April 26, 2021

Satellite Vu Raises $5 Million for High-Resolution Thermal Satellite Insights to Support the Green Industrial Revolution (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Satellite Vu has raised a £3.6m (US$5m) seed round led by Seraphim Capital to launch the world’s first satellite constellation capable of imaging the thermal footprint of any building on the planet every 1-2 hours. Satellite Vu’s constellation of miniaturized satellites will use high resolution infrared cameras to collect temperature data day and night about both the natural and built environment. (4/26)

Is Richard Branson Abandoning Virgin Galactic? (Source: Observer)
Virgin Galactic’s space tourism business is struggling to take off as the pandemic and testing setbacks keep pushing back the start date of its commercial service. And its founder Sir Richard Branson’s aggressive stock selloff is hurting investors’ confidence in the company. Last year, Branson cashed out $500 million worth of Virgin Galactic shares as the pandemic took a toll on Virgin Group’s other travel and leisure businesses. This week, the billionaire dumped another $150 million of Virgin Galactic stock. Last month, another key shareholder, Virgin Galactic Chairman Chamath Palihapitiya, who helped take the company public in 2019, sold all of his personal stake in the company.

The news adds to the already mounting uncertainty among investors over Virgin Galactic’s future. Analyst ratings are slipping. Six months ago, eight out of eight analysts covering the stock rated shares “buy,” per Barrons. This month, only four out of 10 analysts covering the stock have a “buy” rating. In May, the company is going to test fly its SpaceShipTwo vehicle again after the first attempt failed last December.

“Valuation is complicated by long-term uncertainty,” Bernstein analyst Douglas Harned wrote in a note Tuesday. “A catastrophic failure by any provider could have a crushing effect on demand for all. We expect risk per flight to be low. But, as activity ramps, chances of an accident would increase.” On the operational side, Virgin Galactic has also lost several key executives in recent months. Its chief financial officer Jon Campagna left the company in March. (He was replaced by Doug Ahrens, an outside hire.) Longtime CEO George Whitesides, who switched to a new role called chief space officer last July, left the same month to pursue unspecified opportunities in public service. He remains as Virgin Galactic’s Space Advisory Board Chair. (4/16)

Ultra-Wealthy Travel to Space, Depths of Ocean (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
For $55 million per ticket, Roman & Erica, a travel firm catering to the ultrawealthy, helped find three individuals suitable (and wealthy enough) to make the trip with Axiom Space, which is planned for early 2022. “People who have only thought of these things as a dream now reach out to us and say, ‘I’ve been cooped up in my fancy Hamptons house for seven months, I’ve been thinking about going to space and it’s time to do it now,’” said Roman Chiporukha.

The duo is used to pulling out all the stops for ultra-wealthy clients to make their biggest dreams possible, as their firm charges a minimum of $62,500 per year to manage the lifestyles of the well-to-do. (4/26)

36 OneWeb Satellites Launched On Russian Rocket (Source: Space News)
OneWeb launched another set of 36 satellites Sunday evening as the company accelerates the deployment of its constellation. A Soyuz-2.1b rocket lifted off from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia at 6:14 p.m. Eastern, with the rocket's upper stage deploying the 36 satellites over the next four hours. The launch, managed for OneWeb by Arianespace, pushes the broadband startup closer to an interim goal to expand coverage to north of 50 degrees latitude by June. That coverage goal, which requires launching two more batches of 36 satellites, would enable OneWeb to provide services in northern Europe, Canada, Alaska and the Arctic by the end of the year. A full constellation of 650 satellites is scheduled to be in orbit next year. (4/26)

Ingenuity Flies Again on Mars (Source: Space News)
NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter made its third flight Sunday. The helicopter rose to an altitude of five meters, then flew 50 meters downrange and back before landing to complete the 80-second flight. The flight, like the two it performed last week, went as expected. NASA is planning two more test flights of the helicopter before the test campaign ends in a little more than a week. Those tests are expected to push the helicopter to its limits to fully understand how it p.erforms in the tenuous Martian atmosphere. (4/26)

China/Russia Lunar Base Open to International Partners (Source: Space News)
China and Russia say their proposed lunar base will be open to international partners. The International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) will be open to other nations at all stages and levels, officials said during an event last week. The project will start by using data from upcoming Chinese and Russian robotic missions to the moon to identify a location for the ILRS in the south polar region of the moon, building up to a long-term human presence there between 2036 and 2045. Chinese officials also said their next lunar mission, Chang'e-6, is scheduled to launch in 2024, going to the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the moon. (4/26)

DoD Hungry for Space Capabilities (Source: Space News)
Demand for space-based capabilities is growing across the U.S. military. Gen. David Thompson, vice chief of space operations of the U.S. Space Force, said in an interview that the Army's decision to explore new uses of satellites and other space technology to support deployed forces is a "clear sign" of the growing interest in space across all the branches. Thompson said Space Force and Army leaders are discussing options for how new capabilities could be funded and brought to fruition. The military's growing appetite for space systems is reflected in the wish lists that leaders submit to the Pentagon for inclusion in budget requests, Thompson said, but it remains to be seen if future budgets will support the demand. (4/26)

FCC Considers Lower Orbitsfor Starlink Satellites (Source: Bloomberg)
The FCC is moving closer to approving a SpaceX request to lower the orbits of Starlink satellites. SpaceX filed a request last year to modify its license, moving more than 2,800 satellites yet to be launched from orbits more than 1,000 kilometers high to orbits around 550 kilometers, where the company's current satellites are. Jessica Rosenworcel, acting chairwoman of the FCC, reportedly has asked her fellow commissioners to approve that plan, but with unspecified conditions intended to ensure spaceflight safety. The FCC hasn't yet released a draft report and order to approve that change. (4/26)

Biden Nominates NOAA and NASA Officials (Source: Space News)
The White House nominated last week a new administrator for NOAA and a new chief financial officer for NASA. The Biden administration selected Rick Spinrad to be NOAA administrator. He is an ocean scientist who is currently a professor at Oregon State University but previously worked at NOAA, including serving as chief scientist there from 2014 to 2016. The White House also nominated Margaret Vo Schaus to be NASA CFO. She is currently director of business operations in the Office of the Under Secretary of Research and Engineering at the Department of Defense, and held positions at the Departments of Energy and Justice and at the Government Accountability Office. Both nominations will require Senate confirmation. (4/26)

China’s State Rocket Company Unveils Rendering of a Starship Look-Alike (Source: Ars Technica)
China's main state-owned rocket manufacturer, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, spotlighted the potential for suborbital point-to-point transportation. This is a concept in which a vehicle launches from Earth, flies into suborbital space, and touches down halfway around the world in less than an hour. A promotional video, captured and shared on the Chinese social network Weibo, shows two different concepts for achieving suborbital passenger flights about two decades from now.

What is interesting about the video is that the first concept looks strikingly like SpaceX's Starship vehicle. It shows a large vehicle capable of vertical takeoff and vertical landing. The concept is notable not only for its appearance to Starship—the vehicle's exterior is shiny, like the stainless steel structure of Starship, and the first and second stages are similarly seamless—but in its function as well. Although Starship has primarily been promoted as a vehicle to take humans to the Moon and Mars, SpaceX has also developed a point-to-point concept.

The second point-to-point concept in the Chinese video showed a horizontal takeoff, horizontal landing vehicle that used some sort of electromagnetic catapult. Both of these systems are part of China's previously announced plans to develop global point-to-point transportation by 2045. Under the country's long-term planning goals, Chinese industry would begin delivering cargo around the globe via suborbital flight by 2035 and passengers by 2045. (4/26)