INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
It gotten to the point now where a handful of angel investors can put a space company on the map
But the same changes that have made the industry accessible have made it increasingly complex to track its trends
By default, all space startups are exciting, but companies vary widely in risk, capital intensity and maturity
Here what you need to know about the four main areas of the new space economy.
Launch: playground of billionaires and forward
thinkers
Perhaps simply the most exciting industry to be a part of today, orbital launch service has gone from a government-funded niche
dominated by a handful of primes to a vibrant, growing community serving insatiable demand.
There a good reason why it was dominated for so
long by the likes of ULA, whose Delta rockets took up a huge majority of missions for decades
The barrier to entry for launch is huge.
As such there are three ways to enter the sector: brute force, stealth, and novelty.
Brute force is
how SpaceX and Blue Origin have managed to accomplish what they have
With billions in investment from people who don&t actually care whether money is made in the short term (or with Bezos, even in the long
term), they can perform the research and engineering necessary to make a full-scale launch platform
Few of these can ever really exist, and participation is limited when they do
Fortunately we all reap the benefits when billionaires compete for space superiority.
Rocket Lab launch switcheroo shows the flexibility of
the new orbital economy
Stealth, perhaps better described as smart positioning, is where you&ll find Rocket Lab
This New Zealand-based company didn&t appear out of nowhere — look at its timeline and you&ll see scaled-down tests being conducted more
But what founder Peter Beck and his crew did was anticipate the market and work doggedly towards a specific solution.
Rocket Lab is focused
on small payloads, delivered with short turnaround time
This avoids the trouble of competing against billionaires and decades-old space dynasties because, really, this market didn&t exist until
very recently.
&Responsive space, or launch on demand, is going to be increasingly important,& Beck said
&All satellites are vulnerable, be it from natural, accidental, or deliberate actions
As we see the growth and aging of small sat constellations, the need for replenishment will increase, leading to demand for single
spacecraft to unique orbits
The ability to deploy new satellites to precise orbits in a matter of hours, not months or years, is critical to government and commercial
satellite operators alike.&
Rocket Lab tenth launch, nicknamed &Running Out of Fingers.&
Investing in Rocket Lab early on would have
seemed unexciting as for year after year they made measured progress but took on no cargo and made no money
Patience is the primary virtue here
But investors with foresight are looking back now on the company many successful launches and bright future and marveling that they ever
doubted it.
The third category of launch is novelty: entirely new launch techniques like SpinLaunch or Leo Aerospace
The term may not inspire confidence, and that deliberate
Companies taking this approach are high-risk, high-reward propositions that often need serious funding before they can even prove the basic
physical possibility of their launch technique
That not an investment everyone is comfortable making.
Stealth space catapult startup SpinLaunch is raising $30M
On the other hand, these
are companies that, should they prove viable, may upend and collect a significant portion of the new and growing launch market
Here patience is not so much required as extra diligence and outside expertise to help separate the wheat from the chaff
Something like SpinLaunch may sound outlandish at first, but the Saturn V rocket still seems outlandish now, decades after it was built
Leaving the confines of established methods is how we move forward — but investors should be careful they don&t end up just blasting their
