t might not come as a surprise that 70%¹ of all maiden orbital launch attempts have been a total bust.

The past year has been a roller-coaster ride in the financial markets and an unusual one for transaction activity.

After this month’s launch of the second-ever Starship vehicle, SpaceX founder Elon Musk posted a picture of four more Starships described as “the last of V1.”

Virgin Galactic vs. the Rocket Equation

U.S. lawmakers have been fretting since 2018 (when Northrop Grumman bought Orbital ATK) that the national supply base for solid rocket motors was becoming too concentrated.

Incorporating Optical Communications Terminals (OCTs) has become a baseline assumption for nearly every megaconstellation operator (i.e., Starlink, Kuiper, OneWeb Gen2, Lightspeed, PWSA, Rivada, and the EU’s IRIS²) due to their critical role in network capacity, latency, cybersecurity, and ground network costs.

As the players in NASA’s International Space Station (ISS) transition program approach the second half of their Commercial LEO Destinations Program (CLDP) plans, one of the first-round draft picks just got traded to another team.

Over the past decade, venture capital (VC) has emerged as a critical source of funding for space startups, with total investment surging more than tenfold, from $0.3B in 2014 to $3.2B in 2022 (note: excludes megaconstellation funding). 

It’s rare that satellite operators, especially those not publicly traded, give granular details about the reasons for their programmatic delays.

Bob Smith, Blue Origin’s CEO of six years, is departing the company in a move widely perceived as the end of a lackluster era.

Rocket Lab’s (Nasdaq: RKLB) latest Electron launch attempt Sept. 19 ended in failure and mission shutdown after an anomaly was discovered shortly after the rocket reached Max Q.

Starship Gets Ready to Rumble

Axiom raises $350M, but is it enough to fly?

Kuiper spending $10B on launch alone

Voyager capitalizes on historic Prime Minister Modi visit

How China’s new rare element export rules may hurt the global space industry

Low GEO Orders are Here to Stay. Here’s What that Means.

Envistacom's remaining assets go to auction