.com

6/30/2023 - Written By Quilty Space Just three months after former CEO, Alan Carson, and two of his colleagues were convicted of conspiring to defraud the government, Envistacom’s assets have hit the auction block. It is the end of a bizarre saga surrounding the once-successful satellite communications and cybersecurity company. After nearly 10 years of extraordinary growth, in 2022, the Procurement Collusion Strike Force discovered that Envistacom had been submitting false quotes and independent estimates to artificially increase their costs. The incidents in question happened between 2014 and 2016, when Envistacom saw a rapid rise in government obligations from around $10M in 2014 to nearly $50M in 2016, though the government only claimed around $8M of those awards were fraudulent. Regardless of the total dollar figure, the convictions were enough to cripple the company, and Envistacom filed for bankruptcy shortly after the jury’s decision. Key remaining creditors that will be awaiting the results of the auction are Kratos Antenna Solutions Corporation, Mag Aerospace, Linchpin Solutions, and LNO Inc., and Gulf Project Solutions General Trading & Contracting Co. W.L. As for who is looking to purchase the assets, unlike the high-profile Virgin Orbit bankruptcy, there does not appear to be any “white knight” swooping in to take the bulk of what remains. Given the brand damage of being associated with government fraud, it seems most potential suitors are unsurprisingly electing to stay away. Certainly, there are a few local Atlanta-based space companies and defense firms that may be interested in shop machines and electronics equipment – such as Hermeus, SpaceWorks, Viasat, Datapath, or Georgia Tech – but the retention of traditional equipment auction house, Bullseye, suggests little interest beyond that. Perhaps more juicy assets will be available in the second round of the auction (date TBD). SOURCE: https://www.bullseyeauctions.com/auctions/detail/bw97468

6/28/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry Heavily capitalized defense startup Anduril Industries has made a mission out of disrupting various defense industry subsectors, namely AI, counter-drone technologies, and submersibles. On June 27, Anduril added propulsion to that list through the acquisition of Adranos, an eight-year-old startup with a proprietary rocket fuel it calls ALITEC.   Per Adranos, ALITEC can increase the travel distance of solid rocket motors by up to 40% and can be built faster and cheaper than competing systems. Anduril said the acquisition will enable it to focus on “missiles, hypersonics, and other propulsion systems” for DoD programs. That doesn’t intrinsically mean space, but U.S. Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss), who was quoted in the announcement, did highlight “small space launch systems” as a market that relies on solid rocket motors.   Anduril has raised $2.2 billion since forming in 2017, and is valued at $8.5 billion . Founder Palmer Luckey has described the defense industry as “ more focused on process than progress ,” and one where companies are “rarely asked to innovate as a matter of survival.” That philosophy smacks of the newspace ethos that drove entrepreneurs into the sector. So, even though Anduril’s main thrust is towards missiles and hypersonics, what impact will the Adranos acquisition have on the space market?   Incumbent motor builders. Aerojet Rocketdyne and Northrop Grumman are the only two solid rocket companies in the U.S. with meaningful scale. Anduril will undoubtedly compete for their business. But the domestic demand for space-grade solid rocket motors is very limited. The only rockets that use such motors are NASA’s SLS, which is projected to fly once every year or two, ULA’s Atlas 5, which is on its way to retirement, and ULA’s forthcoming Vulcan rocket, which is tightly coiled to Aerojet and Northrop. While we would not be surprised to see Anduril eventually pitch to be a supplier for Vulcan, an effort of that scale would require ULA’s blessing, years of development, and a nine-figure investment.  New launcher entrants. The leading launch startups in the U.S. – ABL Space Systems, Firefly, Relativity Space, and Rocket Lab – are all building vehicles that rely on liquid propulsion. The addition of strap-on boosters could serve to rapidly increase payload performance, but getting launch companies to change plans mid-stride is a tough sell. To win business with startups, or most vehicle developers for that matter, Anduril will likely need to get a foot in the door early in the design phase.   Other propulsion startups. The space industry already has a notable rocket propulsion startup in the form of Colorado-based Ursa Major Technologies, which is building liquid propulsion systems for defense and space applications. We view Anduril as complementary to Ursa Major, since the two companies make starkly different propulsion technologies. Anduril may compete with startup Firehawk Aerospace, which is developing hybrid propulsion technologies intended to replace solid propulsion. Raytheon, a frequent critic of Aerojet, is an investor in Firehawk. Should the two compete, though, it will more likely be over missile contracts, not space.   In short, Anduril faces a tough market in the launch sector, but its presence as a rising heavyweight is a net positive for the industry. More competition will increase innovation, which has skewed heavily toward liquid propulsion in recent years. We expect the company will be a more serious contender with hypersonics and missiles, with space benefiting from dual-use applications.   SOURCE: https://blog.anduril.com/anduril-industries-to-acquire-solid-rocket-motor-manufacturer-adranos-bb1f55989475

