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Diversifying for Growth Q&A with Spaceflight Industries CEO Jason Andrews

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Diversifying for Growth Q&A with Spaceflight Industries CEO Jason Andrews Diversifying for growth Q&A with Spaceflight Industries CEO Jason Andrews Spaceflight Industries is best capabilities of Spaceflight. BlackSky is really known for pioneering the a software company. It’s all about big data. rideshare launch model for In our view there are multiple revolu- smallsats, with the US-based tions taking place right now. There’s a geo- group recently brokering a spatial revolution, a LEO communications landmark deal that saw it book revolution, and a third one, which is really an entire Falcon 9 rocket. a long-term market opportunity: human space transportation. Last year the venture unveiled We’re focused on the small satellite a separate business to expand piece of all this. It’s the key technology to into the imagery market with enable looking at the planet in real time, its own satellite constellation. and in some cases we’re involved in these big SatelliteFinance editor Jason LEO constellations too. Think of Spaceflight Rainbow speaks with CEO Jason as the basic infrastructure – the shovels Andrews to find out more. to the miners that are going out and pros- pecting. BlackSky’s constellation can also be Jason Rainbow: There are multiple used by anybody. We don’t think we have parts to your business – could competitors, we just have customers. We see Spaceflight Industries CEO you provide a rough overview? people like Planet Labs, DigitalGlobe and Jason Andrews Jason Andrews: Spaceflight Industries Skybox Imaging as customers. is the parent company of two groups: Ultimately, it doesn’t matter who uses integrated – meaning they only launch ser- Spaceflight and BlackSky. our spacecrafts. We believe that, if you fun- vices on the vehicles they own or operate – Spaceflight is revolutionising thedamentally transform the price point and we’re horizontal. We’re rocket agnostic. We business of accessing space. It’s a full service latency of the revisit rate, then there will be don’t build the rockets. launch provider that offers a suite of products more demand than there is supply for Earth Traditionally, if people wanted to launch and services including state-of-the-art sat- imaging capability. a satellite they bought a rocket and it was a ellite infrastructure, rideshare capabilities, one-to-one relationship, and we’ve broken and global communications networks that JR: For the launch part of your that relationship. Now you don’t need to buy enable commercial and government entities business, how are you positioning a rocket, you just need to buy a ride and you to achieve their mission goals. yourself to deal with the increasing pay specifically for what you want. On the BlackSky side, we’re providing competition from new vehicles and We think we’re the first commercial an easy, affordable way to order and access service providers coming to market? spaceline. Airlines don’t build airplanes; cruise high-quality satellite imaging to look at JA: We’re very different than everybody lines don’t build cruise ships – why should a the planet in real time, leveraging the else. Whereas others are very vertically spaceline build spaceships or rockets? 18 www.satelliteFinance.com Q&A We have a SpaceX Falcon 9 mission dedicated launch vehicle. I think we’re JR: Are you looking to raise scheduled for this summer that will carry finally at that tipping point. If someone is capital in the near future? 87 payloads. The companies onboard pay not successful, then yes, we might develop JA: Yes, but what we are focused on right a couple hundred thousand dollars for a our own launch vehicle. But as of now, now is reaching our goal of getting our sat- cubesat instead of $65m for a Falcon 9 rocket. I’d rather let other companies direct their ellites in orbit. Once this has been accom- We’ve brought down the barriers for capital to building the launch vehicles and plished, we will begin redirecting some of access to space from a cost standpoint, we’ll leverage the vehicles for our services. our focus to raising some capital. with routine schedule services and regular pricing based on the class of service. JR: You partnered with Spire JR: How much would you last year to use its ground be looking to raise? JR: How much space has been stations for your new smallsat- JA: I can’t reveal that number, but one of the booked on this flight? focused communications benefits for us is that we’ve been around for JA: This mission is nearly full. We’ve iden- network. Could you tell me a a while. We started as a company 17 years tified all the customers and are working on little more about this deal? ago this summer and it has been generating getting the last payloads onboard now. It’s JA: We have three ground stations operational good revenues and is a very viable business. just about contracting them. right now – one in New Zealand, one in Alaska BlackSky is really one of our growth areas. and one in Seattle – but we’re really focused Again, for BlackSky we don’t believe we have JR: How do the numbers add up on growing the broader market and we’re all competitors but instead customers and partners to reach the cost of a Falcon 9? about collaboration. You always hear people that we can reach out to if we can’t meet the JA: I don’t want to get too deep into the eco- talking about pitting their imaging satellites need for pixels with our own spacecraft. nomics of that, but in order to see a profit we against each other and I think that’s the wrong do need to fill the rocket entirely, which we attitude. Right now it’s a US$3bn market and JR: What else differentiates are very close to finalising. While I can’t go there’s no reason it shouldn’t be US$30bn. BlackSky in what is becoming an into the specifics of each customer payload, increasingly crowded market? I can tell you that the Falcon 9 can carry JA: I don’t think it’s that crowded. There’s about 14 tons, including the hardware that “I’d rather let other a lot of noise about who is funded and will carry the satellites. companies direct building satellites but, as far as who is actually launching satellites, it’s proving to JR: How did the SpaceX deal come their capital to be a hard gig to do. Look at Google – they about? Was it demand-led or it came out in 2011 and it’s now 2016 and they something you felt like trying? building the launch might have two satellites on orbit. It’s hard to JA: Mostly demand led. Historically Russia vehicles and we’ll build an imaging constellation. has been a good source of rideshares, and As we look around the planet, the desire is the invasion of Crimea in 2014 cut off that leverage the vehicles to look at it at in real time and there still aren’t supply and made scheduling missions very enough satellites out there to do that. We’re difficult. Secondly, there are a lot of US small for our services” really focused on price point, revisit rate and satellite customers who need to launch on a user experience. We believe that if we can fun- US launch vehicle. That has created a lot of We have a sales arm within Spaceflight damentally revolutionise that then there’ll be demand as well. to focus on this effort. Spire has ground sta- more demand than we could ever fulfil. Thirdly, there’s been a broader accep- tions with excess capacity, so we decided to tance of rideshares as a viable means to get integrate that into our network. We’re in the JR: Spaceflight Industries is already to orbit. Whereas we started by launching process of doing this now. very diversified for a company of cubesats, it’s rapidly turned into launching We’re committed to executing on our its size, but are there plans to move 100-300kg spacecrafts and these payloads vision to build a cellphone network for into other adjacent markets? justify a larger vehicle. space. Our whole model for the commu- JA: Not at this time. While we’re doing a lot nication networks aspect of Spaceflight is already, I believe the reason we will succeed is JR: Prices will likely come down to build a common set of space radios and because we started off as different companies as more launch players enter the ground radios that are matched so when a with very clear focus, vision and management market - do you see this model company launches a satellite, it turns on and teams, and we’re still that way today. remaining viable in the years ahead? just works - similar to how your cellphone JA: I think the spaceline model is going to be just works immediately after you buy it JR: Which part generates the most the one that prevails. It prevails in the aviation because it’s standardised to work with all of revenue at the moment and how and shipping industries. There are operators the telecom towers. do you see that split changing? of infrastructure and there are service pro- JA: Today Spaceflight is generating the viders, and those groups are very different JR: What’s the latest with BlackSky’s bulk of the revenue as a US$30m-US$50m from the hardware manufacturers. I think plans to operate a constellation company. It’s going to change every year as you’re just starting to see that shift today.
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