Field of View (FOV) - November 2023

Approach Venture’s Field of View (or “FOV”) is a monthly newsletter providing space industry participants with key insights, trends, updates and analysis to stay informed. Field of View is produced alongside space industry experts, founders, startup operators as well as commercial and government decision makers.

Approach Venture was formed to enable founding teams building the future of frontier technology to achieve their full potential. Today, Approach supports space companies ranging from stealth to publicly-traded as well as investors looking to participate in their growth potential. Connect with Approach to learn more.

This month’s Field of View is presented by Space Radiation Services.

Founded by nuclear engineer / rocket scientist and former Apollo Fusion / Astra leader, Matthew Gill, Space Radiation Services is supporting new space companies as they navigate radiation testing and analysis. The Company specializes in bringing companies up to speed that are new to the field of radiation effects.

Space Radiation Services’ scope includes but is not limited to:

• Review of current designs and component lists

• Identification of commercial components which have published radiation test data

• Training and guidance on common radiation mitigation methods

• Simulation of on orbit environments

• Calculating shielding needs and event rates

• Developing test plans and test campaign best practices

Emerging Trends

As access to space increases and launch costs decrease, space companies are entering the market with missions and product roadmaps catered towards their visions of the ideal buildout of in-space infrastructure. Below contains this month’s emerging trends to keep an eye on as the space economy evolves.

Point-to-Point Cargo Delivery
In recent discussions with DoD decision makers, Approach has recognized increased interest to deliver payloads to contested environments given rise in geopolitical tensions and rapid deployment of military personnel to remote locations. Point-to-point cargo delivery from Space to Earth decreases risk of human lives and expedites delivery timing of critical assets to arrive in theater when traveling at Mach speeds.

Investor Hint: Space companies who provide said capability are re-entry vehicle providers.

Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Techniques
A&D (Aerospace & Defense) Primes place a premium on advancing capabilities pertaining to C-UAS (counter unmanned aircraft systems), hypersonics, missile defense as well as air, land and naval warfare. Approach has recognized an uptick in demand for suppliers able to produce large form, high temperature material structures for ‘hot section’ applications of hypersonic platforms. Large form additive manufacturing unlocks the design space for hypersonic parts, provides more affordable fabrication methods for development and truncates delivery lead times.

Relatedly, Defense Tech has recently been labeled a vertical of investment by venture capitalists who have hopes of sharing in the success of dual-use companies producing technologies that keep the broader geopolitical landscape secure and safe. In 2024, Approach believes the broader A&D industry will recognize more venture investments in suppliers focused on bringing advanced materials and manufacturing capabilities to market.

Stealth Spotlight 🔦

Engineers are happiest when innovating and Stealth Company (headquartered in Australia) is looking to maximize that time, and revolutionize the approach to documentation, compliance and assurance activities.

Their first goal is to 3x the speed of writing milestone data packs (from CubeSats to Crewed), and 5x speed of review. The Company’s long-term play is automating the entirety of project documentation and compliance evidence compiling. Not all heroes wear capes.

Stealth Company is looking to close its Pre-Seed come Q1 2024 with Uses of Funds to deliver their MVP by Q3 2024.

Potential investors, Connect with Approach to learn more and meet the founding team.

Space Sector Trading Comps

Brought to you by one of the space industry’s leading investment banking teams located in New York City, Deutsche Bank.

Regulatory Rundown

Our rapid-growth space economy is gaining more visibility across the globe. Regulatory Rundown covers select space policies, evolving legislation updates, licensing requirements and top stories involving regulatory bodies.

On November 2nd, US Congressmen Brian Babin (R-TX) and Frank Lucas (R-OK) introduced H.R. 6131, the Commercial Space Act of 2023, to modernize government oversight of commercial space activities. Within the bill’s language is specific support for development and deployment of In-Space Servicing, Assembly and Manufacturing (ISAM) and further encourages the development of space-based nuclear power and propulsion technology.

In a November 14th letter to the Federal Aviation Administration’s commercial spaceflight office, US Senators Krysten Sinema (I-AZ) and Eric Schmitt (R-MO) urged swift action to accelerate licensing approvals for launch and re-entry operations, partially in response to the rapid pace of growth in China’s state-backed space industry. The letter challenged regulators to ensure that the “processes at the FAA and other federal agencies adapt to keep pace with American innovation as well as adversarial threats in space.”

Back in the US House of Representatives, Congressmen Mike Garcia (R-CA) and Max Miller (R-OH) offered an amendment to H.R. 6131 that would encourage greater coordination between the FAA and Department of Defense on commercial re-entry operations. As we’ve discussed in the September and October Field of View newsletters, navigating the FAA’s Part 450 regulations as well as coordination with military range operators have been ongoing sources of delay for in-space manufacturing startup Varda Space Industries.

