Starbridge Weekly Space Update for 5/15/2023

Portfolio News

Avealto

• Whisper Beam Wireless To Power Avealto High-Altitude Airships

Axiom

• Axiom Space employees celebrated Crew Send-Off, a tradition honoring the exceptional team and cheering on the Ax-2 crew ahead of their mission to the International Space Station.

• SpaceX Ax-2 private astronaut mission will grow 1st stem cells in space

Lynk

• On the verge: bringing satellite-to-phone (Sat2Phone) connectivity to billions – with Lynk

Umbra

• Image of the remote airfield where China's experimental reusable spaceplane likely landed just hours after touchdown

SpaceX

• SpaceX has few alternatives if lawsuit upends Musk's Texas launch plans

• Two startups have offered NASA one solution for raising the orbit of the Hubble Space Telescope

• A startup is working with SpaceX on what it calls the first commercial space station, launching as soon as 2025

General Space News

• Trend In Focus: SpaceX’s Starship Launch

  Intro-Act is a Starbidge partner that produces informational reports on various parts of the space industry from a finance perspective. They work closely with Frank White author of The Overview Effect. 

• Sizing up the 2023 GEO manufacturing battleground

  Commercial GEO satellites orders are off to a slow start this year as the final flights of the C-band clearing process happen. Yet more evidence that all of the fun is now in LEO. 

• Private equity firm closes $6.4 billion deal to acquire Maxar Technologies

  Maxar is now private again after being acquired by U.S. private equity firm Advent International and minority investor British Columbia Investment Management Corp. in a deal that was announced in December 2022.

• Vast Aims to Launch World’s First Commercial Space Station by 2025

  Vast announced that they plan to launch their first commercial space station, Haven-1, into LEO by August 2025 followed by a crewed mission, Vast-1, that will be carried up by SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. While these initial flights will use the Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon, Vast is one of the few space companies whose business model explicitly depends on Starship size and cost.

• SpaceX hires former NASA human spaceflight official Kathy Lueders to help with Starship

  In September of 2021, NASA split the human spaceflight program into two separate groups; an operations group and a future explorations group. Kathy Lueders, who was in charge of both programs, was moved into the operations group which made observers believe that Lueders was being punished for selecting SpaceX as the Human Lander Systems provider. Lueders retired from NASA in March and announced that she was joining SpaceX Monday, which suggests that it was not a voluntary move on her part.

• Virgin Galactic aims for triumphant return with crewed flight at the end of May

  The last time Virgin Galactic flew a crewed flight was in July 2021 and has suffered from technical and financial issues since. They have since made a number of upgrades to their mothership (VMS Eve) and their spacecraft (VSS Unity), which will be flying a validation spaceflight at the end of the month before beginning their commercial service in June. 

Other Space News

• Lockheed, Raytheon to develop ground systems for nuclear-hardened satellite communications

• ClearSpace will launch its first debris removal mission on a Vega C.

• Maxar see opportunities offering a line of smallsats for defense programs.

• Virgin Galactic has announced the crew that will fly on its first suborbital spaceflight in nearly two years.

• Rocket Lab believes it's not facing much competition in the small launch vehicle market for its Electron rocket.

• While Viasat and Inmarsat won approval from a U.K. regulator for their deal, they are still awaiting approvals in the United States and Europe.

• The Australian government is canceling a program to support development of spaceports in the country.

• A startup with long-term ambitions to build space stations has raised $5 million.

• Redwire reported record revenue as it heads towards profitability.

• The United Arab Emirates has disclosed more details about a proposed asteroid mission.

• AT&T has asked the FCC for permission to use some of its existing terrestrial wireless spectrum for satellite connectivity.

• China's secretive spaceplane may have performed multiple recaptures of an object it released into orbit during its recently completed second flight.

• A stuck radar antenna on ESA's JUICE mission to Jupiter has finally deployed.

• Chairman Lucas’ Space To-Do List

• Stratolaunch Completes Preliminary Hypersonic Vehicle Test - Payload