Black box (5/18/23)

Good morning. Artemis II astronauts are canvassing DC this week to sell lawmakers on the Artemis program—and its hefty price tag. They’re also talking to reporters this afternoon. Reply to let us know what we should ask them.  

In today's edition...
🌕 China, US race for the Moon
🫖 UK space investment snapshot
📝 The contract report

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China Prepares for Heavy Investment in its Race to the Moon

China has set out a roadmap to compete with the Artemis program in a race to the Moon, grabbing the attention of NASA and lawmakers.

As NASA pursues increased funding to ensure the US lands first, questions remain regarding China’s ability to finance the endeavor.

“China’s funding is a bit of a black box,” said Kevin Pollpeter, a China space program expert at CNA. “But if they felt they could not afford to go to the Moon, they would not have gotten it approved.”

China’s 2023 lunar roadmap: China has recently released a flurry of new details on its lunar goals, including accelerated timelines and a slew of technical designs. In just the first five months of the year, Beijing has:

• Unveiled designs for its lunar lander

• Released details on its fully reusable Long March 9 rocket

• Begun building an international coalition for its Moon base

• Announced plans to break ground on a lunar base by 2028

• Declared its goal of landing a crew on the Moon by 2030

​​"By 2030, the Chinese people will definitely be able to set foot on the Moon. That's not a problem," said Wu Weiren, chief designer of the lunar program at China’s Space Day last month.

Huge Investment

Landing humans on the Moon is a pricey undertaking. From 2012 through 2028, NASA will spend an estimated $102.5B on the Artemis program.

• 2012-2023: $61B of program expenditures according to NASA’s inspector general and recent budget allocations.

• 2024-2028: $41.5B according to May 15 NASA update.

China’s budget: Research firm Euroconsult estimates China spent roughly $12B on its space program in 2022. $12B per year of funding would likely be insufficient for China to fund both the Tiangong LEO station and a $100B+ lunar program, though it’s possible more is currently being spent in opaque budgets,

As China ramps up its lunar program, funding will likely balloon alongside it, possibly mixing with much larger military budgets. Since Chinese President Xi Jinping views the Moon as a strategically important economic, military, and reputational endeavor, allocation of significant lunar funds faces few roadblocks.

Read the rest of this story here.

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UK Sees Payoff in Space Investment

Years of government investment in the UK’s commercial space sector are paying off.

The UK has received 17% of global space private capital since 2015, according to a report released Tuesday from the UK Space Agency and PwC. That makes it the second most attractive place for private sector space investment behind the US, and the top destination in Europe. Nine of the biggest UK venture capital firms have invested in the space industry since 2015.

Annually, 18% of the UK’s GDP is supported by space or space-adjacent products and services, with EO alone driving more than £100B ($124.9B) of the British economy. The country’s 1,500+ space companies brought in £17.5B ($21.9B) in domestic revenue, accounting for about 5% of the global sector in 2022.

EO, manufacturing, and satellite connectivity are the country’s key investment areas. The UK has 100+ EO companies, the largest number of any European country, per a 2022 House of Commons report.

UK space background: The UK published its National Space Strategy in 2021 to help build an attractive space economy, and has been developing spaceports to serve as the backbone for a domestic launch industry. Virgin Orbit’s bankruptcy has put a damper on these plans at Spaceport Cornwall, but construction at Sutherland Spaceport began this month.

In Other News

• Virgin Galactic's Unity 25 mission flight window opens on May 25.

• JAXA expressed interest in launching out of the UK's Cornwall spaceport.

• The State Department said North Korea’s imminent spy satellite launch would violate UN sanctions.

• Varda, an in-space manufacturing startup, is in the process of raising $25M at a $500M valuation, according to a TechCrunch report.

• Bipartisan senators introduced a bill that would cut red tape for companies seeking spectrum licenses for launch communications.

The View from Space

UAE astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi tweeted a photo of Baghdad he took from the ISS, saying that the history of scholars in the Iraqi city “reminds us to keep reaching for the stars.”