Two years ago, it seemed as if the space industry was enjoying unprecedented momentum. Companies raised large rounds of financing and merged into special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs).
Virgin Galactic and Rocket Lab benefited greatly from this influx of investment dollars; however, as this era comes to a close these firms are finding themselves running out of both cash and time to pursue their capital-intensive efforts.
Virgin Galactic
Virgin Galactic may have lofty goals, but that doesn’t guarantee financial sustainability. The space tourism specialist is losing money at an unsustainable rate and its cash flow deficits continue to widen quarter after quarter.
Richard Branson’s company finally launched its inaugural commercial space flight this month, sending three Italian researchers and two of the company’s pilots on a VSS Unity spaceplane into space at Spaceport America in New Mexico aboard VMS Eve carrier jet, where spectators cheered them all the way!
The company states that their inaugural flight was developed with scientific goals in mind, such as studying how liquids and solids mix in microgravity, collecting biometric data, measuring cognitive performance and tracking how humans deal with weightlessness. They plan to fly monthly; currently though they are working through ticket-holder backlog on a quarterly basis.
Momentus
Momentus was founded in 2017 by Russian immigrant Mikhail Kokorich and graduated from Y Combinator’s start-up program, raising venture and private funding from Prime Movers Lab, Y Combinator, University of Wyoming Foundation Lerner Enterprise, Joe Montana’s liquid2VC fund as well as other sources. Notable investors include Prime Movers Lab, Y Combinator University of Wyoming Foundation Lerner Enterprise Lerner Enterprise as well as Joe Montana’s liquid2VC Fund among others. SpaceX and NASA were among its early customers as well as US Space Development Agency as well. Momentus currently holds signed contracts worth $90 Million with more than $1.1 Billion under negotiation – totalling to date totalling approximately.
Momentus CEO Mark Williams disclosed in its earnings call last week that operating expenses have been cut by 30% and measures taken to extend its cash runway. Furthermore, Momentus continues to test its microwave electrothermal thruster engine in space and receives positive feedback from potential customers.
However, space transportation company SpaceX issued a “going concern” warning in its financial results filing, meaning there is significant doubt as to its future operation over the coming year. This follows on the heels of receiving delisting notice from Nasdaq last year.
Astra
Two years ago, Astra’s acquisition of propulsion startup Apollo Fusion was heralded as an impressive step that would expand their launch business and add expert engineers into their ranks. Unfortunately, however, time is rapidly running out for this company to deliver their promised rocket engine systems and delivery may now be delayed, according to TechCrunch reports.
Due to diminishing cash reserves, the company was forced to default on an investor loan in October as its cash balance dropped below a threshold that requires it to hold at least $12.5 million in liquid assets.
Spacecraft Propulsion unit of Astra currently represents its best chance for revenue, so engineering resources have been reallocated towards that unit and cut. Unfortunately, this will delay testing of their under-development Rocket 4 vehicle and launch system and may result in its maiden flight being postponed beyond 2024 – potentially leaving Astra behind its competitors by up to one or more years.
Sidus Space
Sidus Space is a multifaceted space and data-as-a-service company offering mission-critical hardware manufacturing, multidisciplinary engineering services, satellite design, production, launch planning, mission operations and on-orbit data processing systems with ultralow latency for processing massive amounts of information at once. The company also is recognized for their cutting edge radiation-tolerant computing solutions that process information at unprecedented speeds with zero latency delays between bits.
Sidus Space is currently raising capital through a $15 million share offering and plans to grow its business by expanding into the cislunar realm. Established by Carol Craig – an aeroreneur – Sidus Space was founded in 2021 with an array of technologies developed specifically to aid commercial satellite constellation deployment. Headquartered in Cape Canaveral, Florida – their 35,000 sq. foot manufacturing, assembly integration and testing facility serves their operations from there.
Investors can use various approaches to assess Sidus Space’s net worth, such as discounted cash flow analysis (DCF). This technique calculates the present value of future cash flows that take into account growth potential, profitability and risk; then compare it with its stock price to establish whether or not its pricing is fair.
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