Editor’s note: Payload space cadets Ryan Duffy (managing editor) and Mo Islam (cofounder) originally penned this essay for Not Boring, an uber-popular newsletter on tech, strategy, startups, and investing. Nearing 150,000 subscribers, Not Boring is primarily authored by Packy McCormick, with editing and research duties fulfilled by Dan McCormick and Rahul Rana. What you’re about […]
Touchdown on the Moon, collect millions of dollars—that’s how Monopoly, space edition is played. We don’t make the rules.
He-3 is mainly used in security and medical sensors to detect radiation, but it could theoretically be used as fuel for a nuclear fusion power plant.
China has set out a roadmap to compete with the Artemis program in a race to the Moon, grabbing the attention of NASA and lawmakers. As NASA pursues increased funding to ensure the US lands first, questions remain regarding China’s ability to finance the endeavor. “China’s funding is a bit of a black box,” said […]
The Moon will have to wait a little longer for its first non-governmental visitor. ispace’s attempt to soft-land the first commercially-funded spacecraft on the lunar surface most likely ended in failure yesterday. After a five-month journey that sent the HAKUTO-R lander on a swooping, gravity-assisted trajectory around the Moon, the Japanese company revealed that it […]
Shares of Japanese startup ispace closed at 1201 yen a pop on Thursday, up 373% on the day. The surge comes just one day after ispace made its Tokyo Stock Exchange Growth Market debut. Ispace IPO: Shares were listed at 254 yen each during the IPO, originally valuing the company at 20B yen ($150M), according […]
Lockheed Martin is establishing Crescent Space Services, a lunar infrastructure subsidiary focused on communication between the Earth and Moon, the contractor announced Tuesday. “We’ve seen the Artemis program and how it has been able to really get the attention of the world,” Crescent CEO Joe Landon told Payload. “We sat down and said how can […]
Japanese lunar lander startup ispace has filed the paperwork and announced plans to go public on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on April 12. IPO → lunar landing Eyes on the prize: ispace could be a central player in a cislunar economy that’s expected to generate $100B over the next decade, according to estimates from research […]
What time is it on the Moon? The answer, it turns out, is a little complicated. As several countries across the globe collectively spanning just about every time zone prepare for the impending cislunar economy and get ready to send humans to the lunar surface, it may be time to put some standard processes—like an […]
Quantum Space, a startup focused on building an information “superhighway” in cislunar space, announced yesterday that it has raised $15M from Prime Movers Lab, and that it intends to close a Series A by year’s end. QS 101: The Rockville, MD-based startup has set its sights on building a network of satellites to form the […]
If your phone dies on the Moon, Astrobotic has you covered. Yesterday, the Pittsburgh-based company announced it has completed testing on a wireless charging system that can prep a variety of lunar surface infrastructure for the two-week lunar night. The lunar colony: Big plans are in the works for a lunar and cislunar economy in […]
Last week, we covered ABL, Relativity, and Stoke funding, three launch startups that have yet to reach orbit. This week, we are focusing on a business that has hit its orbital proof point, Firefly Aerospace.
