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Tag: Rocket Lab USA Inc

  • Rocket Lab stock drops 25% after first launch failure in over two years

    Rocket Lab stock drops 25% after first launch failure in over two years

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    The company’s Electron rocket carrying the CAPSTONE mission lifts off from New Zealand on June 28, 2022.

    Rocket Lab

    Rocket Lab stock fell in premarket trading after the company suffered its first launch failure in over two years early Tuesday morning.

    The company confirmed its 41st Electron rocket launch – lifting off from New Zealand and carrying the Acadia 2 satellite for San Francisco-based Capella Space – failed about 2 minutes and 30 seconds into the flight. Rocket Lab said it has begun working with the Federal Aviation Administration on investigating the root cause of the issue, which appeared to happen around the time the rocket’s first and second stages separated.

    “We are deeply sorry to our partners Capella Space for the loss of the mission,” Rocket Lab said in a statement.

    Shares of Rocket Lab fell as much as 26% in premarket trading from its previous close at $5.04. The stock was up 34% for the year as of Monday’s close.

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    The company’s 42nd Electron mission was set to launch before the end of the third quarter. But Rocket Lab warned it will be postponed while it resolves the launch failure. As a result, Rocket Lab expects to issue revised third quarter revenue guidance. In its second quarter report, Rocket Lab forecast about $30 million of launch services revenue – the minority of its overall forecast revenue between $73 million and $77 million, as the bulk was expected to come from its space systems unit.

    Rocket Lab’s failure comes after the company built up a steady rhythm of successful launches, becoming the second-most active U.S. rocket company behind Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The Electron rocket hadn’t suffered a mission failure since May 2021, stringing together 19 successful launches in 28 months since then.

    A rocket can remain grounded for an uncertain amount of time, with the length of investigations depending upon the severity and complexity of the issue. After its previous launch failure, Rocket Lab launched its next Electron mission 70 days later.

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  • Virgin Orbit shuts down after bankruptcy sale to Rocket Lab, Stratolaunch and Vast’s Launcher

    Virgin Orbit shuts down after bankruptcy sale to Rocket Lab, Stratolaunch and Vast’s Launcher

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    The modified Boeing 747 plane, named “Cosmic Girl”, will take off from Spaceport Cornwall in southwest England.

    Hugh Hastings / Stringer / Getty Images

    Bankrupt rocket company Virgin Orbit is shutting down, after selling its facility leases and equipment to a trio of aerospace companies in an auction, the company confirmed on Tuesday.

    “As Virgin Orbit embarks on this path, the management and employees would like to extend their heartfelt gratitude to all stakeholders,” the company said in a statement.

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    “Virgin Orbit’s legacy in the space industry will forever be remembered. Its groundbreaking technologies, relentless pursuit of excellence, and unwavering commitment to advancing the frontiers of air launch have left an indelible mark on the industry,” the company added.

    Spun out of Virgin Galactic in 2017 by founder Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Orbit reached rarefied air by flying multiple missions. But difficulty raising funds, and slow execution, brought the once multi-billion dollar company to bankruptcy and ultimately shut down.

    Sold in pieces

    The rocket for the company’s second demonstration mission undergoing final assembly at its factory in Long Beach, California.

    Virgin Orbit

    Monday’s auction bids amount to about $36 million in total. Virgin Orbit’s six or so rockets that were in various stages of manufacturing assembly, and its intellectual property, have yet to be sold, a Virgin Orbit spokesperson confirmed.

    Rocket Lab successfully bid $16.1 million for the company’s headquarters in Long Beach, California, which is about 140,000 square feet, the spokesperson said. Although founded in New Zealand, Rocket Lab was already a neighbor of Virgin Orbit, with a headquarters and facilities in the Long Beach area. Additionally, Rocket Lab’s purchase includes assets such as 3D-printers and a specialty tank welding machine.

    Stratolaunch was awarded its $17 million “stalking horse” bid for Virgin Orbit’s 747 jet. A Stratolaunch spokesperson, in a statement to CNBC, said the company “continually evaluates ways to increase our capacity to meet the imperative for testing hypersonic technologies via leap-ahead flight demonstrations.”

    “We will share more news about the sale as it becomes available,” Stratolaunch noted.

