Next-gen Commercial Space Investments Opening National Security Opportunities

“Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get.” – Forrest Gump 

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep track of all the venture-funded space startups that are building companies which could provide value for both the commercial sector and national defense. We are moving into New Space 2.0, with entrepreneurs going beyond the simple 1.0 model of lower-cost reusable launch and large distributed constellations into optimization of those concepts and building new ones. What is emerging will provide the United States with critical advantages and capabilities in the years to come. 

From the imaging world, New Space 2.0 is looking for better data and ways to use it. Albedo put its first satellite into orbit last month. Clarity-1 will operate in the extreme conditions of very low Earth orbit (VLEO), skimming the boundary between the last of our atmosphere and true space to collect 10 centimeter visual imagery and 2 meter thermal imagery, resolutions publicly associated with aircraft and rumored to be available by the most bespoke (i.e. expensive) classified orbital platforms. Albedo will be selling 10 centimeter imagery to both commercial and government customers, as well as providing data to the Air Force Research Lab on its pioneering operations in VLEO, data that will presumably influence future U.S. Space Force purchases.  

Operating in the world of VLEO is not for the faint-hearted. Satellites in the 100 to 400 kilometer zone are more acutely affected by atmospheric drag and solar flares and swim through a faint sea of corrosive atomic oxygen that erodes and degrades surfaces. To top it all off, flying lower means less time to point and image locations on the ground while factoring in increased aforementioned drag. 

A new view for satellite radar is being developed by Array Labs, taking SAR to the next level by building a constantly updated 3-D map of the Earth with a spot collection resolution of 20 centimeters at much lower cost than first-generation commercial platforms. Array’s secret sauce uses clusters of four satellites working in cooperation to image the same location from multiple angles simultaneously, an approach that promises to be faster and lower cost than aircraft LIDAR operations. Affordable high-resolution 3-D maps from orbit will benefit everyone from city planners building digital twin models and insurance companies to national security applications requiring high-levels of precision for intelligence assessment purposes.  

SpinLaunch has an interesting shift in direction with its announcement of the Meridian Space broadband constellation. Initially introduced to the world with its unique centrifuge-based launch system, SpinLaunch’s Meridian Space constellation uses a very optimized satellite design of only 70 kilograms in mass to stack 250 satellites on a single medium launcher, the same number of satellites needed for initial service. Meridian is the latest announcement in the flat pack stackable wave started by SpaceX’s Starlink hardware.  

Building the first batch of 280 satellites along with a couple of prototypes will cost 122.5 million Euros, making it significantly cheaper by far than other constellations in the broadband category. Add in the cost of a dedicated Falcon 9 launch, and SpinLaunch is in the broadband business for under $200 million with launch expected.  

While details on the ground segment and broadband services aren’t available yet, being able to put 250 useful satellites into orbit to create a broadband network in short order is something of great interest to Space Force and the U.S. military, especially with today’s watchwords of proliferated architectures and space superiority.  

Space solar power is going through one of its surges this year, with Aetherflux landing a $50 million Series A investment round this month from a group including Index Ventures, Interlagos Capital, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and NEA, plus actor Jared Leto name-dropped getting into the round. The most interesting twist here is an executive team that includes founder Baiju Bhatt coming from co-founding the Robinhood financial services company. 

Aetherflux plans a space demonstration next year and is tied into DoD’s Operational Energy Capability Improvement Fund (OECIF) to develop a proof of concept demonstrating power transmission from LEO. Space solar power can reduce reliance on fuel convoys and fixed infrastructure, especially in remote or contested regions such as in the Pacific.  

Can Aetherflux, Albedo, Array Space, and Meridian Space cross over from startups into into going concerns? Certainly the Department of Defense and
U.S. Space Force hopes that one or more of them turns out to be the Dubai chocolate in the box. 

# # #