2024 in Space - Preview

5, 4, 3, 2, 1 0. All engine running. Liftoff. We have a liftoff. Hey space enthusiasts, it's time for our annual preview episode. So that's the preview of what might happen in the space sector in 2024, and I'll be right back after the usual messages. My name is Raphael Rodkin and I'm an investor and advisor to space companies. Just as a reminder, this podcast is for information purposes only and nothing should be taken as investment advice. This podcast is sponsored by nanoavionics, a satellite manufacturer and mission integrator. Their technologies enable many space companies worldwide to offer services that improve life right here on Earth, such as providing global connectivity, conducting Earth observation, or contributing to scientific discoveries. Check them out. And also check out my episode with the CEO and co founder. Sadly, I am not a rocket scientist, but I'm an alumnus of the Space University. ISU offers a number of educational programs about space worldwide. Check them out@isunet.edu. and just some final things before we start the episode about ourselves. If you enjoy the podcast, please leave us a five star rating on your favorite podcast platforms such as Apple or Spotify. If you want us help expand our work, you can do so and Support us at www.patreon.com spacebusinesspodcast and we'll also put that link in the episode not. And lastly you can follow us on Twitter odcastspace. So another year is around the corner. 2024 or if you prefer, maybe year two of the Starship age. As you know, we do not engage in review here as you can easily do that by yourself, either the traditional way that is reading one of the many reviews out there, or googling or the more modern way which is by asking your favorite AI large language model. Anyway, before we get to the preview rather than review just as every year, a quick caveat to start, we will not we cannot cover everything here. There's just too much going on in space at this point, which is of course a good thing. End of caveat. So let's run through our annual preview by major categories as usual, but also in no particular order. We'll start with launch or rockets. I feel like I could take a good part of the launch section from the 2023 preview and frankly some of the 2022 preview and relabel it 2024 because of delays. But hey, as they say, space is hard. So yes, a number of the new commercial launch companies may try for their first orbital test flights in 2020. For now, so in Europe we have ESA Aerospace from Germany with its Spectrum rocket launching from the beautiful Andoria launch site in Norway. Also from Germany, we have RFA rocket factory Augsburg, and they're launching from, I'd argue, the equally beautiful Saxavoort spaceport in the Shetland Islands. They're targeting summer 2024 for the maiden launch of their RFA1 rocket. Also pretending to launch from the same spaceport Saxoport, is the UK's Skyrora with its XL rocket. And also from the UK we have Orbex. And they may try to launch their prime rocket, which is supposed to take place from the Sutherland spaceport in northern Scotland. Before we go on to even more rockets that may see their maiden launch in 2024, let's open a bracket here. Have you perceived that just the four launch companies we have mentioned so far are all pretending to launch from new spaceports which have not had any orbital launches yet, Namely Andoria, Norway, Sutherland in mainland Scotland and Saxefort in the Shetland Islands. So not only May 2024 bring us maiden flights of rockets, but also the inauguration, so to say, of new spaceports. Close brackets on spaceports and back to rockets. So the other maiden flight of a European rocket that we will hopefully see is of course the Ariane 6, now slated for sometime between mid June and end of July from Kourou in French Guyana, delayed from an original launch date in 2020. This is of course an important vehicle as besides the Vigor rocket. And absent any successful launches by one or more of the commercial small launches that we just talked about, the Ariane is Europe's main means of access to space now that its predecessor, the Ariane 5 has been retired. But things are not only happening in Europe. So in India, Agni Cool may launch its Agniwan rocket. And the same is true for Skyroot with its Vikram one. In Australia, we have Gilmour Space and its Eris rocket. Eris is interesting because it's what's called a hybrid rocket. It's a mix of liquid and solid propellant. And another hybrid rocket is Korean Inner Space's Hunbit, which already successfully launched as a sub orbital version from Brazil's Alcantara Launch Center. We may see an orbital launch attempt in 2024 while we're in Asia. In Japan, you may remember the H3 rocket developed by JAXA, the Japanese space agency, and Mitsubishi Heavy industries. From the 2023 preview, the H3 initial launch attempt did happen in March 2023, but it failed. A second attempt is now supposed to take place no earlier than February 2024. And on of course to the US and we will hopefully finally and very soon, namely for now on January 8th see the first flight of the ULA Vulcan. And the Vulcan is a