Portfolio News
Lynk
Orbital Sidekick
Orbital Sidekick Announces Newest Additions to Advisory Board
Offworld
California Space Robotics Firm Offworld Launches European Operations in Luxembourg
Xplore
‘Redmond Space District’ celebrates the Northwest’s hotspot for satellite industry
SpaceX
SpaceX is getting closer to the first orbital launch attempt of Starship.
General Space News
Virgin Orbit fails to secure funding, will cease operations and lay off nearly entire workforce
Virgin Orbit CEO, Dan Hart, informed employees last Thursday that Virgin Orbit is ceasing operations “for the foreseeable future” after failing to secure a funding lifeline; late-stage deal talks had fallen through with a pair of investors. Even so, Hart told staff on Monday that “very dynamic” investment discussions were continuing.
Space: The missing element of your strategy &
Why on earth should businesses care about space?
McKinsey released a report and a podcast last week aimed at business leaders outside the space sector to help them understand what opportunities the space sector provides. This excerpt is fundamental to how Starbridge thinks about the startups we invest in:
'Jesse Klempner: I’d frame it this way: there are people who are overly focused on the space side of the equation. And for the space-for-earth economy to succeed, grow, and scale, we need to think about what’s being delivered to industries on the ground.'
A more tangible example is agriculture. Agriculture is a popular use case for the space industry because they are able to tell farmers, “we’ve have picture's of the same field every day for the past ten years and determined there’s not enough water in the soil" or "you need to change the volume of fertilizers you’re spreading.” Satellite technology allows us to target specific fields and improve crop yields much more efficiently. You can do the same thing for energy use, mining, and of course, a whole host of security and intelligence applications.
Lockheed Martin Launches Lunar Infrastructure-as-a-Service Subsidiary
It came as a bit of a shock for the space industry to see a prime aerospace and defense company act as a startup incubator. Joe Landon, formerly with Space Angels and Planetary Resources, will be taking the reigns of this new company.
Other Space News
Space official calls for China to seize crucial opportunity to establish lunar infrastructure
AST SpaceMobile discloses further satellite delays and cost increases
South Korea sets record space budget to bolster industry, develop new rocket
Astra says Rocket 4 development on schedule for late 2023 first flight
Maxar eyes military customers for satellite images of objects in space
Several U.S. allies in the Middle East are interested in creating their own space forces.
SpaceX launched the first 10 satellites for the Space Force's Space Development Agency (SDA) Sunday.
Rosotics has developed a 3D printer for large aerospace structures, like launch vehicle components.
Earth imaging company Maxar is looking to build a new business imaging objects in space.
NASA has formally established an office to oversee the development of its exploration capabilities.
AST SpaceMobile says its first operational direct-to-handset satellites will not launch until 2024.