Green thumb (8/17/22)

Good morning. We hope you’re having a great start to your week.

Yesterday, we sent the newsletter with the subject line “TK,” an editing mark used in journalism meaning, phonetically, “to come.” It was supposed to be "On fleet," but we didn't save the update. We hope, at least, you enjoyed that peek behind the curtain.

In today's newsletter:✈️ In-flight Wi-Fi🌱 Space greenhouses💸 The term sheet

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The State of In-Flight Connectivity

Gone are the days of switching off your phone and laptop before takeoff and living a lonely, analog life until landing. The in-flight connectivity (IFC) industry has seen rapid growth over the past year, and the number of connected airplanes is expected to double within the next decade, per a new Euroconsult report on the topic.

Tuning in: The IFC industry saw a lot of growth over the past year, and that growth is expected to continue over the coming decade.

The state of IFC, by the numbers:

• 9,900 commercial airplanes offered the service

• More than 120 airlines used IFC services on their flights

• Total bandwidth consumption capacity increased to 24 gigabytes per second

• By 2031, Euroconsult estimates that 21,000 commercial airplanes will provide connectivity—more than double the current number

• If IFC reaches 2031 predicted levels, that’s ~58% market penetration.

Bouncing back: The pandemic—and related border closings and travel restrictions—affected the IFC market. Euroconsult estimated in its 2021 report that the industry lost $970M over the previous year. 

Last year, the firm provided both optimistic and pessimistic predictions for the IFC industry, depending on whether the airline industry could bounce back from COVID. Turns out it did, and this year the firm opted to go back to a single, optimistic prediction. (If that’s not a vote of confidence, we don’t know what is.)

The growth, Euroconsult writes, can be partially attributed to the slew of mergers and restructuring in providers that occurred during the pandemic. These companies emerged ready to sign new contracts, and so they did: 1,500 new aircraft were signed on to be equipped with IFC capabilities during 2021.

Ripe for growth: The past months have seen a handful of IFC deals among major players in satellite broadband. 

• Viasat inked a deal with Southwest in May to provide connectivity on all its new planes starting this fall—an announcement that featured prominently in Viasat’s recent earnings report. The company has a similar deal with Virgin Atlantic, and is providing connectivity from GEO to a number of other airlines.

• OneWeb signed a deal with GoGo Business Aviation, also in May, to provide its airplanes with connectivity from LEO.

• Starlink is also in the IFC game, with JSX and Hawaiian Airlines each opting to adopt SpaceX’s LEO service on their jets.

The upshot: More and more airlines are becoming interested in offering IFC on their flights, and the M&A environment is making those deals easier. Euroconsult is expecting to see more IFC offerings in the years to come.

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Keeping it Green

Redwire announced yesterday it will develop the first commercially owned and operated space greenhouse. The project, funded by an award from the ISS National Lab, will generate insights to support both crop science on Earth and future exploration missions. 

• Redwire Greenhouse will take flight no earlier than spring 2023 and, if all goes to plan, will be the first commercially owned greenhouse on the ISS. 

“Growing full crops in space will be critical to future space exploration missions as plants provide food, oxygen and water reclamation,” Dave Reed, Redwire Florida Launch Site Operations Director and Greenhouse project manager, said in a press release. “Increasing the throughput of crop production research in space, through commercially developed capabilities, will be important to deliver critical insights for NASA’s Artemis missions and beyond.” 

Redwire is no stranger to the space plant game. 

• The mission will make use of Redwire’s already flight-qualified plant growth tech, including Passive Orbital Nutrient Delivery System (PONDS) devices. These devices,  developed in partnership with Tupperware, are currently on the ISS. 

• Redwire has also managed plant investigations in NASA’s Advanced Plant Habitat since 2018.

Who’s buying: Redwire’s customer for the inaugural flight is expected to be Dewey Scientific, an agtech company focused on cannabis science. Its team plans to conduct a 60-day gene expression study to advance biomedical and biofuels research through growing industrial hemp in space.  

Looking forward: This is just the first step for Redwire’s greenhouse foray. The space infrastructure company will use this first mission to test out kinks in the facility’s operations, lighting, ventilation, and leaf litter containment functions. After the in-space demo, it hopes to provide a simple, scalable commercial product for civil and commercial customers, enabling them to make the leap from small-scale lab experiments to true production in space. 

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Sponsored

Cesium is Hiring, With Drinks

CesiumAstro builds high-throughput, software-defined phased array communications payloads for airborne and space platforms—including satellites, missiles, UAVs, and more. Their full-stack, multi-mission hardware and software products enable a full range of commercial, government, and defense applications.

Houston, we’re hiring!

CesiumAstro is looking for experienced engineers and program managers to add to its team. Join them for a Happy Hour on August 25th to learn more about the mission and how they enable the future of space and airborne communications.

-Principal Hardware Engineers

-Principal Mechanical Packaging Engineers

-Principal RF Engineers

-Principal Power Electronics Engineers

-Senior Program Manager

-And more!

In Other News

• SLS is rolling out to the launch pad, and it’s time to prep for Artemis I. The first launch window opens on Aug. 29. 🚀🚀🚀

• Rocket Lab is planning to send its Photon spacecraft to Venus with MIT in the first commercial mission to the planet, as well as the first opportunity to probe its clouds since Vega 2 in 1985.

• Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander has completed Deep Space Network ground testing.

• Virgin Orbit received AS9100 certification from the Performance Review Institute by meeting its standards of quality and safety.

• Space in Africa found that the space industry grew to $19.5B in 2021, and projects it will continue growing ~16% to $22.6B by 2026.

The View from Space

New JWST image alert! This image, assembled by a student researcher, shows the Great Barred Spiral Galaxy glowing ~56M light years away from Earth.