heavy lift vehicle that comes in various configurations, basically varying the number of solid rocket boosters with a payload to low Earth orbit or leo of between 10 and 27 metric tons. Vulcan's maiden flight is also important and we'll talk about this as it will carry Astrobotic's peregrine Lunar Land ABL, a US launch startup that you may remember from the 2023 preview. They had an unsuccessful test flight in January 2023 and they now have the second rocket in an upgraded block 2 version ready and we may see a second test flight very soon. On the small launcher side of things in the US it will also be interesting to accompany further flights by Firefly. While its Alpha rocket had a stunning success, I'd say with its rapid response Victus nox mission in September 23rd. A couple of other missions, including the most recent one just a few days ago, were not nominal in that they had at least partial failures. But pulling off regular nominal launches is of course critical for customer confidence and investor confidence. Astra and Virgin Orbit can tell you all about that. And speaking of Astra, the small launch that went public virus back merger at A valuation of $2.1 billion is currently valued at around $30 million market cap and its future is uncertain. 2024 should bring us more certainty one way or the other. That is likely either by a going concern sale or bank and the covering up similar to what happened at Virgin Orbit. But back to bigger rockets in the US rocket labs. Neutron may be ready for launch in 2024, but probably everything has to go absolutely right to have a shot at that timetable. Neutron is Rocket Lab's medium lift vehicle with 13 metric tons of payload capacity to low Earth orbit and hence a clear competitor to SpaceX's Falcon 9. It is partially reusable and runs on methane and liquid oxygen. Another commercial bigger rocket, Relativity's Terran R is not scheduled to launch until 2026, but it'll be interesting to keep accompanying any development progress there. And then there is of course Blue Origin's New Glenn and you can easily find pictures on the Internet of big parts of it moving around the Cape Canaveral facility. It may finally launch, providing Blue origin with its first flight to orbit in 2024. Now new Glenn is interesting to me. It's another large rocket, 45 metric tons to lower orbit and yes, Blue Origin can use it for example to deploy satellites of the Kuiper satellite communications constellations of that other small Jeff Bezos company Amazon. But New Glenn and its large payload capacity also opens up the possibility of rideshare missions just like SpaceX is conducting. And what makes that even more interesting in Blue Origin's case is the fact that they also have Blue Ring, an orbital transfer vehicle. So this could open up significant additional capabilities and capacity for people who need to put stuff into orbit. That's the positive part for the space sector. On the other hand, what made that do to small launches? It'll be interesting to watch. New Glenn's maiden launch in any event is also interesting as it's supposed to carry NASA's escapade and that is the escape and plasma acceleration and Dynamics Explorers mission, which is a couple of scientific small sats going to Mars. It's a pretty ambitious mission for a maiden launch. Jeff Bezos commented on a recent podcast that he thinks 2024 and a new gland launch with escapade is at least theoretically still feasible. And last, not least, the 800 pound gorilla in the launch vehicle suit. The SpaceX starship. Of course I said last year in the preview that a Starship orbital test flight would be the biggest space event of 2023. As most of you will know, we had big two Starship test flights in 2023 with I'd argue a lot of progress between the two, but also a lot of things left to be done such as bringing the Starship back to Earth intact. Given Starship's enormous importance as a future driver of the space economy with its huge 100 metric ton plus capability to low Earth orbit is expected very low cost. Also its role in the NASA Artemis program. I do not see how Starship test flights would not be the most important thing to watch in the space sector in 2024 too. If you disagree, I'm very to hear your choice or choices. Actually, I have heard your choices and we'll come back to that at the end of this episode onto spacecraft. And we already mentioned the maiden launch of the Vulcan rocket above. Another reason the Vulcan is important is that on its second flight it's supposed to take the Sierra Space Dream Chaser, that's Sierra's mini space plane on its first mission. The Dream Chaser can be used to resupply the International Space Station, but it could also be used for example for in space experimentation and manufacturing. Boeing's Starliner Capsul may finally launch with astronauts on board with a current no earlier than launch date of March 2024, the plan is to take two astronauts to the ISS on that mission and that gets us to human spaceflight. So speaking of starliner, NASA commercial crew missions will obviously continue with Crew 8 and Crew 9 expected during 2024 and we will watch for continued progress