6/19/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry Eutelsat’s June 15 move to sell off its retail broadband business draws to a close a 16-year effort to create a growth engine that never managed to fire on all cylinders. Selling satellite internet to houses across Europe proved surprisingly difficult, and eventually created an insurmountable conflict with Eutelsat’s distribution partners. For those reasons, the company’s exit isn’t a surprise, but a recap of Eutelsat’s botched consumer effort could provide instructive lessons for the growing chorus of operators chasing the consumer market.   Eutelsat jumpstarted its European consumer internet effort in 2007 with a service called Tooway, formed in cooperation with Viasat. A year later, Eutelsat ordered Ka-Sat, the first all Ka-band satellite over Europe and the Mediterranean basin, designed for residential internet services. Viasat ordered what would become its anchor satellite, ViaSat-1, around the same time.   From Ka-Sat service launch in 2011 through 2015, Eutelsat enjoyed steady growth, peaking at 185,000 subscribers, mainly across Western Europe. But after maxing out salable capacity, customer attrition took hold (Eutelsat stopped disclosing subscriber numbers in mid-2017 at ~150,000 subs). American peers Hughes and Viasat, facing the same challenge, ordered new Ka-band satellites during that time (Jupiter-2 and ViaSat-2, respectively) that kept their subscriber counts growing. Eutelsat did not. Absent a new Ka-band satellite for Europe, Eutelsat’s consumer business had few avenues for growth.  Instead, Eutelsat pivoted from a Business to Consumer (B2C) to a Business to Business (B2B) model. Right as Ka-Sat reached its peak in 2015, Eutelsat formed a partnership with Facebook for connectivity in Africa, triggering a slight shift in focus that would grow to dominate the next several years. Eutelsat ordered a Ka-band satellite for Africa, not Europe, and leased capacity to Facebook, not direct to consumers. After a tumultuous flip (resulting from the 2016 Falcon 9 explosion that destroyed an earlier Eutelsat Ka-band payload on the Amos-6 satellite), Facebook withdrew from the program, but Eutelsat’s preference for wholesale broadband capacity sales stayed.  Eutelsat’s preference for wholesale B2B deals became a source of friction in the following years with Viasat when the two companies created a joint venture to pursue customers in Europe. In 2018, Viasat wanted to continue its B2C approach, seeding the European market for its future ViaSat-3 EMEAs satellite with 1 Tbps of capacity. Eutelsat wanted distributors on a country-by-country basis. After a year of protracted negotiations, Eutelsat dropped a planned $162 million investment in ViaSat-3 EMEA and ordered its own European broadband satellite (Konnect VHTS) from Thales Alenia Space.   Against this backdrop, Eutelsat’s 2020 purchase of BigBlu Broadband’s European satellite business made little sense. BigBlu added ~50,000 subscribers to Eutelsat’s count and revived a B2C business at the same time Eutelsat was striking up wholesale B2B partners like Orange in France, TIM in Italy, and Deutsche Telekom in Germany . Further complicating matters, Viasat purchased Ka-Sat just four months after Eutelsat purchased BigBlu, leaving Eutelsat temporarily devoid of a core space asset over Europe.    Divesting from BigBlu last week clears Eutelsat of the snafu it created over the years as it transitioned from B2C to a B2B internet service provider. Despite having only owned the company for three years, it quickly became clear BigBlu wasn’t an easy fit at Eutelsat. Absent BigBlu, Eutelsat can avoid competing with its customers in Europe with its relatively young Konnect and Konnect VHTS satellites that are now in orbit and ready to scale.  The divestiture is also a sign that OneWeb Gen-2 probably won’t revive a consumer focus. If Eutelsat does try to connect the masses, it’ll do so through resellers, not by going direct. A change in orbits probably doesn’t mean a change in business plans.   SOURCE: https://www.eutelsat.com/en/news/press.html#/pressreleases/eutelsat-to-dispose-of-its-european-retail-broadband-distribution-activities-325985

6/16/2023 - Written By Kimberly Siversen Burke Fresh off its $463M USSOCOM contract last week, Palantir Technologies (NYSE: PLTR) just landed another $110M in three, one-year, firm-fixed-price contracts for its Data-as-a-Service Platform. The contract tasks Palantir with ingesting data from across functional and geographic domains to support space situational awareness, command & control, etc. Peter Thiel seems well on his way to creating an AI-fueled data dynasty at Palantir with the help of DoD dollars and a recent nod from Cathy Wood-led Ark Investment. This could mean good news for the EO sector and two companies in particular if we were to take a guess. Palantir was an early PIPE investor in BlackSky (NYSE: BKSY) and has cozied up to Satellogic as well. SOURCE: https://www.govconwire.com/2023/06/palantir-to-provide-data-as-a-service-platforms-under-3-air-force-contracts/#:~:text=A%20Palantir%20Technologies%20(NYSE%3A%20PLTR,control%20and%20decision%2Dmaking%20operations.

6/12/2023 - Written By Kimberly Siversen Burke The unexpected end of Steve Collar’s 20-year run with SES on June 12 shook up the satcom industry, triggering a wave of speculation and sending SES stocks plunging 16.4%. With no replacement teed up and SES CTO Ruy Pinto grabbing the wheel, we can’t help but ponder the timing of his resignation. Why, as the second pair of its 03b mPower satellites just launched in April climb to MEO, and with the company just one launch away from bringing its next-gen broadband constellation into service, would an industry leader in his executive prime decide to pull the chute and “…pursue other professional and personal endeavours”? While we have zero insider intel and can only water cooler speculate with the rest of the industry, we might take the over on an unsettled dispute from the tie-up with Intelsat that SES confirmed in an aggressively brief press release March 29 . More of a longshot bet would be that the two satcom titans already closed the merger and wrote Collar’s name in invisible ink. As our own Director of Research Caleb Henry is quick to remind us though, satcom CEOs moving through the industry is par. Of the historical “big four” operators, two (Eutelsat and Intelsat) saw CEO transitions within the last two years, and one (Telesat) has languished under the weight of a stalled LEO constellation. Collar stood out from this group as an experienced and well-respected leader who could navigate an industry flummoxed by new orbits and challenged by Silicon Valley heavyweights. His success with O3b Gen 1 and unwavering conviction in the second-gen O3b mPower network showed a way forward for an industry that had cut way back on new satellite programs. So, Collar’s departure almost seems indicative of a deeper industry concern: who will be the bellwether in these turbulent times? On his Twitter feed the day of the announcement, Collar quipped that he will be assuming a new role as SES “cheerleader.” We are thinking more golf clap than pep rally, but time will tell. SOURCE: https://spacenews.com/ses-ceo-steve-collar-announces-sudden-resignation/

