US nanosat launching start-up Generation Orbit Launch Services (GO) has hired an investment bank to raise capital shortly after selling its first flight to NASA.
The Atlanta-based group has brought in regional advisory firm Inman to tap equity markets…
US nanosat launching start-up Generation Orbit Launch Services (GO) has hired an investment bank to raise capital shortly after selling its first flight to NASA.
The Atlanta-based group has brought in regional advisory firm Inman to tap equity markets as it counts down to the mission in 2016, when it will place three cubesats to help reduce a backlog at the space agency.
Similar to plans unveiled by Swiss Space Systems-S3 last year, GO is looking to build an airplane-based satellite launcher that leverages on proven technologies to keep costs down. But whereas S3 is modifying an Airbus A300 passenger plane, Generation Orbit will use a smaller business jet to fire its rockets into space before coming back to land.
Its single stage rocket GOLauncher 1 will mainly be used to gain operational experience, although it will be capable of a range of suborbital trajectories that could serve microgravity, astrophysics, and hypersonic researchers.
The two stage GOLauncher 2, which will used for the US$2.1m NASA Enabling eXploration and Technology (NEXT) contract, is being designed to place payloads of up to around 45kg into low Earth orbit.
With GOLauncher 2 passing a ‘System Requirements Review’ on 23 January, a key milestone under the NEXT deal, GO CEO John Olds said it is now seeking external capital to fund its next phase of growth.
“We’ll be putting a lot of near term effort into making our capital raise a success,” he said.
“The Inman Company has a very focused approach for us and is enthusiastic about GO and its role in the commercialisation of space access.”
GO received an early boost to its funding efforts in November 2013, just a few months after securing the NEXT deal, when it won the top US$100,000 prize in the NASA-sponsored NewSpace Business Plan competition.
But despite this early government backing, the company aims to position itself to take advantage of growing demand for small satellites from commercial players.
On 10 February, aerospace analysis firm SpaceWorks released a report that showed a 52% increase in nano/microsatellites being launched in 2014 compared with the year before, based on the announced launch data alone.
It said commercial companies will contribute a fourth of those launched in 2014, compared with 11% last year, with the proportion set to be even higher at 60% in 2015.
According to SpaceWorks, which is one of GO’s partners and helped it win the NewSpace prize, between 2,000 and 2,750 spacecraft of this class will need to be launched by 2020. The scope of its study covered satellites weighing 1-50kg