on the preparations for India's Gangayan crew program, albeit there will not be any crew launches in 2024 yet. Axiom Space's AX3 mission to the International Space Station is expected to launch no earlier than 17th of January and besides mission Commander Michael Lopez Alequia will carry astronauts from Italy, Sweden and Turkey. Axiom 4 may also still happen in 2024. So we're now crossing over from government to private missions. And on the private side we have the Polaris dawn of the three flight Polaris program that Jared Isaac man who financed and piloted the Inspiration4 crewed mission is carrying out with SpaceX and Polaris dawn will take Isaac Mann, Scott, Poteet, Seragillas and Anaminon to the highest orbit ever for a crew Dragon and will also include EVA or extravagant activity or more colloquially known as a spacewalk, which could be the first commercial spacewalk ever. The current date is no earlier than April 2024 for Polaris dawn suborbital flights. Both Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are expected to continue flying private paying customers and next up is supposed to be Galactic 6 on 26 January 2024. Lastly, with my fund being a shareholder, I'm excited about the first test flight of Space Perspective Capsule. And as you may remember, Space Perspective is a Florida based company that is developing a stratospheric balloon and capsule system that can take eight passengers up to around 120,000ft altitude. They will have a magnificent view of Earth onto lunar things. The Moon. The Moon will be a big focus in 2024 if all goes well to some extent. Continuing the exciting developments in 2023 when India became only the fourth country to successfully soft land on the lunar surface with its Chandrayaan 3 mission for 2024. Again, if all goes well, we will have the maiden launch of the Vulcan rocket which will carry Astrobotics Peregrine Lunar lander which is expected to make a landing attempt on the moon on 23 February. Another private lunar spacecraft and lander, Intuitive Machines Nova C is now expected to launch in mid February. Because Intuitive Machines is taking a more direct, faster trajectory to the moon than Astrobotics Peregrine, it means we could actually end up seeing two lunar landing attempts with within days of each other. It's like a race to the moon all over again. And both Intuitive Machines and Astrobotic are planning on further lunar missions in 2024. If all goes well, possibly hopefully landing on the moon before both of these could be jaxs. The Japanese space agency's slim, and that stands for Smart Lander for investigating the Moon. Makes sense. And they're scheduled to make an attempt to soft land on the moon on 19 January. Slim had already launched in September of 2023. Staying in Japan, we have the private lunar company ispace, which had a failed moon landing attempt in April 23, and they may try again by December 2024. China also wants to go back to the moon with its Shanji 6 mission, possibly launching in May. And they want to return samples from the far side of the moon back to the U.S. another private company we already mentioned, Firefly, intends to launch its Blue Ghost Mission 1 in the second half of 2024. And by the way, all of these various lunar landers we mentioned carry a range of very interesting payloads and we don't have the time to go into detail on those payloads here, but you can easily look them up online. You can check out the manifestos. And then of course, there is Artemis 2, the second mission of the Artemis program. Artemis 2 is a crewed circumlunar flight, that is they're not touching down on the lunar surface. If you remember the Apollo missions in detail, think about Apollo 8. Four astronauts will be on board the Orion capsule. Reed Wiseman as a commander, Victor Glover as a pilot, Christina Koch as a mission specialist, and astronaut Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency. Needless to say, this will take humans the farthest away from Earth since the days of Apollo. Exactly how far away will depend on where the moon is when Artemis 2 gets there. But 400,000km is a good approximation. To put this into context, the ISS International Space Station is only a little over 400 km above the Earth. Earth's surface. And the farthest point of the mission will be above the far side on the moon, where the mission plan currently calls for an altitude of 7,400 km above the lunar surface. And the crew may or may not end up breaking the record for the longest distance humans have traveled from Earth ever. This is currently held by Apollo 13 Artemis 2 may launch in November 2024. But I would not be surprised if that slips into 2025. This is about as high profile and visible emission there is. Everything needs to be in place and no undue risks will be taken. Onto science and we already mentioned NASA's Escapade Mission to Mars above, which will study Mars magnetosphere. NASA and the Indian space agency ISRO will jointly launch the NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar NISA mission which is as the name implies, a SAR satellite for Earth observation. ISRO itself will launch a range of scientific