6/9/2023 - Written By Kimberly Siversen Burke As Rivada Space Networks readies for word from the ITU’s RRB on whether its milestone waiver request will be granted (something CEO Declan Ganley is “very highly confident” they will receive), the privately held company’s elusive financing plans begin to emerge. In two recent webcasts directed at investors, Ganley outlined efforts to seek debt financing from the U.S. Ex-Im Bank for its multibillion-dollar megaconstellation. How can a Munich-based company qualify? Remember, Rivada Space is a subsidiary of US-based Rivada Networks, established post-9/11 to address the comms failure following the terrorist attack on the U.S. During the June 7 Emerging Growth Conference , Ganley admitted the company is not yet profitable but disclosed that it has investments of “well north of $100 million and about to make an exponential jump from that point again.”  With a $2.4-billion commitment to Terran Orbital to build its first 300 satellites and an estimated $800M launch contract with SpaceX (12 Falcon 9 launches), Rivada is going to need an Olympic high jumper also capable of valuing its 4,000 MHz of high-priority, Ka-band spectrum.  - Late-June / Early-July 2023: Decision from RRB on Rivada’s milestone waiver request - April 2025: First launch (Vandenberg, Falcon 9) - TBD: Whether the space sector embraces Declan Ganley’s judicious use of the term “outernet” SOURCE: https://spacenews.com/rivada-seeks-ex-im-financing-for-satellite-constellation/

6/8/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry When announced in 2019, LeoStella looked poised for success. The 50/50 joint venture of Thales Alenia Space and Spaceflight had built a factory sized for up to 30 satellites per annum. It had an anchor customer in BlackSky, and the precedent of rival Airbus establishing a big U.S. presence through a joint venture with OneWeb three years prior. Both Thales Alenia Space and Airbus Defence and Space thought JVs with U.S. companies would cement their presence across the Atlantic, but have found long-term success difficult.   LeoStella on June 5 announced it has built just 20 satellites in its four years of operations, and despite an increased factory capacity capable of 40 satellites per year, is projecting just seven builds in 2023. We identify three primary reasons for this difficulty.   • Closed customers.  Vertical integration continues to take a heavy toll on companies that built businesses on the hope of more outsourcing. The argument was that early companies like Planet and Spire needed to build their satellites in house because there were no options. Today the U.S. is home to more than a dozen smallsat manufacturers, yet around 40% of leading constellation startups continue to choose vertical integration. The commercial market simply has not yielded the level of demand many expected.   • Disinterested government.  LeoStella, as a U.S./European joint venture, has been virtually absent from the U.S. government market despite years of effort. It’s no secret that U.S. government agencies are often unwilling, if not mandated against, buying satellites from foreign companies, even from allied nations. Joint ventures appeared to be a promising workaround, but little fruit has come from these either. In its five-year history, LeoStella has mainly built satellites for  BlackSky and Loft Orbital . The company can publicly claim one arm’s-length government customer in that it supplied a bus for a DARPA mission called “Sagittarius A*,” that was orchestrated by Loft Orbital.   • Partner pullback.  Earth observation company BlackSky, which serves as LeoStella’s anchor customer and 50% shareholder, reduced its plans from  60 satellites  in 2015 to just 14 in 2023 – less than a quarter of their early vision. BlackSky has no near-term plans to increase constellation size, meaning the best LeoStella can expect is a trickle of Gen-3 upgrades/replenishment orders.  Despite this bleak backdrop, there is potential for change, mainly through the Space Development Agency (SDA), which has demonstrated a willingness to choose nontraditional vendors. Rival joint venture Airbus OneWeb Satellites took seven years before landing a major defense contract – a bus order from Northrop Grumman for 42 SDA satellites. SDA plans to order hundreds more satellites in the coming years. If LeoStella can clinch a deal, its factory could go from empty to full overnight.    SOURCE: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230605005195/en/LeoStella-Manufactures-and-Delivers-its-Twentieth-Satellite/?feedref=JjAwJuNHiystnCoBq_hl-bV7DTIYheT0D-1vT4_bKFzt_EW40VMdK6eG-WLfRGUE1fJraLPL1g6AeUGJlCTYs7Oafol48Kkc8KJgZoTHgMu0w8LYSbRdYOj2VdwnuKwa

6/7/2023 - Written By Kimberly Siversen Burke A Florida-based Earth Observation (EO) startup launching the world’s first commercial, space-based Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) constellation just closed its latest funding round with help from a consortium of investors that included Leonardo DiCaprio. Using a remote sensing tech first developed 60+ years ago for the Apollo 15 mission and recently brought mainstream by self-driving cars, Nuview emerged from stealth mode last month with plans to map the entire Earth in 3D, high-resolution with lasers capable of penetrating darkness and dense vegetation. Now, with $15 million of fresh capital, a DoD contract worth $2.75 million, $1.2 billion dollars in early-adopter agreements, and a celebrity investor, Nuview is showing the space sector how government-dominated tech can go commercial. Will this mark the beginning of increased investment in EO companies by high-profile environmentalists like DiCaprio? Time will tell, but it goes without saying it didn’t hurt that NuView was younger than 25 years old. SOURCE: https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/06/nuview-hit-15m-leonardo-dicaprio/

