 | Top Stories
Europe needs to do a better job providing capital to space startups, an investor warned. A recent study by the European Space Policy Institute found that while the number of investment deals in space companies in Europe was not far behind the United States, American companies raised several times more money. Bogdan Gogulan, CEO of Luxembourg-based private equity firm NewSpace Capital, said that makes it more difficult for European space startups to scale, forcing them to look outside Europe for growth capital. He called on Europe's largest financial asset managers and pension funds to allocate funding to the space industry. [SpaceNews]
South Korean launch startup Innospace went public Tuesday but its shares failed to lift off. In its first day of trading on the KOSDAQ exchange, shares in Innospace fell 20%. The company sold shares at 43,300 won ($31.18), raising $41.5 million. The company is developing a line of small launch vehicles that use hybrid rocket engines propelled by paraffin and liquid oxygen. Innospace has yet to attempt an orbital launch but had what it called a successful suborbital test flight in March 2023. [SpaceNews]
Orbit Fab has successfully tested a nozzle designed to enable in-space satellite refueling. The company tested its GRIP (Grapple, Reposition, and Interface Payload) nozzle at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, showing its ability to dock with a satellite equipped with the company's refueling port, called RAFTI. GRIP's active docking and fluid transfer mechanism is designed to work in tandem with RAFTI, which replaces traditional fill and drain valves on satellite propulsion systems and provides a simpler approach to satellite refueling than those that require robotic arms. The successful test comes as Orbit Fab positions itself in what appears to be a two-horse race with defense giant Northrop Grumman to capture the emerging military satellite refueling market. [SpaceNews]
Turion Space has won a Space Force contract to develop an autonomous spacecraft docking and maneuvering system. The $1.9 million contract from SpaceWERX, the Space Force's technology arm, will allow Turion to advance technologies for engaging uncooperative space objects and facilitating the deorbit of inactive satellites. A test mission scheduled for as soon as 2026 will fly one of the company's Droid satellites hosting "micro-Droid" satellites equipped with the capturing device. The micro-Droid, partly funded by NASA, will use grapplers to capture debris objects. The company has a long-term goal of removing space debris as a service, but is focused in the near term on space domain awareness applications. [SpaceNews]
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| Where Launches Are Heard, Not Seen
"The best thing to do is to keep your ears open and your eyes on the rocket, I guess, but it's Vandenberg."
– John Galloway, one of the hosts of the webcast of Firefly Aerospace's attempted launch of its Alpha rocket on a very foggy Monday night at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
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