Decades after starting with just a dream and almost no funding, the company that changed space forever is now on the world’s biggest stock exchange.🚀 Analysts forecast an opening valuation between $350–450 billion, with many projecting it could surge past $700 billion within 2–3 years.📈 Fresh capital means faster testing, more prototypes, and a push toward full reusability, critical for Artemis landings, Mars cargo, and point‑to‑point travel. More resources for lunar surface systems, fuel depots in orbit, and the first crewed missions to Mars. @SpaceX @elonmusk @NASDAQ @Tesla @NASA @CommercialSpace @SpaceRef #SpaceX #IPO #NASDAQ #Starship #Starlink #SpaceExploration #Artemis #Mars #Investing #FutureOfSpace #ElonMusk

Amazing! NASA's "Tour of Asteroid Bennu" Selected for Prestigious Computer Graphics Film Festival - SpaceRef spaceref.com/science-and-exp…

I’m a bit of a space industry history junkie and so I think about the DigitalGlobe acquisition of Digital Globe quite often. In ~2010 there were two competing commercial high-resolution satellite imagery providers, GeoEye and DigitalGlobe. The US Government was unsurprisingly their largest customer, specifically the NextView contract (~somewhat equivalent to EOCL today). In May 2012, GeoEye proposed an acquisition of DigitalGlobe. Some 8 months later, in January 2013, DigitalGlobe instead announced a successful closure of the GeoEye acquisition. I was not quite interested in government spending on geospatial in 2012. Still, there is a great summary from Geospatial World “The US National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) will not renew the EnhancedView contract with GeoEye for the full year due to budget constraints … US government officials earlier said the NGA plans to sharply reduce, and possibly halve, its plan to buy USD 7.3 billion of digital imagery from the two companies, sparking speculation about a consolidation.” (6/25/2012) Indeed, shortly after DigitalGlobe as a continued holder of the contract came on top and acquired GeoEye. Today, their merger is known as Maxar. This was ~13 years ago but there are a couple of lessons extremely relevant for startups today: The danger of customer concentration is real. Even some more mature space industry startups attacking ~100M$ largely depend on one or two major customers. This is even more intense in defence tech from my experience. And those are of course attractive programs which can make a company - but there is an inherent risk of building an enduring company on top of a government operating on four-year cycles. Last year I wrote the Space applications for large terrestrial markets piece - in part because after the 2022 market downturn, everybody in the market reoriented to the government customer base, but there are benefits in having a large magnitude of customers, ideally somewhat diversified - from a purely investment perspective, it makes the underwriting easier. The DigitalGlobe/GeoEye/Maxar saga is absolutely incredible and one day, rather soon, somebody should really write a book about it. History doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes. I try to learn as much as I can about the early days of commercial space companies because some of the lessons continue to be instructive today. [1] SpaceNews, DigitalGlobe Closes GeoEye Acquisition: spacenews.com/digitalglobe-c… [2] SpaceNews, Justice Department Approves DigitalGlobe-GeoEye Merger spacenews.com/justice-depart… [3] SpaceRef, GeoEye Proposes Acquisition Of DigitalGlobe, spacenews.com/geoeye-propose… [4] Defense Daily, NGA Awards $7.3 Billion For EnhancedView Contracts To DigitalGlobe, GeoEye, defensedaily.com/nga-awards-… [5] Geospatial World, NGA discontinues EnhancedView contract with GeoEye, geospatialworld.net/news/nga…

Another fine image of M17 (Omega Nebula) about 5,700 light years away in constellation Sagittarius. A beautiful, very colourful diffuse emission nebula, it lies in the Sagittarius Arm of our Galaxy and was discovered in 1745 by Philipe Loys de Cheseaux. 📷 Spaceref #M17

Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 Mission Takes Stock Of Carbon Dioxide #Emissions astercaster.com/2023/03/14/o… #SpaceRef #NASA #Satellites

Humans Need An Earth-like Ecosystem For Deep-Space Living astercaster.com/2023/04/17/h… #NASA #SpaceRef #Mars #DeepSpace

Could This Copycat Black Hole Be A New Type Of Star? astercaster.com/2023/04/21/c… #Astronomy #SpaceRef #Cosmology #Stars #JohnsHopkinsUniversity #BlackHoles

#Spacemind Successfully Launches Three Italian #Nanosatellites Into Orbit From The International Space Station astercaster.com/2023/02/03/s… #FuturaSM1 #FuturaSM3 #SpaceRef #Satellites #SMPod #DanteSat

How Space Travel Influences The Way A #Human #Brain Works astercaster.com/2023/02/22/h… #SpaceTravel #Astronauts #SpaceMedicine #Biology #SpaceRef

🔴⚠️🌋🧊When the largest active #volcano in #Antarctica pops up from the clouds: here the #sentinel2 view of #Erebus on Nov.25:few areas of ground and the thermal anomaly in the crater give some life to this unique environment. @icey_mark @lava_ice @SpaceRef @lastquake

🔴⚠️🌋🇨🇱Powerful and majestic view of #Villarrica taken by #Sentinel2 on Nov.24:the strong incandescence of the hot crater goes with the ash darkening the snow,and the surrounding green.#AlertaAmarilla #Chile #Eruption #Volcan Off_Valpo @lava_ice @geologoenapuros @SpaceRef

A criminal waste of the taxpayers money. #NASA Requests Funding for $1 Billion 'Space Tug' to Deorbit the ISS - SpaceRef #Space spaceref.com/newspace-and-te…

Space Systems Command Launches #EWS #Cubesat Technical Demonstration astercaster.com/2023/01/04/s… #SpaceSystemsCommand #SpaceRef

Virgin Galactic Announces Flight Date for Galactic 05 - SpaceRef dlvr.it/Sy50Gn

cc @rahmstorf @WxNB_ @KeraunosObs @LastQuake @KSchwanke @tiempobrasero @capitalweather @weather_west @GeorgeMonbiot @deZabedrosky @vincentschnabl @Andy_Scollick @DeborahTiempo @adamonzon

🚀✨ @NASA's groundbreaking mission to Psyche isn't just about exploring a metal world ... it's also an opportunity to test deep space communications lasers! Get ready for the future of interplanetary communication 🌌🔬 (cc: @SpaceRef) spaceref.com/newspace-and-te…

#Satellites Observe #Landslide Creeping Below Bukavu In The Democratic Republic of the #Congo astercaster.com/2023/02/08/s… #SpaceRef

The editor of @SpaceRef - @KeithCowing - will be on @BBCWorld TV just after midnight EDT - tonight - to talk about the delivery of samples from #Asteroid #Bennu to Earth by @NASA's @OSIRISREx mission #Astrochemistry #Astrobiology #NASA

The editor of @SpaceRef (and @Astrobiology) - @KeithCowing - will be on @BBCWorld TV just after midnight EDT - tonight - to talk about the delivery of samples from #Asteroid #Bennu to Earth by @NASA's @OSIRISREx mission #Astrochemistry #Astrobiology #NASA

The editor of @SpaceRef - @KeithCowing - will be on @BBCWorld TV just after midnight EDT - tonight - to talk about the delivery of samples from #Asteroid #Bennu to Earth by @NASA's @OSIRISREx mission #Astrochemistry #Astrobiology #NASA