Space Industry Bulletin July 2019
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VOLUME 2 • ISSUE 7 www.spaceindustrybulletin.com Space Industry Bulletin Market analysis and business intelligence for the space community Commercialising LEO will need destinations beyond the ISS ommercialisation of low investors. And it will depend on and a few private companies Earth orbit will require having destinations beyond just does not make a sustainable in - Cnew models for public- the International Space Station. frastructure. So how do we build private partnership, and it will be For almost two decades, the this community? built on a technology infras- ISS has been the sole hub for Kerry Timmons, LEO com - tructure that will include the commercialisation activities, pro - mercial programme manage - CONTENTS likes of robotics and machine viding unique access to research ment lead at Lockheed Martin learning. and development in a micro- Space, said: “It requires collab - Industry news 2 But commercial success will gravity environment. oration. It needs ‘old space’ and l Virgin Galactic to go public hinge on an infrastructure that Doug Comstock, deputy chief ‘new space’ working in partner - following merger “buys down the risk” for financial officer for integration ship. It needs the commercial l Launch of balloon marks the commercial partners and at NASA, said: “The ISS has 14 market to be energised to bring beginning of a new space era different facilities built by 11 dif - their money and ideas to space.” l Innovation loans offer a share of ferent companies. We don’t want When we talk about commer - £10m funding a gap in capability for human cialising LEO, it’s important to l Galileo outage helps build the access to LEO.” recognise that space is not the case for sovereign UK GNSS Along with destinations, suc - first frontier, and also that Earth l OneWeb takes sustainability into cessful commercialisation of LEO imagery is an industry success orbit and calls on the wider industry will depend on a community, story. to follow suit l Space electronics market set because a single government l Full report page 8 to see CAGR of 5.22% to 2024 Space industry barometer 6 Leaving the EU is foremost in l Leaving the EU is foremost in UK space companies’ concerns UK space companies’ concerns Space economy 8 l Commercialisation of LEO needs rexit dominates compa - at the Government, with com - destinations beyond just the ISS nies’ concerns for the panies feeling that it seems paral - coming quarter, with ysed. B Space insurance 12 space sector businesses lament - These are some of the find - l Underwriters stay calm, while ing the loss of access to the EU ings of the inaugural Space In - liability grows as a concern just as those nations are increas - dustry Barometer, which sought ing their investment in space. to gauge industry sentiment on Funding and financing 16 With all the pressures that a range of issues over the coming l Betting on the stars: what value this will bring with lost access to quarter. Agency and Satellite Applications can investors find in space? Galileo and Copernicus, the po - Respondents were scathing Catapult, with respondents be - tential for trade tariffs and in - of the lack of support for the moaning repeated hollow policy UKSpace Q2 review 15 creased difficulties in recruit - sector from Government and statements. ESA invitations to tender 18 ment, there are criticisms levelled bodies such as the UK Space l Full report page 6 UK Space Agency accounts 20 THIS ISSUE IN NUMBERS... $Val3ue 6of t0he bglonbal Ne£w f1un0dinmg from Net£ ex4pen3di1turem by the Perce8nt3age% of space CA5GR. t2o 22024% in the Sp£en6t b5y th.e4 UKm SA in space economy in Innovate UK for UK Space Agency in businesses very space electronics 2018-19 on national 2018 products and services 2018-19 concerned by Brexit market space programmes Page 17 Page 3 Page 22 Page 6 Page 4 Page 20 Industry news Virgin Galactic to go Launch of public following merger beginning uly has seen the launch irgin Galactic is from Shetland Space preparing to go public JCentre of a stratospheric Vfollowing a merger with balloon as a test of a system Social Capital Hedosophia that will eventually deliver (SCH). The boards of both small satellites into orbit. companies have approved a Developed by Bristol- definitive agreement under based B2Space, the balloon which they will merge, with was a scaled down version of SCH shareholders gaining its ‘Rockoon’, carrying approximately 49% of the complete sets of instruments, combined company. trackers and control boards Upon the closing the up to a height of around transaction, which is expected 37km, as well as beam back in the second half of 2019, profitable commercial service. Chamath Palihapitiya, images from an on-board Virgin Galactic will be Having reached launch founder and CEO of SCH, said: camera. introduced as a publicly traded