Space Business Podcast - Space in 2023 Preview

5, 4, 3, 2, 1 0. All engine running. Liftoff. We have a liftoff.

Hey space enthusiasts, it's this time of the year again. It's time for annual preview of the coming year 2023, that is. So I'll be right back after our 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 informational 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 am an alumnus of the International 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 notes. And lastly, you can follow us on Twitter odcastspaceo.

Really, it's been another year. See, that may be another reason to move to Mars, when that's a possibility. The year there has 687 days, so almost twice as long as an Earth year. Seasons are twice as long too, and you could start measuring your age in Mars years, which means, yep, you're half your age, although unfortunately you probably won't look it. But I digress. The space industry certainly managed to pack a lot into 2022. I mean, just in the last quarter we had things like the Artemis I mission, two acquisitions of large publicly traded space companies, the ESA ministerial meeting, and quite a few funding rounds among other things here. We look forward though, because the historical stuff you can all easily look up on the Internet by the way. However, if you if you thought you'd be really smooth like I try to be, and you go and just ask ChatGPT for a 2022 summary of the space sector, you'll be disappointed. ChatGPT will just tell you that its training ended in 2021 and hence no 2022 summary is possible. By the way, if you don't know yet what ChatGPT is, it's a chatbot based on OpenAI's new large language model. It's really, really impressive and it feels like it's probably one of the most important things that happened this year, period, not just in the space sector. So do go look it up and try it out. But back to space, just as last 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. And that's of course a really good thing. For example, a lot of the things I talk about happen in the US and in Europe. And let's be clear, there are exciting things happening in other places too, like China and India. Furthermore, many, many space startups will have some sort of in orbit demonstration during 2023. Whether of a new propulsion system, a new sensor, a radio or some other component or service. Those IODs, as they're called by startups and established companies, are really the lifeblood that drives the entire space sector forward. There are just too many of these going on to cover them here. And also, even though I probably know of many of these thanks to my day job as a space venture investor, there are undoubtedly many that I do not even know of. But let's all look out for them because again, those are exciting and important. End of the usual caveat. Okay, so let's start and let's start with Launch, for better or worse, the most visible part of the space sector. So in no particular order, Virgin Orbit finally got the necessary licenses to be able to launch its first mission from the UK from the New K airport in Cornwall. To be more precise, that air launch may happen as soon as in January. The Launcher one rocket will take nine satellites to space, including the first prototype of a satellite by Welsh startup spaceforge, who aim to build satellites with a re entry capability to enable in space manufacturing. It's one of my fund E2MC's portfolio companies, so I'm excited about that. Staying in the uk, the local startups Orbex and Skyrora may also try for maiden launches in 2023, but there are no dates yet. Over in Germany, both ESA Aerospace and rfa, that's rocket factory Augsburg, may try the same feat. Also no dates yet that I'm aware of. Europe is not all about new small launches though. The new European heavy rocket Ariane 6, already delayed, May also try its debut flight by the end of the year. By the way, if you're listening to those rockets and their potential launch attempts, you may experience a deja vu or I guess more Correctly, this would be a deja equite anyway since they pretty much all Featured on the 2022 preview list too. Well, we're used to delays in the space sector. It's rocket science after all. Let's continue to move eastward around the world. In India, Skyroot, another startup company who had a successful suborbital launch in November, May now try for an orbital launch in 2023. And the same is true for local launch competitor Agnicool over to Japan. The Japanese space agency JAXA plans to launch its new H3 rocket for the first time in mid February. That's a serious rocket with over 28 tons of potential payload capacity to low Earth orbit. That's more than a Falcon 9 down to Australia, where Gilmour Space may try to launch its ERIS rocket to orbit in April. And that finally gets US to the US startup ABL has already tried the first orbital launch of its RS1 rocket multiple times from Kodiak in Alaska and in November and December, but each time they experienced technical issues and the launch attempts were all scrapped. They are now scheduled to try again in early January. Relativity Space, another prominent US launch startup, the Terran 1 rocket, is already down at Kennedy Space center and may launch within weeks pending a static fire test and getting its launch license. Note that if it makes it to orbit, the Terran 1 will be the first methane fueled rocket to do so. I also like the name of that first mission. Good luck, have fun. That's the spirit. Speaking of methane fueled rockets, this is of course the mother of all methane fueled rockets and frankly the mother of all rockets period of any kind. The SpaceX Starship after successful high altitude test flights, static fires with an increasing number of Raptor engines, the regulatory launch license process hopefully progressing well. We're all waiting for the first orbital launch attempt. As I said in the preview to 2022, Starship has the potential to change everything. A successful launch of this fully reusable launch system with a payload capacity of over 100 metric tons to low earth orbit has relevance for so many other things in space. For example Starlink, the SpaceX satellite communications constellation deployment could further