Stories on space business, including company updates, funding announcements, and contract awards.
The race to build commercial space stations is heating up. Yesterday, Vast, a startup that emerged from stealth last September with plans to build stations with artificial gravity, announced that it has acquired space tug company Launcher for an undisclosed amount. TechCrunch first reported the news. Vast’s vision: Jed McCaleb, who made his name and […]
SpaceRyde appears to be shutting its doors. The Canadian launch company building an inexpensive small-lift rocket with a balloon first stage filed for bankruptcy on Friday. The story so far: Over the last few years, SpaceRyde has been building a system that would use a stratospheric balloon to lift the vacuum-optimized Ryder rocket above 99% of […]
Seraphim, a leading space VC, has published its 2023 market map, detailing the state of innovation in the in-space economy with an eye on the year ahead. “As the in-space economy takes off, major players in the industry are positioning themselves to capture a slice of the burgeoning market,” Seraphim VP Maureen Laverty said in […]
The Exploration Company has closed a €40.5M Series A. The round follows a €5.3M seed round, closed in November 2021. The Franco-German startup is developing a reusable space capsule, Nyx, that will fly science missions, resupply space stations, and, with any luck, eventually, take crews to and from orbit. The vehicle is designed to carry […]
German launch startup Isar Aerospace has signed its first US customer, winning a multi-launch contract from Spaceflight, Inc. The deal will see Isar launch a single dedicated Spectrum flight from Norway’s Andøya Spaceport in 2026. There is also a provision for a second Spectrum flight in 2025. “We’ve seen an increased demand for flexible and […]
Space Capital has released its final quarterly report on the 2022 investing landscape. It was a tough year for fundraising, as the froth drained from the free-flowing capital markets of years past. Though the space industry saw receding levels of capital deployment, the report’s authors remain optimistic about the sector’s ability to bounce back. 2022 […]
Swiss-based startup ClearSpace has closed a €26.7M ($28.9M) Series A. The in-orbit servicing and active space debris removal startup will use the funding to accelerate its progress towards missions on the horizon. “The market is now developing, much faster than we had expected, and we look forward to accelerating our activities to meet the urgent […]
2022 was the second largest year of ADG deal-making on record, according to a comprehensive analysis published Wednesday by market intelligence firm HigherGov. BTW…ADG = aerospace, defense, and government, and M&A = mergers and acquisitions. With this one simple trick—using ADG and M&A rather than writing the phrases out in full—we’ve given you seconds of […]
Yesterday, the European Investment Bank (EIB) announced that it will lend €300M (~$323M) to Luxembourg-based SES to finance a trio of broadcast satellites that will serve Western Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. It’s the largest investment the EU’s investing arm has made to date into a Luxembourg-based company. ESA head Josef Aschbacher has repeatedly […]
Speaking on stage at CES in Las Vegas Thursday, Delta CEO Ed Bastian announced that the company is ready to deliver on a long-promised feature. On Feb. 1, the airliner will offer free in-flight Wi-Fi from takeoff to touchdown. Come February, ~80% of Delta’s domestic fleet will start offering free service, with support rolling out […]
Coming soon, Android users practically anywhere around the globe will be able to send green texts messages from anywhere, even when out of range of any terrestrial cell tower. Iridium and Qualcomm are partnering to make it happen. Today at CES in Las Vegas, Iridium CEO Matt Desch announced that in mid-2023, several new premium […]
SpaceX is seeking another round of funding. According to emails seen by CNBC, the launch juggernaut is raising $750M in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz (aka a16z), valuing the company at $137B. 2022 was a busy year of fundraising for SpaceX. Last month, Bloomberg reported that SpaceX was offering insiders the opportunity to sell […]
