Coin toss (11/8/22)

Good morning. We’ve got a couple programming notes before kicking things off:

1. Pathfinder is off today—we’ll be back in your feeds very soon.

2. Payload is growing and we’re looking to bring on a full-time brand partnerships whiz. Here’s the JD. If it sounds like you may be a good fit, get in touch.

Aaannnd…saving the best for last: please join us in extending a very happy one-year anniversary to Rachael Zisk, our reporter extraordinaire and author of the Parallax newsletter. Rachael has gone far and wide chasing down stories from all across the cosmos and contributing every day to this newsletter. We’re so lucky to have her, and can’t wait to see what the next year brings.

In today's newsletter:🗺️ Space exploration👀 Election preview🔁 On the move

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Euroconsult Releases Space Exploration Report

Expect new players in the spacefaring game, says Euroconsult.

Analysts from the space market intelligence firm have released their third annual report on the state of space exploration. Gone are the days when only a few major powers monopolized spacefaring—instead, Euroconsult sees a future where many more nations are active participants and investors in space exploration.

In 2022, governments across the globe have spent a combined $25.5B on space exploration activities so far, a 7.3% increase over 2021 spending. Over the next decade, a slew of planned exploration projects, spanning everything from infrastructure programs to science missions, are expected to drive that number higher each year, hitting ~$31B by 2031.

Historically, a small handful of nations have accounted for the vast majority of space exploration investment. That was the case in 2022, with the top 5 spenders—the US, China, ESA, Japan, and Russia—accounting for 94% of exploration dollars. These leaders are expected to increase their investments over the coming decade, driving growth alongside new entrants beginning to invest in their own budding domestic space industries.

Over the next decade, investment is expected to be concentrated in a few key areas: space transportation, orbital infrastructure, and solar system exploration.

Space transportation

This year, the most government investment went into space transportation, with $9.6B spent around the globe. The vast majority of this spending came from the US and its major investments in a human lunar lander and in SLS/Orion for the Artemis program. Euroconsult projects that US investment in human space transportation will remain relatively steady over the next decade, reaching $7.6B in 2031.

Globally, total transportation spend—on rockets, satellites, rovers, landers, and the like—is expected to reach $10.7B in 2031. Much of the overall increase is driven by China, whose investment in space transportation is expected to increase from $627M in 2022 to more than $2B by 2031, now that its Tiangong space station is operational.

Orbital infrastructure

With a handful of government-sponsored space stations headed for orbit within the next decade, it comes as no surprise that investment in orbital infrastructure is expected to keep trending upward. Governments have sunk $5.5B into space infrastructure in 2022; in 2031, Euroconsults expects that number to sit at $6.3B.

The increase will mainly be driven by China’s space station investment and by NASA’s Lunar Gateway development. The estimate also assumes that the ISS will remain operational through 2030.

Exploration

Other solar system projects make up most of the rest of the expected investment in space exploration over the next decade.

Lunar exploration tops the list of priorities. Euroconsult projects that investment in lunar missions will more than double from $2.2B this year to $5B in 2031, as nations across the globe prioritize human missions to the Moon as well as piles of probes and landers. Keeping up with the trend, the US and China are likely to lead the pack in spending.

Mars exploration projects come next, with many leading spacefaring nations planning exploration missions. This year, the US invested 66% of the global government funding for Mars exploration, and the analysts expect US investment to remain relatively steady at ~$1.2B per year.

The analysts also note that a new era of deep space exploration via cubesat is just beginning. These low-cost, often high-reward missions enable new entrants to perform their own exploratory missions and science, and they’re gaining steam, with about 455 missions planned in the years ahead.

Election Day 2022: What We're Watching

Happy Election Day to US readers. Hope you all are already sporting your “I voted” stickers.

While we won’t know results for hours (or even days), these are the close races among space committee members that we’ll be watching as results roll in (with predictions c/o FiveThirtyEight and Cook Political Report):

• Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) and Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV), members of the House Armed Services (HASC) Strat Forces subcommittee, have slight leads over GOP challengers. Horsford is seen as an up-and-coming nat sec space voice.

• NASA approps leader Rep. Matt Cartwright’s (D-PA) has a small edge in a very close race. So too does fellow committee member Rep. Mike Garcia (R-CA).

On the other side of Capitol Hill, two races could play a key role in deciding which party controls the Senate:

• Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), a member of the Senate science and space subcommittee, is locked in a dead heat with former pro football player Herschel Walker.

• Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), the lone astronaut serving in Congress and a member of the Senate’s military space subcommittee, is only slightly favored to win his race against Blake Masters.

Power struggle: Tuesday’s biggest question mark is which party will control the House and Senate. The GOP looks likely to win the House, which would put some new faces atop the space committees.  

• Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) intends to seek the gavel of the HASC Strat Forces panel if Republicans take the House. His top priorities include disaggregated constellations and responsive space, in addition to hypersonics, nuclear modernization, and early missile warning.

• Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX), the top GOP member on the House space subcommittee who also represents NASA Johnson, has prioritized America’s return to human spaceflight and also worked on multiple bills to boost the commercial space industry.

• Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL), top R on the House appropriations subcommittee, is an advocate for Alabama’s space industry, including NASA Marshall in Huntsville.

One (big) caveat: Regardless of election outcome, we won’t know committee leadership for sure until early 2023.

• Lamborn, Babin, and Aderholt have been deeply involved in space issues, but seniority considerations mean each could move to a leadership role on another committee if the House flips.

• If the Senate flips—which is virtually a coin flip at this point—new lawmakers would hold the gavel in the upper chamber as well.

Share this with someone who still needs to go vote:

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In Other News

• Northrop's ($NOC) Cygnus cargo ship is en route to the ISS with only one of its two solar arrays deployed. The spacecraft reportedly still has enough power to reach the station.

• Virgin Orbit ($VORB) booked $30.9M of revenue in Q3 (up from $0 a year ago), with a net loss of $43.6M (vs. $38.6M YoY).

• BlackSky ($BKSY) reported $16.9M in Q3 revenue (+114% YoY) and a $13M net loss. The company ended Q3 with $90.7M in cash.

• Astra ($ASTR) shared an update on Launch System 2, which will feature a more reliable rocket, mobile ground system, and highly automated mission control.

• Phase Four demonstrated that its electric RF Thruster can run on ASCENT, a USAFRL-developed green propellant.

• SpaceX pushed a launch of Intelsat’s G-31/G-32 satellites to no earlier than Saturday, due to Tropical Storm Nicole. The Falcon 9 that will conduct the launch is in its hangar and will stay there through the storm, per SpaceX.

• SLS, on the other hand, will remain on the pad through the storm.

• Seraphim announced the members of its tenth Space Camp cohort.

The View from Augsburg