NASA's Perseverance rover successfully landed on Mars Thursday. The mission will attempt to identify past environments capable of supporting microbial life, seek signs of past microbial life in those environments, collect and store rock and soil samples for transport back to Earth on a future mission, and test oxygen production from the Martian atmosphere. Starbridge would like to congratulate one of our LPs who has a mission onboard Perseverance.
As announced last week, Axiom Space announced their $130M raise. CEO Michael Suffredini said in an interview with CNBC:
Axiom did discuss going public, Suffredini said, especially because special purpose acquisition companies have become an option for space companies looking to raise money. Suffredini expects the company will again assess the “public-versus-private” conversation the next time it seeks capital. He added that Axiom has “two-to-three acquisitions we’ll look at over the next year” as it examines ways to add complementary capabilities while the company grows.
Starbridge has been investigating ways to help our investors access SpaceX stock without paying the onerous fees being charged elsewhere. It is becoming more and more difficult for investors to gain new exposure to shares as evidenced by the SpaceX $850M raise last week. What was originally a regularly scheduled, purely secondary sale of employee stock, morphed into a full company raise that opened and closed within 36 hours. This was due to excessive institutional demand led by mega-fund Sequoia Capital.
Last week Starbridge also released a tool to help startups and other investors to evaluate the process of developing a new product. Based significantly on the Lean Startup Methodology and intended to be a companion to NASA’s Technology Readiness Levels (TRL), Starbridge’s Market Readiness Levels outline ten stages of product development and the criteria required to advance to higher levels. Unlike NASA’s TRL, though, the intent is that a development process will iterate across levels as it refines its understanding of its value proposition and the customer’s needs.
This week's picks of space sector news compiled from Jeff Foust's FIRST UP newsletter are:
Private space station developer Axiom Space announced Tuesday it raised $130 million.
SpaceX has reportedly raised a new round of $850 million, valuing the company at $74 billion.
NASA's Perseverance rover successfully landed on Mars Thursday.
Sequoia Capital reportedly led the new $850 million funding round in SpaceX.
Frontier Aerospace has won contracts to provide propulsion systems for Astrobotic's lunar landers.
Raytheon says it will challenge Lockheed Martin's acquisition of Aerojet Rocketdyne.
German propulsion startup Morpheus Space has opened a U.S. office in Los Angeles.
Two Falcon Heavy launches of military payloads are scheduled for this year.
NOAA plans to increase the amount of satellite radio occultation data it acquires from GeoOptics.