missions including for example the Oceansat 3A and Oceanography Satellite. NASA will launch the Europa Clipper to study Jupiter's moon Europa. This is scheduled for October and Japan will launch the MMX Martian Moons exploration mission to study, well, the Martian moons, scheduled to launch in September 2024. In the 2023 preview we had already mentioned Rocket Lab's private Venus mission, the Venus Life Finder which will explore the Venusian atmosphere. It currently has a no earlier than Launch date of 30th of December 2024. ESA, the European Space Agency has of spacecraft already in space but that will conduct interesting flybys in 2024 BepiColombo over Mercury and here I will fly by the Didymos asteroid. And yes, if you remember that is the one where NASA smashed its DART spacecraft into its moonlet Dimorphous in a test mission for asteroid redirection. So hopefully we will get data on the aftermath outcome of dart. There are probably a few other things I'm forgetting on the science side, but while we are talking about government space agencies, let's talk briefly about a few things to watch on the government side of things. First, the Saudi space strategy has been eagerly awaited for some time now. Will it finally be announced in 2024? I hope so. Second, regulations. We will watch anything on the regulatory side too, whether that is climate related regulations that may help some Earth observation business models or space debris regulations which may drive the space situational awareness subsector. Third, there'll be elections in the United States and these are obviously extremely important for many reasons, but the let's call it space friendliness of any candidates is something we'll watch. And of course I'd say this, but I don't think any candidate in the current world and geopolitical scenario can afford not to be space friendly. But enough about governments and onto satellite communications. And SpaceX's Starlink will surely continue to grow and with a working starship and its payload capacity, the Constellation deployment could further accelerate, including for the bigger second generation Starlink satellites. Amazon's project Kuiper may begin its Constellation deployment in earnest. We'll see in Europe bids for the European Union's proposed multi orbit Secure Communication Constellations, Iris Squared are due in mid February and we'll watch how that process is evolving and we will also watch with great interest how the so called D2D and this is direct to device market will evolve. This is where you can connect cell phones and other devices directly to satellites onto Earth observation. Will we continue to see the trends of countries and large companies buying satellites, Earth observation satellites and constellations? I suspect yes. I'm curious also to see what will happen on the downstream side. I personally think we are only scratching the surface on downstream EO applications for non national security use cases anyway. So will there be more downstream of space we see? I certainly hope so and I think the evolution, the very exciting evolution of artificial intelligence is obviously also a driver here. May there be consolidation likely too onto osam, which stands for On Orbit Servicing, assembly and Manufacturing. So as you regular listeners know, I'm a big fan of in space manufacturing, so I will be watching. For example, what will happen to Varda Spaces spacecraft that's already in orbit but for now has not been able to come back for regulatory reasons. Their spacecraft, its payload was conducting protein crystallization for drugs and it'll be interesting to see whether that worked. If the spacecraft does come back and we can analyze the results, there will also be the second launch attempt of Avada competitor Space Forge from the uk. Their initial Forgest Zero prototype met an untimely end as it was a payload on Virgin Orbit's failed UK launch in early 2023. In 2024, SpaceWatch will try again with a materially upgraded prototype and I'm curious to see whether we will start seeing more startups emerging that focus on being the experts for specific in space manufacturing use cases rather than building the platforms for in space manufacturing. Of the latter, the platforms I now optimistically think we have enough projects in the pipeline on such use cases. If you're interested, check out the recent podcast episode on semiconductor manufacturing in microgravity. Also within osam, there's supposed to be the launch of a demonstration mission for the Air Force Research Lab AFRL by Inspace Refueling Startup Orbit Fab. Let's talk about finance and funding as we always do, and notwithstanding the very tough continuing fundraising environment, we saw some very large rounds in 2023, like for example $350 million for Axiom Space, $290 million for Sierra Space, and that's $65 million for ESA Aerospace in Europe, a very significant round for Europe, and $100 million for tour anomaly in the US. And these are just some examples. And just now during the holiday period. We also had 44 million for the Japanese Earth observation and satellite company Axel Space, and this bodes well to continue