Finally, a bipartisan proposal from US Senators Gary Peters (D-MI) and Roger Wicker (R-MS) introduced on November 20th aims to create a Commercial Space Activity Advisory Committee within the Office of Space Commerce. The 15-member group would work together to promote industry competitiveness and enhance commercial space policy in several areas, including identifying challenges the commercial space sector faces from export controls, addressing industry’s need to access adequate RF spectrum in a predictable and reliable manner and evaluating guidelines for environmental protection both in orbit and on Earth.

This month’s Field of View is presented by Stell Engineering.

Want to move away from Excel and PowerPoint engineering, without training your team for months on IBM DOORS? Stell is a new requirements management platform for Aerospace and Defense.

No more siloed superusers - Stell is simple enough for everyone on your team to contribute, but adds the revision control, change tracking, and cybersecurity you need. Plan, design, and demonstrate compliance to your customer’s requirements, creating a searchable model-ready dataset of your company's engineering knowledge. Get a green light at your next design review milestone 50% faster.

Force Multiplier

A commonly referenced term within the DoD, a force multiplier is a tool, strategy or person that, when added to or employed by a team, significantly increases mission success and team potential. Each month, you’ll find select force multipliers enabling space companies to level up as they look to scale.

Impulse Space Hires Propulsion BD Expert, Joshua Rea

Although Impulse did not originally produce its Saiph thruster for external sales, Vast’s down-selection of the Company’s propulsion system for its Haven-1 space station suggests one of the top rocket scientists in the world, Tom Mueller, is open to selling prop. If Impulse does plan to continue selling their nitrous-based propulsive offering to other commercial teams, their recent hiring of Joshua Rea (former BD lead for Dawn Aerospace) as Director of Commercial BD is a stellar start.

Josh’s track record includes generating more business for a single company producing low thrust propulsion across the entire industry (US and overseas) over the last 3 years. This includes launching Dawn’s hardware on every single SpaceX Transporter mission to date (as well as Vega and Soyuz-2) and serving as BD lead for the world’s first nitrous oxide-based propulsion in-orbit demonstration (IOD), scaling to 69 thrusters in space on 14 spacecraft.

GITAI Transitions Business From Japan to the US

Founded and originally based in Tokyo, GITAI is a space-robotics business who announced successful transition of the Company’s HQ and ParentCo from Japan to the US (now in Torrance, California). This comes just one year after GITAI Japan announced creation of its US subsidiary - additional updates which solidify GITAI’s transition:

• GITAI’s CEO (Sho Nakanose) and CTO (Toyotaka Kozuki) have both become permanent residents of the US to free uncertainties associated with temporary visas

• Most of the company’s employees and all manufacturing operations have been relocated to Torrance

This strategic move to shift GITAI’s headquarters signifies the Company’s immense interest in pursuing US commercial and government space opportunities.

Tracked Opportunities

Approach Venture is tracking many active federal solicitations for funding space and defense capabilities. Below is an illustrative list of opportunities on our radar that you should also be tracking.

• Approach is tracking a Specific Topic Solicitation inclusive of many innovative technologies which pre-released on November 29. The solicitation opens first week of January and closes February 7, 2024. Connect with Approach to learn more.

• Air Force SBIR/STTR CSO X24.5 and X24.D Phase I Open Topics will be released on February 7, 2024. This program funds innovative, early-stage, dual-use defense technologies

• DARPA’s Thruster Advancements for Low-altitude Operations in Space (TALOS) solicitation is active and will fund innovative propulsion technologies for satellites operating in very Low Earth Orbit

• DIU released the Hybrid Space Architecture II (HSA II) program to innovate persistent sensing, resilient data transport, edge computing, and data fusion solutions to facilitate the integration and operability between commercial and government space-based capabilities

• NASA’s TechLeap Prize released the Universal Payload Interface Challenge to reduce the cost and complexity of payload integration through an optimized interface system. Solutions funded under this program will improve payload integration for future flight systems, across suborbital, orbital, and planetary lander vehicles

To identify and receive proposal support for opportunities tied to advancing your respective roadmap, Connect with Approach.

Founder Tip

Wins don’t come without losses…keep going.

Did You Know?

Approach will be moderating a Satellite 2024 Conference panel focused on Safety and Precision in Cooperative RPO on-orbit?

Panel participants:

• Celvi Lisy, Research Assistant for MIT Satellite + Spectrum Technology and Policy Program

• Even Rogers, CEO of True Anomaly

• Adel Haddoud, CEO of Infinite Orbits

• Andrea Cardellicchio, Head of Business Development for LoB SSO Telespazio