6/5/2023 - Written By Quilty Space Axiom Space successfully completed their second private tourism mission to the ISS on May 31, 2023, after astronauts Ali Alqarni, Rayyanah Barnawi, John Shoffner, and Peggy Whitson splashed down safely just outside of Quilty Space’s home base of Tampa, Florida – no word on if Chris could see them from his back porch, but we’ll assume yes. The flight is Axiom’s second, with Ax-1 launching just over a year ago in April 2022. Across the industry, there has been at least one orbital tourism flight each year since Jared Isaacman’s Inspiration4 flight in 2021. That inaugural Inspiration4 flight reportedly cost “less than $200M," while Axiom’s Ax-1 flight was priced at $55M per head – both for crews of four astronauts. Axiom did not disclose pricing for Ax-2. After three years of consistent demand, it is safe to say there is now an established floor for the orbital tourism market: no less than $200M per year. With Axiom’s Ax-3 and Isaacman’s Polaris Dawn mission both scheduled for launch later this year, 2023 orbital tourism revenues may even come in at 2-3x that figure. - Axiom successfully completed its Ax-2 mission, returning four commercial astronauts safely to Earth after their 10 day stay on the ISS - After three years of consistent demand, it feels safe to say the orbital tourism market is worth no less than $200M annually, though at only one flight per year, minor flight rate disruptions could cripple segment revenues quite quickly - Customer demand continues to accelerate, with two more planned flights this year SOURCE: https://gizmodo.com/watch-axiom-space-private-crew-return-from-iss-1850488372

5/30/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry A May 30 regulatory filing with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission shows that Starlink satellites will see another mass increase, this time to support direct-to-device (DTD) connectivity from V2 Mini and, later, V2 Full satellites. As part of SpaceX's debris risk analysis, the company disclosed that V2 Minis with DTD will weigh 970kg, while V2 Fulls with DTD will tip the scales at 2,000kg apiece. That's a 21% increase for the Minis and a 64% increase over the initial mass of the Fulls -- both expensive mass penalties. Expect to see fewer Starlink satellites per Falcon 9 launch once the Minis are upgraded and more onus put on getting Starship flying for the transition to V2 Fulls. SOURCE: https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/10530137821424/1

5/16/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry Thales Alenia Space's May 15 announcement that it is building a satellite servicing vehicle comes after years of European primes flirting with the idea, but never committing. Left unsaid in recent discussions is why Europe, through Italy and TAS, is now on a path to having its own satellite servicer, possibly on par with Northrop Grumman's Mission Extension Vehicles. Like in the U.S. years earlier, prime contractors looked for an anchor customer – the U.S. government – to ensure that if they started a satellite servicing business, it would be stable. That took 18 years in the U.S. (counting from DARPA's SUMO program in 2002 to the docking of Northrop's MEV-1 with an Intelsat satellite in 2020), and required a shift to thinking that the commercial sector was sufficient business rationale. Europe's interest in satellite servicing reached a high-water mark in 2013 when the European Space Agency started a program to de-orbit Envisat, a hulking, 8,000-kilogram SAR satellite that died suddenly the year prior. ESA and European industry found themselves at odds, with industry concluding that Envisat's size and speed made it virtually impossible to wrangle. In 2018 when ESA, still hoping to cultivate a domestic satellite servicing business, dropped Envisat as the target, it found industry unwilling to think of commercial plans that extended beyond agency missions. The agency later turned to Swiss startup ClearSpace, awarding the company an €86 million contract to deorbit a spent payload adaptor that launched on the Italian-built Vega rocket. Thales Alenia Space and Airbus Defence and Space have both routinely voiced interest in satellite servicing over the years, but have seen U.S. competitors and startups globally speed past them. What changed: - The Italian government replaced ESA as TAS’s government sponsor, providing funding through its Covid-19 economic recovery program. Nevermind that the program is a full three years after the main impacts of Covid, the program has become a boon for Italian space companies - TAS has the example of a successful satellite servicing business from Northrop Grumman. Intelsat’s contracts to use two MEVs and a next-gen Mission Extension Pod has shown how satellite servicing can succeed commercially. And the 2020 docking between Intelsat-901 and MEV-1 reaffirmed satellite servicing can be done technologically - Governments are showing increased appetite for debris removal, demonstrated by contracts to Japanese company Astroscale, European company ClearSpace and U.S. company Northrop Grumman (OSAM-1). This represents a shift from the previous zeitgeist of GEO satellite servicing, but nonetheless provides a firmer case for government business that previously proved elusive - A growing cadre of startups are raising funds for space tugs, most of which have roadmaps to evolve into satellite servicing platforms for repair, refueling, inspection, deorbiting and other functions. Companies such as Exotrail, Starfish Space and D-Orbit are building businesses with multiple in-space revenue streams, derisking satellite servicing in the eyes of governments and primes SOURCE: https://spacenews.com/italy-awards-256-million-contract-for-2026-in-orbit-servicing-mission/

5/9/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry Despite a very public rivalry that's included Viasat fighting to block Starlink through regulators in the U.S., France and elsewhere, today Viasat has reason to be happy about Starlink. The U.K.'s antitrust regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) granted approval for Viasat's merger with London-based Inmarsat, citing increased competition in airline wi-fi from Starlink. Last October the CMA flagged the Viasat-Inmarsat merger for an extended review, saying the business combination could drastically reduce competition in airline wi-fi (a surprising verdict here at Quilty Space). New feedback from airlines showed they have used Starlink to wager for more competitive deals with Inmarsat and/or Viasat. The EU still still needs to provide its approval (an oddity, since neither Viasat nor Inmarsat are based there), but the winds are now blowing in favor of the merger. SOURCE: https://www.satellitetoday.com/government-military/2023/05/09/uk-regulatory-authority-approves-viasat-inmarsat-merger-citing-starlink-ifc-competition/

