Investment In Start-Up Space Companies Grew To Record Levels In 2018
The Bryce Start-Up Space Report on investment in start-up space ventures in 2018 shows the rapidly growing interest in start-up space companies. According to Bryce, since 2000, start-up space ventures have attracted around $21.8 billion of investment, including $8.4 billion in early and late stage venture capital, $3.1 billion in seed financing, and $4.7 billion in debt financing. More than 220 angel and venture-backed space companies have been founded and funded since 2000. Most investment activity has occurred recently with more than two thirds of investment in the last four years.
Since 2015, annual investment has consistently reached at least $2 billion. In 2018 a record $3.2 billion, was invested in start-up space companies, $680 million more than in 2017. In the early 2000s, Bryce states that an average of four funded space companies were started per year; today the figure is five times higher.
Orbiting Satellite Instruments Are Grabbing Attention
According to the 2018 report from venture capital firm Space Angels, although launch companies dominated the investments receiving 72% of the total investment dollars, the report goes on to highlight the growing attraction of investors to satellite start-ups. In Q1 2018 alone $250 million was invested in satellite start-ups. The report also notes that satellite companies dominated exits — largely through acquisitions.
Astronomy Discoveries Continue To Make Headline News
Astronomy is breaking records with great regularity, establishing the furthest distances, finding the most massive objects and largest black holes, measuring the highest temperatures and capturing most violent supernova explosions.
On April 10th scientists revealed the first-ever image of a black hole. This cosmic giant, 6.5 billion times more massive than the Sun, located 55 million light years away captured the imagination of the watching world. This single black hole image and its data cost well over $20 million to capture and required 250 scientists, 8 radio telescopes, over 5 billion megabytes of data and support from 34 institutions and companies from around the world.
Current Orbiting Space Telescopes Cannot Keep Up with Demand
Space-based telescope observation time is considered premium due to the unique optical advantages of operating in space. Ground-based telescopes cannot fully service the growing demand and are limited to darkness hours and by the problems of weather, atmospheric distortion and the limited light spectrum that can pass through the atmosphere.
With an annual operating cost of almost $100 million for the orbiting Hubble telescope alone, access to this and other orbiting telescopes is severely restricted and requires a lengthy committee managed application process. NASA reports that there are typically six times as many observing proposals for the telescope as those that are actually selected. In the first 25 years of the Hubble Telescope’s operation, just 4,000 astronomers were granted time on it out of the many tens of thousands of professional and student astronomers worldwide.
As countries across the world recognize that science and technology are essential for the development of a competitive modern economy, they have prioritized investment in education and science infrastructure including substantial resources for physics and astronomy research. Although the USA and European countries currently dominate astronomy accounting for over 60% of the professional Astronomy Union (IAU) membership worldwide, engagement among other nations is growing rapidly. This will put further pressure on the limited number of time slots available on current orbiting telescopes.
Is The Age of Big Budget Telescopes Is Coming To An End?
Capturing a scientifically accurate black hole image and other cosmic events is an expensive and time-consuming operation. Every year governments, institutions and universities worldwide spend many hundreds of millions operating over 30 space telescopes ranging from radio telescopes to the extreme instruments capturing the most energetic events in X-rays and Gamma rays.
Probably the most famous is the Hubble Space telescope which has, to date, cost around $10 billion to build, launch, upgrade and operate for the last 29 years. But this telescope’s cost will be dwarfed by the new James Webb space telescope costing almost $10 billion just to build and launch by 2021. Other flagship space telescopes include the Chandra Observatory at $1.65 billion, the GAIA survey telescope at a cost of almost $1 billion and the upcoming Euclid space telescope at $810 million.
This current focus on operating a small number of flagship telescopes is straining government budgets and reducing access for more general space-based astronomy research. So the question is — will more big budget telescopes be built and launched into the 2030s? The answer is probably yes, but fewer projects will get such large government funding. Ever-larger instruments are inevitable if we are to explore the extreme frontiers but there is a shift in demand towards also having a larger number of smaller instruments. A new generation of cost efficient space instruments would allow the rapidly growing research community to gain access for critical, long term and more budget constrained research.
We’re Tapping the Huge Demand Opportunity For Commercial Orbiting Telescopes
Elon Musk upended the launch industry with SpaceX by building lower-cost reusable launch vehicles. As the world’s most disruptive space pioneer, he has catalyzed a global private space exploration industry by providing far more affordable access to space.
In the same disruptive vein, Mission Space plan to build and launch far more cost-efficient research grade space telescopes to provide much greater access to space-based observations through low access costs and an “open to everyone” user policy.
Providing Greater Access Opportunities: The lower access costs provide unique opportunities for:
- Affordable access for amateur astronomers and enthusiasts either individually or collectively.
- Universities can book and offer far greater access for their students increasing their prestige and demand for courses.
- Professionals can afford to carry out more in-depth observations over longer times.
More Time Slots Available: With up to four of the Mission Space telescopes in orbit, there will be a much greater number of observation slots available for users to choose from in comparison to current space telescopes.
Unprecedented Coverage Of The Sky: With orbiting telescopes in both polar and equatorial orbits, astronomers will have far greater options to observe a greater area of the universe and for longer periods.
Access To Suit All Skill Levels: The access software interface for the Mission Space telescopes will be unique in its clarity and simplicity of operation. Users can choose their skill level from novice where all operations are automated through levels of settings suitable for students right up to a full professional tool set.
