Overview: Going for Silver in Earth Vaulting

I was struck while watching the Olympics earlier this month by how often competitions weren't about getting first, but instead were equally as thrilling for those who earned a medal of any color — whether it was a first-time athlete getting to step on the podium or a former world champion veteran at the twilight of their career.

That’s especially true when the gold medal winner feels like a foregone conclusion. My broadcast colleagues at NBC would turn from discussing the dominant favorite in the event to the more exciting part of the competition: Who’s getting silver?

At risk of stretching analogies, that question also feels appropriate for the U.S. rocket launch market at the moment. There isn’t a clear No. 2.

Remember when we discussed how a dark horse could emerge from the bidding for United Launch Alliance (ULA) ? Well, last week Sierra Space became that dark horse, reportedly entering the bidding to buy ULA from Boeing and Lockheed Martin . As a reminder, it’s now been 18 months since this sale process kicked off and it had seemed to be near a conclusion in the spring before things quieted down again.

Building and launching rockets isn’t necessarily the most lucrative business on its own but – as we’ve seen with SpaceX and Rocket Lab , the current two most active U.S. companies – having regular access to orbit opens up larger markets. But, given the difference in scale and cadence between Falcon 9 and Electron, Rocket Lab’s mass-to-orbit total is going to be a fraction of SpaceX’s this year, even if it pulls off the top end of its forecast for 18 Electron missions in 2024. The same goes for ULA, which is currently at three launches completed and aiming for as many as eight by year end.

Just to summarize who I see as the Team USA contenders for the silver medal in Earth vaulting: ULA and its Vulcan rocket, Blue Origin and its New Glenn rocket, Rocket Lab with its Neutron rocket, Relativity Space with its Terran R rocket, and Firefly Aerospace with its MLV rocket. (More on how all these rockets compare head-to-head here.)

Only one of those five rockets has launched so far: Vulcan. Only one of those five rockets rivals SpaceX’s backlog of national security and commercial contracts: Vulcan. And ULA CEO Tory Bruno is trying to accelerate, forecasting as many as 20 launches next year. That would blow its previous historical launch rate out of the water

I get why Sierra Space makes hypothetical sense as ULA’s new owner. After all, the company is already working on a bunch of stuff that goes on top of big orbital rockets. That includes Sierra’s reusable spaceplane, which stepped aside so ULA can launch its second Vulcan mission empty ASAP.?

Yet is Sierra able to pony up, say, a minimum $3 billion in cash, to buy ULA??

So far, it doesn’t seem like any of the apparent suitors (and others likely keeping tabs on the negotiations) are willing to meet Boeing and Lockheed’s asking price. Doing so, at least for Sierra, almost certainly means having an outside backer to fund the deal. The purchase of ULA would probably be about double the total funding Sierra’s raised since it was stood up by aerospace contractor Sierra Nevada Corporation in April 2021.

I have other questions too, like whether this is a negotiating tactic to get some pricing pressure on others, such as Blue Origin. But the biggest question for me, and I think for many others in the space industry, remains whether ULA under a single owner could become more than just one of several vying for silver — and instead rival the perennial gold medalist.

Disclosure: CNBC parent NBCUniversal owns NBC Sports and NBC Olympics. NBC Olympics is the U.S. broadcast rights holder to all Summer and Winter Games through 2032.

Note: Investing in Space will be on hiatus for two weeks, so look for the next edition on Sept. 12!

WHAT'S UP

• German rocket builder RFA loses booster after engine testing explosion, in a setback as the company prepared for the first launch attempt of its ONE rocket. The company said it was able to save its launch pad and there were no injuries. – BBC
• NASA discloses there is ‘still a lot of work to do’ on its Orion heat shield investigation, a crucial process that the agency must complete ahead of the first crewed Artemis mission. – Ars Technica
• Blue Origin damaged future pieces of its New Glenn rocket: Reportedly, a part of an upper section intended for the vehicle’s second launch crumpled while in transit due to improper pressure monitoring, and another section for its third flight failed during stress testing. The incidents come as the company pushes to make the launch window for New Glenn’s first scheduled mission, carrying NASA’s ESCAPADE spacecraft. – Bloomberg
• SpaceX adds second launch tower in Texas, as the company expands its Starship manufacturing and launch facility. – SpaceX
• Doritos are going to space on the Polaris Dawn mission, through a partnership with the PepsiCo Foods brand that created new “Cool Ranch” flavored corn chips the astronauts will eat during the flight. – Space.com

INDUSTRY MANEUVERS

• SDA awards York and Terran Orbital with prototype contracts worth $424 million total, to build and operate 20 T2TL-Gamma variant satellites. The contracts are worth $170 million to York and $254 million to Terran. – SDA
• Asteroid mining startup AstroForge raised $40 million, in a round led by Nova Threshold and joined by 776, Initialized, Caladan, YC, Uncorrelated Ventures and Jed McCaleb. The company is racing to complete work on its next spacecraft in time to launch on Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 mission. – SpaceNews
• Next-generation satellite navigation startup TrustPoint wins pair of SpaceWERX contracts, a combined value of nearly $4 million from the innovation arm of the Space Force to demonstrate an advanced position, navigation and timing security application. – TrustPoint
• Axiom signs partnership with Nokia for spacesuit communication tech, saying the agreement will add advanced 4G/LTE communication capabilities into the company’s AxEMU spacesuits that will be used for the Artemis III lunar mission. – Axiom

MARKET MOVERS

• Mynaric stock slashed by more than half: Shares tanked after the space lasers company announced heavy cuts to its previous revenue forecast and the departure of the company’s chief financial officer. Mynaric slashed its 2024 revenue guidance nearly 70% at the midpoint, a forecast it had stated as recently as two months prior. – CNBC
• Swiss satellite operator Astrocast delists from stock exchange, in a move CEO Fabien Jordan said was necessary due to the difficulty of accessing “sorely needed capital” to expand its Internet-of-Things satellite constellation. The company had gone public in August 2021 through a direct listing on Oslo’s Euronext Growth Exchange. – Jordan

BOLDLY GOING

• Robyn Gatens named NASA’s acting Director of Commercial Spaceflight, stepping into the role previously held by Phil McAlister, who is now a senior advisor to the agency. Gatens noted that her position is in addition to her current main role as director of NASA’s International Space Station division. – Gatens
• Vincent O'Neill named Iridium CFO to replace the retiring Thomas Fitzpatrick, who will continue to serve on the satellite communication company’s board, effective at the beginning of the new year. O’Neil is currently Iridium’s senior vice president of finance. – Iridium
• Roger Baird selected as associate director of NASA’s Marshall? in Hunstville, Alabama, having previously served as the lead for the center’s engineering directorate for four years. Marshall has an annual budget of about $5 billion and around 7,000 employees. – NASA

ON THE HORIZON

• Aug. 23: SpaceX Falcon 9 launches Starlink satellites?from California.
• Aug. 27: SpaceX Falcon 9 launches Polaris Dawn crew mission?from Florida.
• Aug. 28: SpaceX Falcon 9 launches Starlink satellites?from Florida.