5/8/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry The boss of the newly created Commercial Space Office, Col. Richard Kniseley, is serious about making greater use of commercial space industry services, including those beyond communications and optical imagery. In a wide-ranging interview, Kniseley highlighted industry frustration with talk without funding. In his words, "That is definitely what I’m going to challenge my team on and that’s where I see success — contracts and funding and capability delivery. Kniseley pointed to a string of almost monthly industry days with topics including laser communications, AI/ML and commercial Position, Navigation and Timing. Commercial weather, an industry that has long struggled for government buyers, is another big area, he said. At Quilty Space, we'll be watching for continued openness to new commercial capabilities. DoD has shown increased receptivity to commercial EO, including SAR, RF mapping, and hyperspectral. Adding PNT and weather could help significantly mature these corners of the industry. SOURCE: https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2023/05/08/commercial-space-offices-kniseley-keeps-focus-on-industry-engagement/

5/5/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry Emirates, one of the world's largest airlines, has advice the satellite industry doesn't want to hear. In an interview, Patrick Brannelly, senior vice president of Retail, IFE & Connectivity, said the airline is tired of getting wishes. "The IFC industry has to match or exceed customer expectations with what’s possible – stop over-promising," he said. Brannelly also described LEO networks as not ready technologically or commercially and their low latency offering as being only of "marginal importance." Takeaways for the industry: - The gap between the inflight experience and at home experience persists, and is grating on airlines - LEO constellation operators need other selling points, mainly around capacity and pricing, and - Airlines have scar tissue from trying to implement various satellite technologies that didn't work as planned, which sets the bar higher going forward SOURCE: https://www.satellitetoday.com/mobility/2023/05/05/emirates-exec-ifc-market-needs-to-mature-to-meet-customer-expectations/

5/5/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry In January 2015, SpaceX's plans to launch 4,000 internet satellites were posted on YouTube by an account called "Cliff O," marking the beginning of what was then a two-horse race between them and OneWeb. At the time, the industry had serious doubts a constellation this size would ever happen. Financially it was too expensive, technologically, it was unproven, market adoption was doubtful, and space debris concerns were abundant. Nevertheless, the constellation is here and continues to grow. Starlink has some notable differences from its 2015 iteration. The satellites were to be at 1,100 kilometers (just 100 below OneWeb), but are now concentrated around 550km. User terminals were expected to sell for $100-300, but instead retail for $500-600 with heavy cost subsidies. And SpaceX Founder Elon Musk estimated it would take five years to build and launch the initial constellation -- a process that ultimately took six to eight, depending on how you define "initial constellation." SpaceX has avoided saying how many satellites it plans to launch, meaning regulatory filings have served as the only knowledge of the constellation's upper boundary at 42,000 satellites. But regardless of final size, Starlink is the largest satellite network in history, outnumbering the rest of the world's satellites combined. It is here to stay and a force to be reckoned with. SOURCE: https://gizmodo.com/spacexs-starlink-constellation-hits-4-000-satellites-1850403881

5/3/2023 - Written By Chris Quilty Maxar completed its merger with Advent International on May 3, delisting the most prominent pure-play space stock of the past five years. With two-thirds of its revenue coming from Earth observation and one-third from building space hardware, Maxar was a bellwether for both the optical imaging sector and the otherwise opaque satellite manufacturing industry. And, informally, Quilty Space received more calls from current or prospective investors in Maxar than we did any other company. The question now is, who becomes the next investor darling for the space industry? While the number of public space stocks has surged, the answer to this question remains unclear. Maxar's U.S. imagery peers BlackSky and Planet, have fought hard to brand themselves as high-growth SaaS plays, whereas Maxar was a deep-value turnaround story. That all three do Earth observation is a coincidence. And on satellite manufacturing, Maxar was a giant in the mature but troubled GEO communications satellite industry. Recently public peers Rocket Lab and Terran Orbital have made strong inroads into the defense satellite and commercial constellation arenas, both of which were areas Maxar has sought to grow into. Quilty Space will be watching to see who fills Maxar's void. SOURCE: https://www.maxar.com/press-releases/u-s-private-equity-firm-advent-international-and-bci-complete-acquisition-of-maxar-technologies