in 2024, especially as companies continue to execute and race against hitting milestones and there's actually a reasonable amount of capital available on the sidelines. On the other hand, I do expect a lot of companies to die along the way, especially those that raised the first round during the bull market, are now running low on cash and are not able to raise the next round. The public markets, that's the stock markets, may well continue difficult for space companies as the market still has a sour taste from the failed SPAC mergers. Speaking of the SPACs, we will watch for any further delistings of SPAC companies. For example, right now satellite manufacturing Terran Orbital is only trading slightly above the $1 limit share price. We will also watch whether anyone dares to engage in new SPAC mergers and how they specifically whether there is so called pipe investment money around in meaningful amounts. And that includes the recently announced discussions between Satcom Direct to Device operator Link and ASPEC led by Alex A. Rod Rodriguez. But despite all the seeming gloom, watch for any sign of a Starlink ipo. The latter is not only important from a sentiment perspective, and let's be clear, it very much is. It's also important as a successful Starlink IPO would provide SpaceX investors with liquidity that they can, if they so choose, used to invest in other space assets, if only to diversify. A little consolidation or M and A activity is also likely to continue. And just in December we had Hawkeye buying the Aurora assets and we had a YASAT merger. We may well see further opportunistic deals as strategic imperatives meet potentially attractive valuations. Satellite communications consolidation may also continue as companies look to defend themselves against Starlink, and we will watch who will end up buying ULA in the us. Lastly, let me repeat something from last year as it still holds true. I think speaking of my main role as a space investor, I'm more excited about the space sector as ever. The macro drivers, cost declines all continue to be in place and could further improve with Starship coming online. Governments continue to be by and large supportive of the space sector and arguably increasingly so due to geopolitics. And lastly, let me remind you that some of the greatest companies in any industry we have right now were built by resilient, truly motivated entrepreneurs during tough times like we have right now and like we had during the dot com bust or the great financial crisis. As always, none of this is investment advice. Let me finish up by mentioning a few events I'm excited about. And of course we will also have all the big usual events like satellite in D.C. in March, space symposium in Colorado Springs and smallsat and others. IAC, the International Astronautical Congress will return to Europe to Milan, and I suspect this will be a very popular addition and it will be packed. And isu, the International Space University will hold its popular ssp, the Space Studies Program over the summer in Houston at Johnson Space Center. But it's not too late to apply and that brings me to education. I usually end up on education as it's very dear to my heart. So just as a reminder, my online courses are still out there, namely the EDX, EPFL New Space Economy Course on EDX and Space Entrepreneurship 101 on Udemy. Both have thousands of students by now. There'll be a new online course out in January, so stay tuned and this podcast of course will continue. Please tell a friend. And lastly, to really finish off this preview episode, I asked you via a LinkedIn poll what you think the most exciting space events in 2024 are. And LinkedIn polls only allow four options. So I asked you to choose between 1. Starship test flights, 2. New rocket launches, maiden launches, 3. Lunar things and four anything else where you could put your proposals in the comment section and 213 people voted and here are the results. Luna won with 48% of the world, followed by Starship test flights with 35% and then Rocket Maiden launches with 11%. 5% chose something else and their comments included on orbit manufacturing and satellite servicing as well as a bunch of people saying well, all of the above. Which is fair enough. And that is really the end of this short 2024 preview. I wish you all the best for what promised to be in an exciting year. Well, that's it for another nominal episode of the Space Business Podcast. If you like this podcast, please consider giving it a five star rating on your favorite podcast platform such as itunes. You can follow us on Twitter @podcastspace. Also consider supporting us at www.patreon. spacebusinesspodcast if the podcast got you interested in learning more about the business opportunities in the space economy, check out my new online course on space entrepreneurship on udemy.com the link is in the episode description. Lastly, if you have any feedback including ideas for guests and that may include yourself. If you have an exciting space story to tell or interested in being a sponsor, drop us an email@sparebusinesspodcastmail.com I look forward to seeing you for the next episode.