acc and become cheaper. Frankly, deployment of any satellite and satellite constellations could accelerate and possibly become cheaper if SpaceX opts to pass on its lower starship costs to its customers. Of course. And the expectation would be that SpaceX would eventually expand its popular rideshare program from Falcon 9 to Starship. Starship is of course also NASA's first chosen human landing system for lunar missions and Starship is also the vehicle that would take private missions around the moon, such as the Dio moon mission which we'll talk about in a minute. And lastly of course there's the relevance to potential Mars missions end is the reason why Starship exists so short of us making contact with aliens or something. I think a starship orbital launch is the most important potential space event in 2023. Okay, but we're not done yet with potential US maiden launches. Eagerly awaited is also the first launch of ULA United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket powered by blue origin BE4 engines which also use methane. Now I realize actually that I forgot to talk about China when we were over on our around the world trip in Asia and in China the company Landspace was recently tried to launch its methane fueled Chuki 2 and I'm definitely mispronouncing that rocket in December I think that was but the launch failed and 14 satellites were lost. I suspect they will try again also in 2023. So you notice we may have three methane fueled rockets going to orbit for the first time in 2023. It could be the year of methane fueled rockets forever. That's worth speaking of the Welkin rocket though one other reason that vehicle is important is because it is supposed to also take the Sierra Nevada mini space plane, the Dream Chaser on its first mission in and another human rated vehicle, Boeing Starliner, which had an uncrewed test flight already, may finally fly with astronauts on board in the first half of the year. And this all gets us to human space flight. So again, all in no particular order, jaxa, the Japanese space agency, is expected to announce its new astronaut class in February. India is expected to begin orbital test flights of its human rated Gangarian capsule. Of course there will also be more commercial crew missions carrying astronauts from various countries, including also the second one from the United Arab Emirates, Sultan Al Nayadi. But by now, of course, the space sector has moved way past only flying government astronauts. The AX2 mission, Axiom Space's second mission for paying customers, is expected to take off around May, including two astronauts from Saudi Arabia. Like AX1, it will take a crew Dragon to and from the International Space Station. We also have Polaris Dawn. Of the three flight Polaris program that Jared Isaacman, who previously financed and piloted the Inspiration4 crewed mission, is doing with SpaceX. Polaris dawn will take Isaac Man, Scott Petit, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon to the highest orbit ever for a crew Dragon and will also include extravehicular activity that is a spacewalk which would be the first commercial EVA ever on the Forgive me for saying it, more touristy end of things. We should expect continued regular suborbital flights for paying passengers on Blue Origin's New Shepard vehicle. And speaking of suborbital flights, we may also see the first flight of Virgin Galactic with paying customers as the potential king of human missions in 2023. However, we could have the Dear Moon Circumlunar. So that's an Apollo 8 style mission around the moon. However, that depends on Starship being ready for the task, and I think that's probably a stretch even if Starship successfully executes an orbital test flight early in the year. In any event, DearMoon is a really, really cool mission if you don't know what it is or you don't know much about it yet. I've just started to interview some of the selected crew, which was recently announced at the beginning of December or on this very podcast you can look up the first episode. In any event, this brings us to the Moon and in the 2022 preview I mentioned that the moon could be one of the big space teams for 2022. That partly became true, with NASA pulling off its Artemis 1 uncrewed circumlunar mission and the Japanese company ispace launching its lunar lander in December. But a lot of other missions were delayed and reappear in this preview. So, as I said, I Space's mission did take off and the Hakuto R lander is currently en route to the moon where it is expected to attempt to land by the end of April. If it does so, I Space would become the first commercial mission to land on the moon, something that so far only the governments of the United States, Soviet Union and China have accomplished. Once it lands, we can look forward to some rovers being deployed, specifically the United Arab Emirates Rasheed rover and also a Japanese ball shaped rover which will open up and uses extended half spheres as wheels. It's like a Transformer or a Bakugan for adult space nerds. If you have small kids, you know what I'm talking about. Russia will try to continue the lunar tradition of the Soviet union with the Luna 25 mission that had also already been on the 2022 list. By the way, India will try to go to the moon again following its Chandrayaan 2 mission, which failed in the lunar descent phase in 2019. Chandrayaan 3, again including a lander and a rover, is expected to launch during the summer. And if it manages to soft land as opposed to the hard landing when it last tried India would hence become only the fourth country to do so on the moon. There are further private moon missions planned. For example, the Astrobotic Peregrine Lander is expected to launch on the maiden flight of the Vulcan rocket, which is yet another reason why the Vulcan rocket is important. And The Intuitive Machines IAM1 mission is also supposed to launch in 2023. Okay, let's talk about science exploration missions beyond the moon. In April, esa, the European Space Agency is set to launch the Jupiter Icy Mo Explorer or juice, we love acronyms in space mission. That probe will go to, you guessed it, Jupiter's icy moons Callisto, Europa and Ganymede in