Literally and figuratively, there’s no area of military activity that’s further away from the coronavirus than U.S. military assets in space. But the economic effects of the counter-virus lockdown are causing potentially fatal problems for some young space companies and that could threaten the Defense Department’s plans.
Like a lot of tech startups, some young space companies are facing a capital crunch and may not make it through the year, like communications satellite maker OneWeb, which filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy on Friday.
“If you look at OneWeb, it was shocking from some perspective. They had just launched a batch of spacecraft six days before they declared bankruptcy and we’re seemingly well capitalized,” Richard French, director of global government services at rocket-maker Rocket Lab, said during Defense One’s Tech Talk virtual panel discussion, on Tuesday. “It’s clear there’s a bifurcation between well-capitalized operations and not-so-well capitalized operations. That probably factors in well to discussions about OneWeb and other companies that may not have the strength to weather this storm.”
Those companies that have a mix of government and business customers will fare better than those that don’t, French surmised. Rocket Lab is booked solid for launches in 2020. The government of New Zealand’s response to COVID-19 had caused a launch delay (Rocket Lab runs a lunch site in the country.) Still, French said he didn’t expect it to affect business. “We’re ready to get back to our high launch cadence. Back on track with our manifest,” he said.
Todd Harrison, director of defense budget analysis and senior fellow in aerospace security at the Center for Strategic ..
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