5/1/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry SpaceX's April 30 Falcon Heavy launch carried a trio of missions that each have the potential to rewrite the business of geostationary satcom, maybe even tipping the scales away from the current obsession with LEO. The rocket carried Viasat-3 Americas, the highest capacity satellite ever launched, Arcturus, the first commercial smallGEO communications satellite, and G-Space 1, a unique satellite servicing demonstrator. Reasons why each spacecraft is so important: - At 1Tbps of total capacity, ViaSat-3 Americas has roughly the same throughput as the entire Gen-1 OneWeb constellation. The 6,000kg-satellite will be the biggest test of GEO vs LEO competition. ViaSat-3 Americas has a staggering 25 kilowatts of power, generated from solar arrays with a wingspan of 44 meters -- about one-third that of the ISS. ViaSat-3 Americas took more than six years to build and launch, making the time required roughly similar to that needed for deploying a Gen-1 LEO constellation - Astranis' first satellite offers a mix of features found in GEO and LEO. At 400kg, the spacecraft is small enough to launch as a rideshare, like LEOs, and has a design life of eight years -- just half that of a typical GEO communications satellite. Operating from GEO means the satellites won't need expensive flat-panel antennas, and they small size concentrates coverage over areas the size of countries, not continents. SmallGEO popularity has shuffled in fits and starts, but Astranis has sold several and could push the technology into the mainstream - Infinite Orbits has the long-term goal of operating a fleet of satellite servicers, but the company's prototype is having a near-term shaping impact on GEO. The G-Space 1 satellite will serve as a placeholder for a future Indonesian satellite, Nusantara H-1A. By protecting Indonesian company PT Pasifik Satelit Nusantara's spectrum rights at the ITU, Infinite Orbits is showing how a 16U cubesat could rewrite orbital parking battles. Typically, operators trying to preserve a vacant spot in GEO need to pay another operator to park an old GEO satellite there, keeping frequencies in use per ITU rules. That could be done much more cheaply by smallsats, all while giving Infinite Orbits valuable rendezvous and proximity operations experience for more advanced servicing missions in the years to come. SOURCE: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2023/04/viasat-3-americas/

4/26/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry Canadian telco Rogers' move to partner with SpaceX and Lynk Global for Direct-to-Device communications shows that DTD probably won't be a zero-sum game. Rogers' partnership appears to emphasize Starlink for broadband and Lynk for emergency services. Given the high value-add of emergency SOS features, we would not be surprised to see a bifurcation in the market, with other MNOs replicating the approach of paying one DTD operator for emergency connectivity and another for high-capacity broadband. A similar dynamic already exists in other markets that use L-band services for mission-critical comms and higher capacity Ku- or Ka-band services for larger data files. SOURCE: https://globalnews.ca/news/9652106/rogers-spacex-satellite-phone-service-lynk/

4/25/2023 - Written By Quilty Space Recently announced prices from Kall Morris Inc. for active debris removal (ADR) services raise questions as to whether the small satellite operators can afford new de-orbit technologies. Based on the cards handed out at Space Symposium, a ~24kg satellite comes in at around $4M to return to Earth, in comparison to only $275k to launch that same satellite via SpaceX's rideshare program. Manufacturing costs for such a satellite are similarly in the hundreds of thousands, leaving disposal as a clear cost outlier for a satellite of this size. Until costs come down, it seems ADR is likely to be a luxury afforded to satellites in larger mass classes. SOURCE: https://spacenews.com/kmi-advertises-prices-for-debris-removal/

4/18/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry So far, 2023 is shaping up to be an abysmal year for GEO satellite orders. Maxar's April 18th contract announcement with DISH for a TV broadcast satellite is the first GEO satellite order of 2023, and the longest it has taken for the global industry to notch a commercial GEO order in over a decade. Quilty Space data shows an average of 3.4 commercial GEO orders were placed by mid-April from 2013-2022. Commercial satellite operators were showing renewed interest in GEO satellites thanks to the development of digital payloads that can responsively allocate capacity, but the progress of LEO constellations last year -- particularly Starlink and Kuiper -- appears to be having a chilling effect on the market. This same phenomenon occurred in 2017, when cumulative commercial GEO orders dropped into the single digits a year after OneWeb raised $1.2 billion and Telesat ordered two prototype smallsats. Barring a surprise upswing in orders, GEO satellite manufacturers will have to brace for a slow year. SOURCE: https://www.maxar.com/press-releases/dish-tv-adding-to-fleet-with-new-maxar-satellite-order

4/13/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry Shares of Japanese lunar lander company iSpace saw a 4x increase in price this week amid hype that the company's Hakuto-R lander may reach the Moon's surface April 25. If successful, iSpace will put Japan on the map as the fourth country to successfully land on the moon, following the U.S., the U.S.S.R., and China. While certainly exciting, it's worth sounding a word of caution that retail investors appear to have latched onto iSpace, which could expose the company's stock to even more volatility. Retail investors don't always understand the industry adage "space is hard," evinced by a 14% dip Astra shares saw in February 2022 because of a mere three-day launch delay. For iSpace, the company's highs and lows are poised for amplification until new investors either get space savvy or lose interest after the landing hype fades. SOURCE: https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/13/ispace-tokyo-stock-exchange/

4/11/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry Astra has avoided delisting for now, but the company still has a long way to go to achieve a healthy stock price, among other things. Even for de-SPAC'd companies, Astra's stock appears notably sensitive to the whims of retail investors unfamiliar with the space industry. Even brief launch delays, which are customary to space missions, have sent the stock spiraling in the past. Astra's stock has been trading below $1.00 since August 2022, when the company discontinued its Rocket 3 product, effectively suspending all launch activity until the new, larger Rocket 4 is available. More important than the 12x increase in payload capacity, Rocket 4 is being designed for reliability, something Astra management had publicly shirked as less important than a high flight cadence until it started losing customers. Astra has lost five of seven rockets, with the last one destroying two NASA cubesats. Astra had four more cubesats from NASA that it intended to transition to Rocket 4, but NASA reassigned those spacecraft to competitor Rocket Lab in a decision announced April 10. Rocket 4 is the company's Hail Mary to return confidence to customers and shareholders. SOURCE: https://investor.astra.com/sec-filings/sec-filing/8-k/0000950170-23-012377

