US entrepreneur Dennis Wingo is looking to raise US$100m for a venture that could defy years of setbacks to start operating the world’s first commercial on-orbit servicing in 2017.
An undisclosed satellite operator has signed up for the mission with…
US entrepreneur Dennis Wingo is looking to raise US$100m for a venture that could defy years of setbacks to start operating the world’s first commercial on-orbit servicing in 2017.
An undisclosed satellite operator has signed up for the mission with his company Skycorp, which will launch a vehicle capable of latching on to a customer’s spacecraft to add ten years to its life.
For Wingo, who secured Skycorp’s patents back from its exiting industrial partners, the funding round is the latest leg in a journey dogged by spectacular bad luck.
In an interview with SatelliteFinance he told how he had twice been on the verge of launching his pioneering servicing mission for a satellite customer only for it to turn sour.
Supported by ESA and German space agencies, with Dutch Space as prime contractor, the first time would have extended a satellite for Singtel’s Optus in Australia.
But, during a celebratory dinner on 28 February 2005 with Optus, Wingo was delivered a bombshell that set in motion a series of delays that have pushed back its business by nearly a decade.
“They’re getting ready to get their lawyers, we’re going to draw up a contract, and we get a phone call,” he recalled.
“Our CEO and lead investor Walt Anderson has been arrested in Washington DC and was later convicted as the largest individual tax cheat in US history.”
Anderson, a telecoms billionaire also known for leasing the MIR space station from the Russians at the turn of the century, had been working with Wingo since 2001.
Singtel dropped out as the revelations forced the company known then as Orbital Recovery to divest and reconstitute.
Second stab
The venture took the opportunity to switch prime contractors from Dutch Space, which is now owned by EADS, to Swedish Space to allay cost concerns that had cropped up in the design.
It also moved away from ESA funding worth millions of euros to give extra flexibility, bringing in wealthy investors from the Middle East instead.
The regrouping efforts soon paid off with a new customer agreement, this time with France’s Eutelsat.
However, soon after a preliminary design review had been completed, these new investors became spooked by Dubai’s economic meltdown in 2008, as well as “legacy issues” related to the previous corporate structure.
“When we lost those investors everybody lost heart, and the project was shutdown,” said Wingo.
Since then the entrepreneur has recaptured the patents for yet another stab at the venture. The system’s design has also been upgraded to lower manufacturing costs by 50%, enabling Skycorp to offer ten years of extra satellite life for about a third of its normal replacement cost.
Wingo said he was confident of raising the necessary funds to support the venture’s last stretch to commercial services, thanks in part to a “sea-change” in investor attitudes to private space initiatives.
He said: “With the success of US private launch provider SpaceX, there is a growing interest in the investment community for something like on-orbit servicing. There’s a growing appetite for investment in space, and we are tapping into that.”
As well as equity Skycorp, will also be looking to tap the US export credit agency Ex-Im Bank, which has been supporting companies like SpaceX.
“Ex-Im Bank has been very forthcoming and very supportive of American satellite manufacturers and selling to the overseas market, so that is certainly a very strong path for us,” he said.
The company has worked with ING in the past for its fundraising, but expects to appoint a new risk management partner in three to six months.
Last year, Canadian space technology firm MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) scrapped a similar venture it had with Intelsat after failing to secure key government commitments.
Unlike Skycorp’s plan, that venture would have directly refuelled a satellite so it can carry on providing services.
Instead MDA decided to join a competition being run by the US government to build a system for salvaging viable components from non-working satellites that are in orbit.
But another US-based start-up called ViviSat, a joint venture between Arlington, Virginia-based contractor ATK and solutions provider US Space, has also announced plans for a service that could extend the life of satellites by several years without exchanging fuel.
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