November 14, 2021

Electric Automaker Rivian Has Space Coast Roots, and Space Florida Backing (Sources: Florida Today, SPACErePORT)
The company behind Wall Street's hottest new stock got its start in an industrial park in Rockledge just over a decade ago. And its founder,  a 36-year-old Melbourne Central Catholic alumnus is now a billionaire. Electric vehicle maker Rivian Autmotive starting selling shares on Nasdaq Wednesday. By late afternoon shares were going for more than $100 a share, making the total market value of the company more than $100 billion, more than Ford or General Motors.

Rivian was founded as Avera Motors in 2009 by R.J. Scaringe, an MCC and MIT grad, who started up the company using space in his father's Mainstream Engineering facility in Rockledge. Mainstream is a NASA contractor. Avera changed its name to Rivian in 2011. In 2010, Avera partnered with Space Florida to fund the company's R&D. Space Florida committed to the purchase of a prototype car from Avera (a hybrid diesel sports coupe). In addition, Space Florida was in talks with NASA to develop a partnership to validate Avera's technologies. (11/13)

India Preparing to Launch Nano Satellite for Bhutan (Source: Times of India)
As part of New Delhi’s space diplomacy, ISRO is preparing to launch a nano satellite built by engineers from Bhutan with the help of Indian scientists. It will be part of the second PSLV mission. BhutanSat will fly as a rideshare payload with Oceansat-3 as the main payload, and India’s first private Earth Imaging satellite developed by Pixxel. (11/13)