4/6/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry Brazilian media is reporting that President Lula da Silva reversed the previous administration's efforts to privatize certain state-owned businesses, including Telebras, the telecommunications company that also operates the SGDC-1 satellite. His remark that "foreign capital is welcome in Brazil to make new investments and start new businesses, but not to buy our companies" appears mainly aimed at China, but still makes clear globally that Brazil, under his leadership, won't be part of the satcom industry's recent consolidation phase. SOURCE: https://twitter.com/BrianMteleSUR/status/1645115166592212994

3/24/2023 - Written By Quilty Space NASA's Artemis astronauts will be returning to the Moon in-style, as seen today in NASA's unveiling of the new Axiom Space moonwalking system. The Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) features much greater mobility than prior spacesuit generations and is also engineered to fit a wider array of astronaut body types. The updated design is part of a $228M task order Axiom received in September; competitor Collins Aerospace, received a similar, although smaller, award of $97M. Both firms will continue to compete for future solicitations under the IDIQ contract, which runs through 2034 and has a maximum cap of $3.5B. The revenue is a big win for Axiom and should help to offset R&D costs associated with their ambitious human spaceflight programs, as well as provide opportunities to continue to strengthen their already solid relationship with NASA. SOURCE: https://www.freethink.com/space/new-spacesuits

3/15/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry The Space Development Agency is weeks away from launching the first satellites in its advanced LEO constellation, the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA), but has not prepared user terminals to make use of the constellation. Speaking at Satellite 2023, SDA Technical Director Frank Turner said the agency is looking for electronically steered antennas that can link to the PWSA constellation, even going so far as to modestly fund technology development, an unusual step for a procurement agency. “Frankly we were very late to starting to look at the ground systems,” Turner said. PWSA is envisioned as a constellation of hundreds, potentially 1,000 satellites, more than half of which form the “transport layer” of communications satellites. Other layers bring different capabilities, most notably detection and tracking for missiles and hypersonic weapons. The transport layer will carry three different communications payloads, each with different ground segment needs: - Link-16 radios: This is an encrypted, tactical communications system that normally only works through localized line-of-site networks. PWSA will expand Link-16 to space for current and future comms gear - Ka-band: A common communications frequency for commercial and military satcom. This is where SDA will need electronically steered antennas - Lasercomm: The PWSA constellation’s optical beams are mainly for crosslinks to create a high-speed relay network, but will also include some beams pointed to users on Earth - Turner said SDA hired a point person for user terminals nine months ago. In contrast, the first PWSA satellites were ordered 31 months ago - DoD has a long and beleaguered history of neglecting the ground segment, a move that results in launching satellites that then can’t be used much and fall short of their potential. The poster child for incomplete networks is the Navy’s Mobile User Objective System, a four-GEO-satellite network which was completed in 2016, but remains heavily underutilized, putting strain on legacy systems - SDA will need to keep playing catch up to ensure user terminals are ready for PWSA once the constellation is operational. Perhaps the agency will benefit from companies that invested in terminals for other LEO Ka-band networks like Telesat Lightspeed and Amazon Kuiper?

3/14/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry Starlink now has over one million subscribers, according to comments from SpaceX’s Vice President of Starlink Commercial Sales Jonathan Hofeller, here at Satellite 2023. While he didn’t give an exact figure, Starlink’s past rate of growth suggests the company has eclipsed Hughes Network Systems as holder of the most active consumer satellite internet subscriptions. Starlink claimed roughly 700,000 subscribers in September 2022, and announced passing the 1 million subscriber mark in December, just three months later. Assuming a steady rate of growth, Starlink should be at roughly 1.3 million subscribers this month. GEO rival Hughes reported 1.23 million as of Dec. 31, a figure that has been declining for several quarters while the company awaits fresh capacity from a new satellite, Jupiter-3, launching later this year. Viasat is in a similar position, with a fleet of maxed-out GEO satellites that have little room for new subscribers. Viasat stopped publishing its subscriber count in mid-2021 as Starlink began stealing customers but had 590,000 at the time. Starlink’s ability to rapidly gain market share, while undoubtedly buoyed by SpaceX’s reputation, also benefited from optimal timing. The company began launching LEO satellites en masse right as incumbent satellite internet providers stumbled from one delay to the next. Hughes and Viasat are launching two of the most powerful GEO satellites ever built (Jupiter-3 and ViaSat-3 Americas, respectively) this year, but after six years in construction, will find themselves in a radically different competitive environment from when they were ordered.

3/14/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry A year ago Amazon’s Project Kuiper disclosed progress on a consumer-grade flat panel antenna (FPA) that could be produced for under $400, a milestone that paved the way for billions of dollars in spending on launch contracts. Here at Satellite 2023, Amazon showcased a trio of FPAs – two for consumers, one for enterprise customers – with service start projected for late 2024. The satcom industry for years has attempted unsuccessfully to build FPAs at prices consumers could accept. Why has Amazon succeeded? - Vertical integration on steroids - Putting the heavy lifting on the satellite - Emphasis on simplicity

3/13/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry Voyager continues to expand its human spaceflight portfolio with the acquisition of ZIN Technologies, a leading provider of critical space-rated software and electrical components. ZIN Technologies boasts supporting over 400 research activities on the ISS and has supported key commercial human spaceflight programs over the last 50 years, including as the MIR Station, ISS, Dream Chaser, and Voyager’s Starlab. The acquisition will bring critical stable revenues to Voyager, with ZIN scoring an average of $25M per year in federal prime contractor obligations each year since 2013. This is Voyager’s 7th acquisition and first since they acquired Valley Tech Systems in October of 2021. SOURCE: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/voyager-space-acquires-zin-technologies-inc-301769738.html

