Thriving Space Business Environment
June 28, 2021 – Space has always been big business and if the number of companies and successes are any indication, the industry seems to be on a verge of a new age. Many of the players are already household names, but the opportunities are bringing lessor known companies into prominence.
Wall Street is always the harbinger of business trends and the names of companies going public give an idea of the types of space-related companies to watch in the future. Under the heading of “special-purpose acquisition companies”, or SPACs, you will find small satellite lifters Rocket Lab and Astra. In the vernacular of the stock market, their shell companies currently trade under HOL and VACQ, respectively, but will change to ASTR and RKLB after their mergers are complete. Other names include Redwire Space, a hardware provider for projects like the newly deployed rollout solar arrays in the International Space Station, and the better known Virgin Galactic, a space tourism pioneer which went public in 2019.
It seems that there are always a few corporations in the space industry whose efforts are in the public eye. Here’s a quick look at a few of the current leaders.
SpaceX has kept up a launch schedule that has impressed veterans who may have thought the frequency ambitious. The Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon vehicle returned American astronauts to space from U.S. soil for the first time since the retirement of the space shuttle, while the company has put hundreds of satellites into orbit, which includes the array for the company’s satellite internet service. The next big push is for Starship, a system designed to land dozens or even hundreds of people on Mars.
Jeff Bezos not only owns Blue Origin, he’s a customer. He will become an astronaut during the company’s first crewed flight on July 20 on board a New Shepard rocket. The company is also working of a heavy-lift rocket called New Glenn that is as large as the Saturn V that took men to the moon. Slated to fly in late 2022, New Glenn will be capable of taking crews to Earth orbit, the moon and to other planets.
In an effort to reduce the cost of components, Relativity Space is aiming to create first fully 3D print rockets using metal printers that are the largest in the world. The Terran 1 rocket will be built (or printed) near Los Angeles before being trucked to Cape Canaveral for launch from a renovated Launch Complex 16. The company is also working on the Terran R, to compete with SpaceX’s Falcon 9, which has similar size and lifting capability.
A long-time member of the space industry, United Launch Alliance in a joint venture with Boeing and Lockheed Martin, continue a long string of successes with Atlas V and Delta IV Heavy rockets. These venerable systems are being phased out, with the Vulcan Centaur coming on board as the medium-to-heavy lift workhorse. The Vulcan team expects to be in the air sometime in 2022.
Science fiction nerds who remember a certain show with the same name love that a real space vehicle has the Firefly name behind it. Firefly Aerospace has moved into Launch Complex 20 at Cape Canaveral where the 95-foot Alpha rocket could have a demo launch by summer 2021. NASA has picked Firefly for the Artemis moon program, to produce a lander for scientific payloads.
With so much going on, it’s an exciting time to live on the Space Coast. And the next generation of space explorers need look no further than Viera for a great place to start.
Source: Florida Today