Macro view (7/5/22)

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In today's newsletter:🤝 Kongsberg acquires NanoAvionics✈️ Virgin Orbit launches🎙️ Pathfinder #0006📅 The week ahead🔁 On the move

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Kongsberg 🤝 NanoAvionics

This morning, Kongsberg Defense and Aerospace, a Norwegian technology company, announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire a majority stake in NanoAvionics. The deal values the Lithuanian smallsat manufacturer at €65M ($67M).

The terms: Kongsberg is taking a 77% stake in the company. The company’s leadership will remain unchanged for now, with CEO Vytenis Buzas and CCO Linas Sargautis, the company’s cofounders, staying in their roles.

Midland, TX-based AST SpaceMobile ($ASTS) purchased a 51% stake in the company in 2018, and will now sell its shares. In an SEC filing, the company reported that it expects €27M ($28M) for its stake.

The big deal: Kongsberg emphasized how well NanoAvionics’ tech will work with its own offerings. Kongsberg owns and operates the KSAT (Kongsberg Satellite Services) network of ground stations. It also provides satellite subsystems.

• It seems like a pretty logical jump to acquire a company building the actual satellite hardware.

“Norway is a leader in the domain of maritime surveillance in the high north,” Eirik Lie, Kongsberg president, said in a press release. “NanoAvionics, along with our existing space portfolio and the development of the Andøya Space Port, means Norway now has leading positions across the entire value chain.”

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Straight Up To LEO

This weekend, Virgin Orbit launched its fourth successful mission. "Straight Up" launched from Mojave under the cover of night for the first time. That name may sound familiar as the mission was named after a 1988 Paula Abdul song and included a prep visit from the pop legend herself.

Cosmic Girl and Launcher One delivered a set of payloads to LEO for a US Space Force mission. The mission manifest included seven satellites that will conduct experiments and tech demonstrations. The birds are owned and operated by multiple government agencies under the DoD Space Test Program.

Payload Highlights:

• NASA’s 3U cubesat to detect trace gasses like sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere

• Air Force Research Laboratory’s cubesat mission that will test adaptive radio-frequency tech in a mesh network

• The Aerospace Corporation & Blue Canyon Technologies’ 12U cubesat carrying 19 tech demonstration payloads

What’s next: The UK government’s investments in space industry activities are finally bearing space fruit. Virgin Orbit’s next launch is set to take off from Spaceport Cornwall sometime this summer. This would mark the first commercial launch from UK soil. “The success of this last launch in California is extremely rewarding for Spaceport Cornwall and the UK space sector,” said Melissa Thorpe, head of Spaceport Cornwall.

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Pathfinder #0006, with Payload's Mo Islam

On this week’s episode of the Pathfinder podcast, Ryan sits down with Mo Islam, who is his boss and the cofounder/CEO of Payload.

Pathfinder is brought to you by SpiderOak Mission Systems, an industry leader in space cybersecurity. Check out the company’s space cybersecurity white paper here.

A Payload on Payload interview? It’s like the Spiderman pointing at another Spiderman meme. Jokes aside, Ryan invited Mo on to discuss a presentation he prepared for the Payload team at their recent off-site meeting. This week’s episode focuses on an adapted version of the deck and what’s happening within the macroeconomy.

What we cover:

• Mo’s Wall Street background

• Starting Payload

• Inflation, a possible recession, and the global food crisis

• How it’s all connected to the space industry

• Consumer credit, COVID-19, and a “systemic failure in the crypto industry”

• Aerospace and defense (A&D) outperformance over other indices

• Tech valuation compressions

• A record year for space investing

• The next chapter of the space industry

• Is Starship priced in?

Where to get Pathfinder 0006:

🎧 Listen on Spotify 🍏 Listen on Apple Podcasts ▶️ Watch on YouTube

In Other News

• CAPSTONE released from its Photon upper stage and is now on its solo path to the Moon. The pathfinding mission should reach its orbit in mid-November.

• New Zealand joined the US-led ban on direct-ascent ASAT testing.

• ISRO, the Indian space agency, launched three satellites to LEO for Singapore.

• ULA launched the USSF-12 mission, sending two experimental military satellites to GEO.

• The FCC granted Starlink permission to operate on boats, planes, and trucks.

On the Move

• Astroscale US brought on Brett Silcox as director of government relations.

• RAL Space appointed Dr. Sarah Beardsley as its new director.

• AAC Clyde Space selected Sue Kee as VP of commercial management.

• Yahsat tapped Sulaiman Al Ali as chief commercial officer.

• ORBCOMM hired David Schmoock as COO, a new position in the IoT company.

• Radiance Technologies named Lt. Gen John F. Thompson and Maj. Gen. James O. Poss to its BoD.

• ReOrbit welcomed John Auburn as chief strategy officer and as a board member.

• Quantum Space hired Phillip Bracken as VP of engineering.

• Aerojet Rocketdyne shareholders elected the entire independent slate of directors. It includes CEO Eileen Drake, Gen. Kevin Chilton (Ret.), Thomas Corcoran, Gen. Lance Lord (Ret.), Gail Baker, Marion Blakey, Maj. Gen. Charles Bolden (Ret.), and Deborah James.

• National Academy of Sciences appointed Dr. Tomohiro Oda of the Universities Space Research Association to an ad hoc committee developing a framework to evaluate greenhouse gas emissions.

• The Aerospace States Association (ASA) elected Colorado Lt. Governor Dianne Primavera and Alaska Lt. Governor Kevin Meyer as national chair and vice chair, respectively. Lt. Governor Will Ainsworth, the former national chair, ended his term. Also, ASA honored Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt with the 2022 Thomas R. Hobson Distinguished Aerospace Service Award.

The View from Space

Asteroid 7335 1989 JA passed within 2.5M miles of Earth at the end of May. Though 1989 JA was discovered ~30 years ago, astronomers realized it’s a binary system just this year, when observations revealed the smaller satellite asteroid seen in this image.