Moonward bound (7/12/23)

Good morning. Happy birthday, JWST! Thanks for a year of some of the most stunning space images we’ve ever seen. Reply to this email to let us know your favorite pic snapped by the space telescope, which will hopefully be beaming back images for decades to come.

And for the Futurama fans in the back: What day is today? It’s JWST’s birthday. What a day for a birthday! Let’s all eat some cake. 🎂

In today's edition...
🖇️ ispace US CEO talks CLPS and more
📉 Astra’s stock split
💸 The term sheet

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A Q+A with ispace US CEO Ronald Garan

The countdown has started on ispace’s NASA-backed date with the Moon in June 2025, and the US team has locked itself in a room this week to game out the details.

The company began a four-day exercise on Monday, akin to a military-style wargame, that will zero in on when the spacecraft will be ready to launch on its mission for NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program and how changing different variables would impact the timeline, Ronald Garan, a former astronaut who became CEO of ispace US last month, told Payload.

“We locked eight people in a room for eight hours a day, including third party contractors,” Garan said. “We’re looking at critical path analysis and the difference between the target date and the scheduled date…We’re going through exercises to see how we can reduce or eliminate the gap and iterate on different critical path analysis to see what’s the long pole in the tent [and]...look for ways to pull that in.”

CLPS 101: NASA is working with 14 companies to land uncrewed missions carrying science and tech payloads on the Moon’s surface under CLPS. Draper’s team for the program, which includes ispace and its SERIES-2 lander, is expected to land in 2025 at Schrödinger Basin, a large crater on the Moon’s South Pole. It will also deliver two comms satellites into lunar orbit.

A look back: ispace Inc, the Japanese parent company of ispace US, initially formed to compete for Google’s Lunar XPRIZE, which challenged companies to soft-land on the moon, travel 500 meters, and transmit data back to Earth.

Google’s challenge ended without a winner, but ispace continued its quest to reach the moon commercially. The company attempted to soft-land the HAKUTO-R craft in April, and though it achieved many milestones and transmitted data back to Earth, it ultimately crashed into the Moon. The team is expecting to try again next year.

In his first interview as CEO of the company’s American office, Garan also talked about how lessons learned during the parent company’s April lunar landing attempt will be incorporated into the NASA mission, plans for growth at the Denver HQ, and the future of the commercial lunar ecosystem.

Check out the full Q&A here.

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Astra Looks to Raise $65M and Avoid Nasdaq Delisting

After nearly a year of struggling to bump its stock price above the Nasdaq minimum and avoid delisting, Astra ($ASTR) has officially decided to perform a reverse stock split.

The company plans to perform a 1-to-15 ratio split and aims to raise up to $65M in an “at-the-market” offering, meaning common stock shares will sell at their current price. Astra’s board approved the plan on July 6 and filed with the SEC on Monday. The split is expected to occur by Oct. 2.

• A reverse stock split will raise the per-share price but won’t affect the company’s market cap, currently sitting at ~$102M.

Rocky road: Astra went public during the SPAC boom of 2021 at a valuation of nearly $2B. Following a high-profile launch failure of Rocket 3 in 2022, the company took a prolonged hiatus from launch to focus squarely on the planned Rocket 4. Since then, the company’s cash reserves have been falling fast.

• $ASTR reported $62.7M cash on hand in Q1 2023, down from $102.8M at the end of 2022.

• Between Q4 ‘22 and Q1 ‘23, the company pulled in $0 in revenue.

• Execs said in May that they were projecting $30-33M of cash remaining at the end of Q2.

The launcher isn’t giving up yet, though. Proceeds from the proposed $65M raise will be used to press ahead on Rocket 4 development, which is tracking towards a debut launch next year, and to continue producing its electric thrusters.

+ Market check: As of EOD Tuesday, Astra stock was trading at $0.38.

Space Opportunities

Here are the top government opportunities for space companies this week, as compiled by our partner TZero.

🔒 SDA has released another draft solicitation for the Fire-control On Orbit-support-to-the-war Fighter (FOO Fighter). This opportunity seeks to provide fire control for worldwide advanced missile threats using eight space vehicles with EO/IR payloads, and requires a TS facility clearance to view.

The feedback period isn’t open Everlong. Think your birds can Learn to Fly? The Best of You should respond by Aug. 7.

🛰️ NASA GSFC has released a solicitation under the NextSTEP-2 BAA for wideband satcom, phased array ground systems, and constellation topology analysis. Responses are due Aug. 7.

🚀 DARPA has released an opportunity under the BRIDGES BAA for space superiority technologies, although SSA and SDA capabilities are specifically excluded. There will be an initial review of concepts on Oct. 1.

Additional opportunities and details can be found in the TZero Space Tracker.

In Other News

• Blue Origin’s exploding engine could spell delays for Vulcan and other companies hitching a ride on ULA’s rocket.

• Astranis will launch a GEO broadband satellite for the Philippines, bringing connectivity to an estimated 2M people.

• NASA has indefinitely suspended its Janus asteroid surveyor mission after launch delays made its target rock inaccessible.

• China will launch two rockets for its crewed lunar landing.

• LandSpace, a Chinese launch startup, successfully launched its ZhuQue-2 methalox rocket to orbit.

The View from Space

NASA released this image of a “stellar nursery” from JWST this morning in honor of the one-year anniversary of the telescope’s first full-color image release.