Euro trip (7/5/23)

Good morning. We’re crossing our fingers that the third time's the charm for Ariane 5, which is expected to launch this evening for the final time after two scrubs. 

Today’s newsletter: 
🗺️ Blue eyes foreign launch
⏲️ Korea calls for an agency
📝 Contract opportunities
🔁 On the move
💸 The term sheet

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Blue Origin Looks to Launch Abroad

Blue Origin is planning to build a launch facility outside the US, the company’s CEO Bob Smith told the Financial Times this week. The search has just begun, and a decision on a location is not imminent.

The company also seeks new partnerships and acquisitions across Europe. 

Euro trip: Despite not yet having achieved orbital flight, Blue Origin has been investing in advance of a planned high-volume launch cadence. The Kent, WA-based business is setting its sights on meeting Europe’s growing launch demand as the continent faces a severe lack of launch capacity with Ariane 5’s imminent retirement and Ariane 6 and Vega-C on the sidelines until 2024. 

While it would take years to get a facility up and run, Blue Origin could help fill a deficiency in the market and support European satellite operators for years to come.  

New Glenn: Blue Origin’s expansion plans hinge on the success of its New Glenn rocket, which has yet to hit the skies. 

• The heavy-lift rocket will be capable of ferrying 45,000 kg to LEO, putting it smack dab in the middle of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy’s capacity.

• New Glenn will employ a reusable first stage. 

• Blue Origin is also attempting to develop the holy grail of rocketry, a reusable second stage.

The company aims to launch New Glenn on its maiden voyage next year.

One of its early missions is an August-September 2024 launch to Mars, carrying NASA’s ESCAPADE satellites. While maiden rocket launches are almost always delayed, the head of the ESCAPADE team believes New Glenn development remains on track. 

If successful, Blue Origin hopes the next-gen rocket will compete with SpaceX domestically and alleviate the European launch bottleneck abroad.

Sponsored

Deterrence By Observation

During the first two weeks of the Russo-Ukrainian War, the Ukrainian government received data covering more than 15 million square miles of the conflict zone, and national intelligence agencies more than doubled their procurement of commercial electro-optical imagery. 

But it wasn’t just the government who improved their understanding of what was happening on the ground – researchers, humanitarian organizations, and journalists utilized this data too – creating what has become the most documented invasion in history. 

This new age of geospatial intelligence has transformed how we understand the physical world and take action. 

How we arrived here, how it’s impacting our world today, and where we’re headed, is outlined a new article in Payload, focusing specifically on the involvement of Planet Labs PBC in this journey. 

Time’s Ticking on KASA

The world’s newest potential space agency is running into roadblocks when it comes to notching the right approvals to get going. This morning, South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol, called for some pep in the step of lawmakers who have been sitting on the establishment bill for several months now.

Korea passed a law to establish the Korea Aerospace Administration (KASA)  in March, but the parties in the country’s National Assembly are at an impasse over several nominees and unrelated issues, and the KASA bill has fallen by the wayside.

“It's unfortunate that the opposition party's lack of cooperation has stalled the discussion of the establishment bill for KASA, the agency slated to lead this initiative, since its submission to the National Assembly in April,” Yoon said in a speech at the first World Congress of Korean Scientists and Engineers earlier today.

• Though he didn’t specify which, Yoon said that the delays in establishing KASA are negatively affecting a planned collaborative effort with NASA.

Korea’s space ambitions: Yoon’s goals for the planned space agency waste no time in trying to catch up with other, major spacefaring nations. Per the KASA roadmap, Korea is looking to get to the Moon by 2032 and Mars by 2045, the 100th anniversary of the nation’s independence from Japan.

In Other News

• CNES, the French space agency, created a space mission ethics committee. 

• Chandrayaan-3, ISRO’s third craft to attempt a Moon landing, has been integrated with its LVM3 rocket ahead of a planned launch later this month.

• Hughes safely delivered its high-density GEO bird, JUPITER 3, to the Space Coast for integration with Falcon Heavy.

• SpaceOps NZ took over operations of the Warkworth radio astronomy operation.

• Rocket Lab ($RKLB) plans to launch its Baby Come Back mission from New Zealand on July 14.

• AST SpaceMobile ($ASTS) raised $59.4M in a public offering, selling shares at ~$4.75 a pop, well below the ~$6.50 price tag the shares were trading at before the offering (via Payload). 

• Ramon.Space, a space computing startup, closed a $26M strategic financing round (via Payload). 

• CGI committed £2.6M ($3.3M) of funding to the University of Leicester’s METEOR center.

The View from Space

Stoke Space was in the patriotic spirit, tweeting out this red, white, and blue picture on the Fourth of July.