Hybrid thrust (8/8/2022)

Good morning, and happy Monday. We look forward to seeing many of your beautiful faces in Utah this week at Small Sat. Come say hi if you see someone wearing a Payload logo…chances are high that it’s one of us.

In today's newsletter:🔥 Hybrid thrusters📊 Earnings recap 🗓️ The week ahead

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Benchmark Bags Plasma Thruster Tech

Benchmark has agreed to acquire plasma thruster technology from AASC, the two announced this morning.

• Benchmark is short for Benchmark Space Systems, a chemical propulsion provider based in Burlington, VT. Benchmark’s Starling and Halcyon satellite propulsion systems are its bread and butter.

• AASC is short for Alameda Applied Sciences Corporation. The Oakland-based entity keeps a low profile, but what we do know is that AASC develops metal plasma thrusters that don’t have moving parts and run on solid metal propellants.

Like PB&J… AASC’s electric propulsion (EP) systems are ideal for “high-endurance, cruise control” ops, president Mahadevan Krishnan told Payload. At the most abstract level, you can think of the system as a microcontroller telling its thruster to “fire for the next two hours,” for example. Under the hood, it “sends signals to pucks.” Slow and steady wins the race.

Benchmark’s play is to pair this endurance with higher-thrust, larger chemprop technology. “When you put a hybrid package together…you find that you can sell the customer a package that's less mass, less volume, which is obviously of great interest to most satellite makers,” Krishnan said.

“We’re not aware of anyone else that offers this,” Benchmark EVP Chris Carella told Payload. He estimates that fewer than 1% of active satellites utilize this kind of “hybrid” propulsion technology, and that the lion’s share of those that do are in GEO (and are thus very large and expensive assets).

The thought process: With the hybrid system, a satellite can get into a “revenue-generating orbit” quickly and then just chill out thanks to EP. If it needs to raise its orbit or rapidly maneuver to avoid a possible on-orbit collision, then the satellite can switch to chemprop.

The GTM plan: Benchmark will target the hybrid operators building satellites in the 50-250kg weight class. Common use cases in this class range from EO to connectivity, including both broadband and IoT.

Customers could pay anywhere from zero to a 50% premium upfront for the hardware, per Carella, but he said they’ll make that back very quickly.

Benchmark will sell the hybrid thrusters as pre-integrated, plug-and-play packages with “all the bells and whistles,” Carella said, including the company’s SmartAim guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) software layer.

Startup update: Benchmark has built 150+ engines over the last 18 months. Carella said the startup’s backlog stretches past 200 units. Of that number, the share of government vs. commercial customers is split roughly evenly.

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Catching Up On Last Week's Earnings

Earnings season is fully upon us, with companies from both sides of the launch and satcom aisle releasing results last week. The SPAC side of last week’s reporting left much to be desired, as companies adjust to a harsh macroenvironment, program delays, and shortening runways.

Starting with the launch SPACs…

$ASTR: Astra won’t launch again this year, and is all-in on pivoting from Rocket 3.3 to 4.0. The launcher’s change of heart seems to vindicate commentators who say the smallsat market is already oversupplied. Astra reported a $82.6M Q2 operating loss on $2.7M in revenue, and ended June with ~$201M in the bank.

• Management expects to keep the <$5M base bulk price for dedicated launches.

• The company commenced customer deliveries of its Astra Spacecraft Engine, with total committed orders up 69% over Q1 2022.

• The company also recently secured a $100M committed equity facility to extend its runway.

$SPCE: Virgin Galactic pushed back the debut of its spaceflight service further, now targeting Q2 2023 for commercial launch. It booked ~$357,000 in Q2 revenue, down 37% YoY. The company’s quarterly operating loss was $109.7M. Virgin ended Q2 with $330M in the bank.

• The human spaceflight company partnered with Boeing subsidiary Aurora Flight Sciences to build two new Motherships, the first of which is expected to enter service in 2025.

• Virgin Galactic also announced the construction of its new delta class spaceship manufacturing facility in the Phoenix area, expected to be fully operational in late 2023, and says it secured land in New Mexico for an astronaut training facility.

The Satcom Roundup

$GSAT: Globalstar reported a 22% YoY jump in revenue this quarter, reaching $36.8M. The company attributed an increase in service revenue in its commercial IoT business and a payoff from long-term investments as the cause for the bump. The company’s quarterly operating loss was $11.4M.

$TSAT: Telesat booked CAD $186.6M ($145M) in revenue this quarter. The satellite operator attributed the 1% YoY decrease to the reduced renewal value of a key long-term direct-to-home customer contract. Its net loss reached CAD $4.4M ($3.42M) in comparison to last year’s net income of $53 million. The company has upped its 2022 revenue guidance to $740M-$750M (previously $720M-$740M).

• Telesat expects a revenue hit from potentially having to retire the Anik F2 satellite three years earlier than expected (h/t SpaceNews).

• The Canadian company also says that due to inflation and program delays, the cost of building out its LEO broadband constellation have increased 5-10%.

$SATS: Rounding up, EchoStar pulled in $500M in revenue in Q2 (flat year-over-year) and reported net income of $10.4M (-70% YoY). The satcom operator attributed the drop primarily to unfavorable investment performance. EchoStar subsidiary Hughes lost 60,000 subscribers between Q1 and Q2 of this year, ending June with 1.35M broadband subscriptions.

$SESG: The GEO satellite operator reported H1 revenues of €899M ($916M), up 2.8% YoY, and adj. net profit of €168M ($171.1M, +11% YoY). Last week, reports surfaced that SES and American frenemy Intelsat are in merger talks.

$TRMB: Trimble reported a Q2 revenue of $941.2M, up 6% YoY with ARR reaching $1.51B, up 12% YoY. The company’s cash position stands at $30.1M.

Looking ahead…Many more space companies report results this week, so we’ll have more to share soon.

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In Other News

• The FCC voted 4–0 to open a proceeding on ISAM, or in-space service, assembly, and manufacturing, and potentially develop new rules for public and private ISAM activities.

• Per FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, the commission must “make sure our rules are prepared for the proliferation of satellites in orbit and new activities in our higher altitudes."

• China launched a reusable spaceplane Thursday. Like the Boeing-built, US military-operated X-37B, not much is known about China’s spaceplane program. Here’s a video of the plane shot from the Netherlands (h/t Marco Langbroek).

• Satellite imagery shows activity at the runway of a remote airstrip “near China's Lop Nor nuclear test site the day before” Beijing announced the spaceplane’s launch, per The Drive.

• ISRO, India’s space agency, launched its SSLV (Small Satellite Launch Vehicle) for the first time. The rocket’s first three stages flew nominally, but a sensor issue resulted in a failure to deliver the payloads to orbit.

• NASA’s entire astronaut corps will be eligible for Artemis flights—not just the cohort of 18 astronauts dubbed the “Artemis Team” by then-VP Mike Pence.

The View from India