Spire ($SPIR) announced this morning that it will launch five satellites with SpaceX on the forthcoming Transporter-5 rideshare mission from Florida. What’s notable is the degree to which the company is playing up its space services business.
- The business unit will have satellites and payloads onboard Transporter-5 for Hancom inSpace, a Korea Aerospace Research Institute spinoff, and Myriota, an Internet of Things provider. It’s also launching a demo mission funded by the UK’s defense ministry.
- Spire procured the satellite/payload rides via its multi-launch agreement with Exolaunch, a German rideshare broker and deployment specialist.
SPaaS = a new acronym for readers
“Space services” is Spire’s SPaaS arm. SPaaS? Why, it’s Space-as-a-Service, of course. With the upcoming mission from the cape, Spire says it will notch a new company record for space services customers on a manifested mission.
- Spire’s pitch to customers = launch an application or product with us and we can abstract away the complexity of getting to space and operating in orbit. Leverage our experience with 150+ spacecraft, 30+ launches, and 350 cumulative years of space heritage.
- The (implicit) pitch to investors = We’re using upfront capital investments to further a sweet, sweet subscription model. That, in theory, produces more predictable streams of recurring revenue and could help a capex-intensive space company command a higher valuation multiple.