    Launcher, a subsidiary of Vast Space, is purchasing the company’s facility in Mojave, California — as well as some machinery, equipment and inventory — for $2.7 million. Virgin Orbit’s Mojave leases include infrastructure such as rocket-engine test stands and an aircraft hangar.

    A liquidation company, Inliper, is purchasing the company’s office equipment for $650,000.

    Rocket Lab and Launcher did not immediately respond to CNBC requests for comment.

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    Previously in the bankruptcy process, Virgin Orbit agreed to the terms of Stratolaunch’s bid, which was to purchase the 747 jet “Cosmic Girl” and other aircraft assets. Stratolaunch has been developing its own airborne system, the world’s largest airplane called “Roc,” as a platform for hypersonic flight testing.

    Virgin Orbit filed for bankruptcy protection on April 4 after the company failed to secure a funding lifeline and laid off nearly its entire workforce. The auction outcome falls short of Virgin Orbit’s goal in the Chapter 11 bankruptcy process, which was to find a wholesale buyer that would keep the company’s assets and intellectual property intact.

    The bankruptcy court is set to approve the sales in a hearing on Wednesday at 2 p.m. ET.

    Here's what led Virgin Orbit to bankruptcy

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  • Space Force chief says U.S. is facing a ‘new era’ of threats beyond Earth

    Space Force chief says U.S. is facing a ‘new era’ of threats beyond Earth

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    US Space Force General B. Chance Saltzman, Chief of Space Operations, testifies about the Fiscal Year 2024 Budget request during a Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, March 14, 2023. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

    Saul Loeb | Afp | Getty Images

    When Gen. Chance Saltzman took the stage for his keynote at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado, this week, his message was simple: The U.S. is in a new era of space activity.

    “The threats that we face to our on-orbit capabilities from our strategic competitors has grown substantially,” Saltzman, the U.S. Space Force’s second-ever chief of space operations, said in a CNBC interview after the speech. “The congestion we’re seeing in space with tracked objects and the number of satellite payloads, and just the launches themselves, have grown at an exponential rate.”

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    “I want to make sure that we are thinking about our processes and procedures differently,” he said in an interview for CNBC’s “Manifest Space” podcast, his first broadcast interview since becoming the service’s highest-ranking military official last November.

    The message comes at a key moment as space rapidly commercializes and a heightened geopolitical backdrop increasingly sees threats extending beyond Earth to a domain for which rules of engagement remain unclear. 

    Follow and listen to CNBC’s “Manifest Space” podcast, hosted by Morgan Brennan, wherever you get your podcasts.

    Military experts say space is likely to be the front line in any future conflicts – a battlefield that could extend to the private sector and impact civilians in real time. Look no further than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an example: Recall the unprecedented cyberattack on the European communications network of U.S. satellite operator Viasat just as Russian soldiers mobilized to cross sovereign boundaries.

    Saltzman said the space-based tactics of adversaries like Russia and China run the gamut, from the communications jamming of the GPS constellation; to lasers and “dazzlers” that interfere with cameras on-orbit to prevent imagery collection; to anti-satellite missiles like the one Russia tested in late 2021.

    “We’re seeing satellites that actually can grab another satellite, grapple with it and pull it out of its operational orbit. These are all capabilities they’re demonstrating on-orbit today, and so the mix of these weapons and the pace with which they’ve been developed are very concerning,” he said.

    It speaks to why, despite a wave of fervent debate, the Space Force was briskly stood up in 2019 as the first new branch of the U.S. armed services in seven decades.

    To respond to evolving threats and secure space assets more quickly, Saltzman is looking to further augment the service’s capabilities to make satellite constellations more resilient and acquire more launch services by tapping into a burgeoning cadre of commercial space players.

    Case in point: the Space Force’s recently announced procurement strategy for more launch services. The new “dual-lane acquisition approach” is intended to create more opportunities for rocket startups to compete for national security launch contracts.

    With business to be awarded next year, the National Security Space Launch Phase 3 is estimated to run into the billions of dollars and is expected to draw bids from the likes of Rocket Lab, Relativity Space and Jeff Bezos‘ Blue Origin, among others. Phase 2 awards went to SpaceX and United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

    An expanding budget helps, too. While still just a fraction of the country’s overall defense budget, the Space Force’s $30 billion request for fiscal 2024 represents a 15% increase from this year’s enacted levels.

