Mars Madness Round 2 (3/22/23)

Good morning. We have the winners of our first round of Mars Madness:

• In the trailblazers region…Vikings 1 & 2 triumphed over Mars 2 & 3 with 85.1% of the vote. And Mariner 4 beat out its descendant, Mariner 9, with roughly two-thirds of the tally.

• For the Millennials + Zoomers matchups…Odyssey won its matchup against Global Surveyor with 60.4% of the vote, and Pathfinder trounced Mars Express, finishing with 88.1% of all votes.

• In the orbiters region…Mars Orbiter Mission vanquished the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter with 68.3% of the vote. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter had an even stronger showing, handily defeating Hope with 82.2% of all votes.

• Finally…in the Robo-residents region we had the most lopsided matchups of all time (oops). Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity) and Mars 2020 (Perseverance + Ingenuity) thwacked their opponents—Tianwen-1 and InSight—with 97% and 96% of the votes.

We’ve updated the tournament tracker and are now moving on to the Elite 8—cast your votes here.

Today’s newsletter: 📊 Deloitte space research🎧 Pathfinder #0040💰 The term sheet

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Deloitte Releases Report Predicting Industry Growth

This morning, Deloitte released a forecast on the potential for growth within the space industry. The report, which pairs market data with a survey of space industry leaders, is intended to give execs in other industries the background they need to incorporate space into their businesses.

Bottom line upfront: “For space to grow, and fulfill the promise of all of these forecasts…it's going to take other Fortune 500 companies understanding and seeing their opportunity and space and willing to experiment and try new things,” Alan Brady, an analyst on the report, told Payload.

To compile the report, the analysts interviewed 60 executives from across the space industry about various business sectors. The Deloitte team was looking to identify where innovation is happening, which segments are poised to see dramatic growth in the next few years, and what technologies could become commercially viable further down the line.

Defining growth

Understanding growth isn't straightforward and analysts considered multiple metrics:

1. The exponential increase in the sheer number of launches over the past few years

2. Amount of investment flowing into various segments

3. Demand signals from the government for certain products and services

4. Number of new satellites heading to orbit.

The analysts' ranking of areas ripe for growth, however, were determined by survey data from the space industry executives they spoke with.

Leading the sector: The analysts identified several segments that are likely to lead the pack in growth over the next three years. Those segments, in order, were satellite integration, components, launch vehicles, value-added services, and payloads.

Ripe for innovation: Deloitte identified in-space servicing, additive manufacturing, and space sustainability as areas where technology could boom looking a little further into the future.

The case for space: Brady says that Deloitte’s analysts are still trying to engage non-space native F500 players and make the case that space tech can and should be part of their strategy. “I hope that the capital markets and we as an industry find a way to preserve what's wonderful about that spirit of experimentation and diversity and variety, while continuing to grind towards a clear commercial viability for a lot of different slices of this industry,” he said.

What Comes After LEO?

Last Friday, Payload moderated the “Beyond LEO” panel at the MIT Sloan New Space Age Conference in Cambridge. Joining us were Will Hovik, engineering lead @ Honeybee Robotics; Kevin Duda, senior space systems manager @ Draper Laboratory; Forrest Meyen, cofounder and CSO of Lunar Outpost; and Blair DeWitt, the founder and CEO of Lunar Station.

This discussion couldn’t have come at a better time. On Monday, ispace said its HAKUTO-R Mission 1 lander has entered orbit around the moon. And more “ships,” i.e., landers and rovers, are set to depart for the Moon in the coming months.

Our Beyond LEO discussion centered around what comes next on, near, and around the Moon: robotic explorers, habitation modules, crewed missions, energy, lunar infrastructure, and in-situ resource utilization. What follows are some takeaways from the panel, but you should really catch the full conversation, which was chock-full of analytical insights and punchy sound bites.

A sneak peek and some takeaways

• $$$: Funding models changed drastically between Apollo and Artemis, and VCs can often miscalculate risk with lunar ventures. Duda estimated that NASA is paying an average of ~$1M per kilogram of payloads delivered to the lunar surface.

• The new approach: Embrace failure, iterate rapidly, and buy down risk by sending multiple ships.

• CLPS: The Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program is an on-ramp for NASA to support commercial players without taking over the mission. In theory this support could spur more innovation and commercial growth.

• NASA: The agency is undergoing an organizational change, as it shifts from being a fully integrated operator to a customer.

• Humans and machines: It’s not either-or. Striking a balance between automation and human presence is key as we return to the Moon, with robots carrying out preliminary groundwork and humans making high-level decisions and performing experiments on the surface.

• Beyond LEO and lunar: Mars remains the ultimate goal of space exploration, with the Moon serving as a stepping stone to deeper space missions.

While our sights were set beyond LEO, the last decade in low Earth orbit offers lessons, both good and bad, for cislunar aspirants.

LEO applications, such as satcom services or environmental monitoring, have thrived due to their direct impact on everyday life. NASA and cislunar players, it follows, should go to extra lengths to make the Moon relevant to the general public and explain how lunar exploration will benefit us back on Earth.

“We don't really know what the lunar towns are gonna find,” DeWitt said, “but [they’ll] find something and it's gonna participate in helping us here on Earth."

Pathfinder #0040 is live now

Listen on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, your web browser, or wherever good pods are served.

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In Other News

• Virgin Orbit ($VORB) is returning a "small team" to work tomorrow, CNBC reports.

• Starlink is employing geofencing measures to disable terminal usage at sea or at speeds above 100 km/hour, per The Economist.

• Bill Nelson cast his support behind the idea of NASA flying an Australian astronaut to space.

• Impulse relocated its HQ from El Segundo to Redondo Beach, CA.

• NYT reporters and Synthetaic’s AI tools trawled through Planet ($PL) imagery to meticulously track the Chinese spy balloon’s journey around the world.

• C-COM (TSXV: $CMI) reported revenue increased 27% YoY for FY22, while net income declined 20% YoY.

• Kleos, a satellite SIGINT collector, booked its first “first major revenue event” (H/T SpaceIntelReport).

The View from Bing

Yesterday, Microsoft introduced Bing Image Creator into its chat application.

Whenever an AI lab releases a new image generation model, the lab always uses astronaut imagery to illustrate the new model’s capabilities. Why? Because, as everyone (including AI) knows: astronauts are awesome…