milestones in 2018 and earlier “We are confident that Virgin B2Space co-founder commercial human spaceflight this year, the board of Virgin Galactic is light years ahead of Valentin Canales said that the company. Galactic believes that the the competition. It is backed by purpose of the test flight was Virgin Galactic believes it additional capital provided by an exciting business model and to confirm the company’s has now reached an inflection the merger with SCH will an uncompromising ability to operate from point in its development as it provide the company with the commitment to safety and Shetland by progresses towards launching support needed to reach customer satisfaction.” gathering commercial operations. In commercialisation. Marking a further milestone data, particular, by demonstrating Virgin Galactic CEO George for the Virgin group, sister the repeatability of the full Whiteside said: “This company Virgin Orbit launched flight profile through the transaction represents the next a drop-test of its LauncherOne completion of two crewed step of our exciting journey. We rocket, releasing it from a spaceflights, the company believe it will offer us the Boeing 747 in mid-flight. The believes it has overcome a financial flexibility to build a test was to observe how the substantial number of the thriving commercial service rocket detached from the 747’s technical hurdles required to and invest appropriately for the wing and its freefall, prior to an make the company a viable and future.” orbital launch later this year. Galileo outage builds case for UK GNSS he bodies tasked with With access to decision through. But it must assessing the Galileo likely to be also provide defined benefits, Tpotential for denied following the not least of which is UK sovereign UK GNSS system UK’s access to the UK, controlled space capability that can’t fail to have noted the some £92m has been will strengthen national technical issues that hit committed to building resilience and provide secure Galileo over the weekend, the business case for assured PNT. with an incident relating to the UK GNSS for the But it must also demonstrate its ground infrastructure delivery of PNT the UK as a major global player interrupting navigation and services. That funding and provider of PNT services, timing services. has been approved for and boost UK prosperity by At the time of writing, service implement recovery actions. the engineering design and providing new high-tech had not yet been restored and Devices using the GSA system development phase of the opportunities in the space the European Global Navigation have switched to the US GPS project. sector, while stimulating Satellite Systems Agency (GSA) system, which will have been Following the EDDP, a innovation in sectors that utilise reported that experts were something of an embarrassment decision will be made on PNT services. working to restore the situation to the GSA itself, which had whether to proceed with a UK A UK Space Agency as soon as possible. An anomaly positioned Galileo as a robust GNSS system, but any lack of programme has been board has been set up to and reliable alternative to the reliability with Galileo would established, with support of the analyse the root cause and to Global Positioning System. presumably help in pushing that MoD, to develop the options. 2 www.spaceindustrybulletin.com Industry news Innovation loans offer a balloon marks the share of £10m funding of a new space era icro, small or medium sized enterprises can adding to theoretical studies will support a case for a Mapply for a share of carried out on the last 15 years permanent base in Shetland, £10m in funding for highly of weather data. not only launches into orbit innovative, late stage projects The technology for but also for performing near with game-changing ideas and launching a rocket from a high space operations such as concepts. Loans of between altitude balloon is an evolution testing satellite components £100,000 and £1 million are and improvement of a 1950s in conditions similar to the available per project. concept proposed by the US ones faced in orbit. Projects should develop new Navy. It takes advantage of Declaring himself satisfied products and services, or highly skipping the highest density with the test launch, Mr innovative uses of existing ones, part of the atmosphere which Canales said: “We have a large that are significantly advanced allows a more optimised amount of data to analyse, but of anything currently used. July in Brighton, Birmingham, design and a more cost- from what we know already These can come from any London, Daresbury and Sheffield effective solution to launch we can confirm that we intend technology and in any part of the where organisations can find out small and micro satellites into to set up a base here in Unst in economy, as long as they are more about the competition and low earth orbit.