3/10/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry The announcement by startup K2 Space that it is designing massive satellite platforms with up to 15,000 kilograms of payload space – around three times the mass of a completed GEO communications satellite – shows how Starship’s radical increase in mass and volume to orbit is fostering new business ideas. Historically GEO satellites maxed out at around 6,500 kilograms (for the full satellite, including the payload, the bus and a couple thousand kilograms of fuel). EchoStar’s soon-to-launch Jupiter-3 weighs an unprecedented 9,000 kilograms, making Falcon Heavy the only viable option pre-Starship. Per MIT, Starship’s payload fairing has twice the inner diameter of other heavy-lift rockets, and is projected to carry four-to-10 times as much upmass. All of that added volume and mass, combined with equal or lower pricing, has engineers contemplating the art of the possible. So far four new applications have emerged that hinge heavily – sometimes directly – on Starship to succeed: - Commercial space stations . Two companies, Gravitics and Vast, have business plans that hinge on larger, more powerful rockets than those flying today. Both have name-dropped Starship as a vehicle that could be integral for their plans - Massive satcom. First evinced by K2 Space, we believe more satellite communications networks will be architected around Starship’s capabilities. This includes not just massive GEO satellites, but lower cost constellations in LEO and elsewhere that take advantage of Starship’s lower cost per kilogram - Very large telescopes. Astronomers have long dreamt of telescopes with mirrors bigger than what can fit under the dome of modern rockets – James Webb was painstakingly folded like origami just to get around these limitations. With Starship, astronomers are already designing new telescopes sporting larger apertures and science instruments - Military cargo . Though farfetch’d today, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded SpaceX $102 million last year to advance Starship as a point-to-point cargo delivery vehicle. If DoD wants this capability and is willing to pay for it, the odds of Starship filling this role are nontrivial SOURCE: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/10/k2-space-startup-building-massive-spacecraft.html

3/9/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry The EU, in giving final confirmation of its intent to deploy the secure, multi-orbit satellite network IRIS2, also disclosed a delay in service start from 2026 to 2027. The delay isn’t remotely surprising, given that contracts for new satellites have not been signed. Going from program announcement to first satellite launch took Starlink three years (2015-2018), OneWeb four years (2015-2019) and seven years for Iridium NEXT (2010-2017). If history is any guide, the IRIS2 program will be lucky to have any new satellites in orbit in four years, let alone starting service. More realistically, starting service in 2027 will likely involve pooling capacity from existing satellites, not unlike the EU’s GovSatCom program, an initiative that sought to make European military satcom available to member stations, but stayed largely a study project. SOURCE: https://spacewatch.global/2023/03/eu-council-gives-final-approval-for-secure-connectivity/?mc_cid=eaf62003dd&mc_eid=c2e1303610

2/25/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry Launching orbital rockets from a ship is a decades-old idea that keeps resurfacing in fits and starts. The latest champion of sea-based launch is a startup called The Spaceport Company, which plans four sounding rocket demonstration missions from a ship in the Gulf of Mexico this May, SpaceNews reports. The Spaceport Company could fill an interesting niche, particularly in the U.S. where the Space Force projects 87 orbital launch attempts from Florida this year alone – a 52% increase y/y. But maritime launches aren’t without their challenges. See below for a mix of variables unique to offshore launch: - The ability to relocate near coastlines, potentially augmenting spaceport capacity for multiple land-based sites (+) - Mobility means the spaceport could relocate to access a wide range of orbital inclinations, providing more flexibility (+) - Potentially less regulatory red tape in setting up operations compared to new land-based spaceports - Massive fuel requirements to move ships and support infrastructure, plus costs associated with docking when not participating in a launch campaign (-) - Maintenance costs due to wear and tear from the ocean (-) - Complicated logistics of transporting payloads, personnel, launches, rocket fuel and equipment out to sea SOURCE: https://spacenews.com/startup-developing-sea-based-launch-pads/

2/24/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry After nine years of development, ULA now has a launch date of May 4 for the first Vulcan mission. A lot of attention is focused on that debut, but equally tough will be ULA’s push to reach a twice monthly launch rate in less than two years. Per Quilty research, launch services providers have struggled to maintain a cadence of just three launches a year during their first five years. Granted, no new vehicle has had the impetus of launching dozens of times for a megaconstellation, but we still expect this will be an uphill climb for ULA. SOURCE: https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/after-vulcan-comes-online-ula-plans-to-dramatically-increase-launch-cadence/

2/24/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry For over a decade, the space industry hoped to win the U.S. military as a customer – and hopefully an anchor customer – for refueling and other in-space satellite services. But despite years of effort, including the DARPA-led RSGS program, DoD never showed more than tepid interest buying services from the commercial sector. C4ISRNet reports that the Space Force created a new position, deputy director of operations for servicing and maneuver, last summer, followed shortly after by an industry day to learn more about commercial offerings. This follows Congress’s move to allocate $30 million in the Fiscal 2023 Omnibus Appropriations Act for space mobility and logistics. We find these to be important developments, but won’t put too much emphasis until more significant funding is allocated. The newfound momentum could be good news for Northrop Grumman with its Mission Extension Vehicles, and OTV startups like Starfish Space that plan to expand into satellite servicing. There exists a countervailing trend, however. DoD’s biggest space push is in the direction of proliferated architectures, exemplified by the Space Development Agency’s PWSA constellation that should eventually number hundreds of small, replaceable satellites. While the government still uses GEO satellites, the argument for their life extension isn’t as strong as it was in past years. SOURCE: https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2023/02/22/space-force-may-hire-companies-to-service-orbiting-satellites/