May. Very exciting. Rocket Lab, a private space company will hopefully launch a mission to Venus Osiris Rex, which as you may remember is a mission that touched down on asteroid Bennu and collected samples of that asteroid will return to Earth in late September with those samples and people will be very excited to analyze those. In October we'll hopefully have the launch of another Leftover from the 2022 preview, the NASA's delayed Psyche mission to the metallic asteroid named Psyche. And I'm sure the James Webb Space Telescope will continue to wow us with amazing images throughout the year. Quickly on satellite communications, SpaceX's Starlink will surely continue to grow and as I mentioned already with a working starship and its payload capacity, the Constellation deployment could further accelerate, including for its bigger second generation satellites. Now a Starlink competitor, Amazon's K expected to deploy its very two first prototype satellites on the Vulcan maiden launch. So Vulcan again on Earth observation I think we will continue to see the trends of countries and even large companies buying satellites and constellations and ESA is expected to launch its Sentinel 1C earth observation satellite in the summer, but it's supposed to be carried on top of a Vega C rocket which just failed. So we'll see what happens with that. Lastly, I also expect a lot to happen with companies active in orbital services, but like I said in the caveat in the beginning, we can't talk about everything here. Let's also briefly talk about finance as we always do now. We are now nine months or so into the financial market and including the funding environment having become really tough and given typical Runway lengths at pre profit companies like space startups. This means that any company which needs to but has not yet secured or follow on funding round probably by now will really feel the clock ticking. Combine this with some previously high valuations and I think we can expect to see down rounds including at some prominent companies and maybe we'll even see some companies going out of business. We will likely also see further consolidation. Let me be clear though, speaking in my main role as a space investor for a minute, I am actually more excited about the space sector as ever. Why is that? Now the macro drivers like cost declines or all continue to be in place and it could further improve. For example, with Starship coming online, governments around the world continue to be very supportive of the space sector, and arguably increasingly so as geopolitics have really driven home the strategic importance of space. And lastly, let me remind you that some of the greatest companies we have right now in general, not just in space, were built by resilient, motivated entrepreneurs during tough times like the dot com bust or the great financial crisis. But okay, let me finish up by mentioning a few events that I'm excited about and I could not fit in anywhere else in this episode yet. The eagerly awaited Saudi Space strategy should hopefully be announced this year. The annual International astronautical Congress, or IAC, returns to Baku, Azerbaijan this year after 50 years in early October. And lastly, my space alma mater, the International Space University, or isu, will hold its flagship space studies program in San Jose dos Campos, Brazil from June to August. And especially if you are someone thinking about switching your career into the space sector, check it out. It's open for applications now, and like last year, education and outreach is the topic I want to end this preview on. Because if we want to grow the space sector to trillions of dollars and more importantly, realize all its positive impact potential, we need to educate and evangelize about space as much as possible. Now, I'm proud to say I've been blessed to work together with other people who share this vision, and we were able to launch or advance several such education projects in 2022 and have more coming in 2023. First, in March 2022 we launched the New Space Economy online course on EDX together with the Swiss Institute of Technology Lausanne or EPFL, one of the world's top technical universities. That course has already had over 1,500 students. There's an audit track and a certificate track and you can find a link in the episode Note. Second, the same team behind that course just soft launched something called the Space Business Certificate, which is a certificate you are awarded upon passing a standardized online test which tests for your basic knowledge about the space economy and the space sector in general. It is meant to help people from outside the space sector transition into the space sector by providing a credible qualification that people can study for on their own time. The link to the certificate is also in the episode notes, but also do a short episode about it soon. Third, a new course specifically on space investing is also ready and will come out very soon. Stay tuned. Last but certainly not least, this podcast will also continue strong. Of course, we had 32 episodes in 2022, including lots of prominent space entrepreneurs, but also other really cool guests like for example, astronaut Chris Hadfield from Canada, Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, or renowned macroeconomist Pippa Mulgram. We now reach thousands of listeners in over 100 countries. One thing I'm currently really excited about is interviewing the crew of the Dearmoon mission. The first episode is already released. Go check it out. And that's the end of this short 2023 preview. I wish you all the best for what promises to be a really exciting year.

And that's a wrap for another nominal episode of the Space Business Podcast. Once more, if you enjoyed this, please leave us a five star rating on your favorite podcast platform such as Apple or Spotify. You can follow us on Twitter odcastspace. You can support us at www.patreon.com spacebusinesspodcast. Lastly, if you have any feedback including ideas for guests and that may include yourself. If you have an interesting space story to tell or interested in being a sponsor, drop us an email@sparebusinesspodcastmail.com See you for the next episode.