    “This is a team sport and none of us is going to be successful going in alone,” Saltzman said.

    “Manifest Space,” hosted by CNBC’s Morgan Brennan, focuses on the billionaires and brains behind the ever-expanding opportunities beyond our atmosphere. Brennan holds conversations with the megamoguls, industry leaders and startups in today’s satellite, space and defense industries. In “Manifest Space,” sit back, relax and prepare for liftoff.

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  • Virgin Orbit was a promising company that could never find a working business model

    Virgin Orbit was a promising company that could never find a working business model

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    Virgin Orbit started as a program of Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic in 2012, before being spun off into a separate company five years later.

    In the private space race, Virgin Orbit contended its method of launching its rockets — known as “air launch” — was more flexible than traditional launch pads used by competitors like Rocket Lab, Astra and SpaceX.

    The company employed a modified Boeing 747 jet that it called “Cosmic Girl” to carry its LauncherOne rocket to about 35,000 feet of altitude before dropping it.

    From there, the rocket would fire its engines and fly off into space.

    “By launching from an aircraft, Virgin could take off from almost any airport around the world and turn these airports into space ports,” said Caleb Henry, director of research at Quilty Analytics.

    Henry noted that the Virgin Orbit’s last launch was from the United Kingdom, and that the company was in discussions to launch in Japan and Brazil.

    “They were offering to different countries the ability to, in a sense, have a sovereign launch capability, because the rocket would take off from their home soil,” Henry said.

    But Virgin Orbit was dogged by delays. The company originally hoped to launch its debut mission in 2018, but didn’t get off the ground until May of 2020. The demonstration mission failed shortly after the rocket was released. In total, the company launched six missions, four of which were successful and two of which failed, including the last one in January.

    Virgin Orbit’s biggest deal was a 39-launch contract signed with satellite maker OneWeb in 2015. OneWeb ultimately pulled out of the deal without conducting a single launch.

    “A challenge for the company, and for any launch company, is having an anchor customer, somebody who you can depend on to routinely buy a decent number of launches,” Henry said. “Virgin Orbit did not have an anchor customer.”

    In late March, Virgin Orbit said it was laying off the majority of its workforce and ceasing operations “for the foreseeable future” after failing to secure a funding lifeline. Days later, the company filed for bankruptcy.

    Watch the video to find out more about what led to Virgin Orbit’s collapse. 

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  • Satellite imagery company BlackSky sees quarterly losses slow as it adds another military contract

    Satellite imagery company BlackSky sees quarterly losses slow as it adds another military contract

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    BlackSky at New York Stock Exchange, September 13, 2021.

    Source: NYSE

    Satellite imagery specialist BlackSky announced fourth-quarter results on Tuesday that show the company further trimming losses and securing an additional military contract.

    “2022 was a foundational year for BlackSky,” CEO Brian O’Toole said in a statement, adding that “this high level of execution has put us on a path to achieving positive adjusted EBITDA in Q4 of 2023.”

    The company has 14 operational satellites in orbit, with plans to launch two more on a Rocket Lab mission this month.

    BlackSky posted an adjusted EBITDA loss of $4.6 million for the fourth quarter, down 68% from the same period a year earlier and lower than the $6.5 million loss it reported for the third quarter. Revenue rose 69% year over year to $19.4 million.

    The company had $75 million in cash on hand at the end of the fourth quarter and announced plans to raise more funds through a sale of 16.4 million shares of common stock to “a syndicate of new and existing institutional investors.” BlackSky expects the private placement to close on Wednesday, generating about $29.5 million in gross proceeds.

    Shares of BlackSky rose about 3% in premarket trading Tuesday from its previous close of $1.93. The stock is up nearly 25% this year, but remains well below its public debut in September 2021 of nearly $11 a share.

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    BlackSky expects to approach $100 million in annual revenue in 2023, forecasting a range between $90 million and $96 million for the year ahead.

    It announced a multiyear defense contract worth over $150 million for an unnamed international government customer. Last year, BlackSky was one of three satellite imagery companies to win a piece of a major National Reconnaissance Office contract – with its award worth up to $1.02 billion over 10 years.

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