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Space SPAC Index: Intuitive Machines Looks to Join Club, Virgin Galactic’s WhiteKnightTwo Returns to the Runway
Space SPAC Index: Intuitive Machines Looks to Join Club, Virgin Galactic’s WhiteKnightTwo Returns to the Runway

Welcome to this week’s S-SPACi.

Lunar lander builder Intuitive Machines looks to join the Space SPAC index this week. Shareholders are set to vote on its reverse merger with Inflection Point Acquisition Corp. on Wednesday morning. If the deal goes through, the Houston-based company will begin trading on Nasdaq under the symbol LUNR.

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  • Parabolic Arc
  • February 7, 2023
Suborbinomics: The Astronomical Cost of Getting From Point A to Point A
Richard Branson celebrates the first Virgin Galactic trade on the New York Stock Exchange. (Credit Virgin Galactic)

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

Resplendent in a blue Virgin Galactic flight suit, Richard Branson was in an exuberant mood as he sat at the New York Stock Exchange doing a TV interview on Oct. 28, 2019. His space tourism company had just gone public in a $774 million merger with billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya’s Social Capital Hedosophia special purpose acquisition company.

Virgin Galactic now had an estimated market value of more than $2.2 billion despite never having flown a single passenger or earned any serious revenue in 15 years. Virgin Galactic would have $450 million to complete its flight test program and begin commercial flights — if the company’s Securities and Exchange Commission filings were to be believed — in June 2020. Branson and the Mubadala Investment Company, an Abu Dhabi government sovereign wealth fund, would divide up $274 million to offset about $1 billion in investment made thus far.

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  • Parabolic Arc
  • October 19, 2022
China’s Suborbital Space Tourism Ambitions Heat Up as Two Companies Seek to Challenge Blue Origin & Virgin Galactic
CAS Space crewed suborbital vehicle in flight. (Credit: CAS Space)

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

Two Chinese companies — CAS Space and Space Transportation — are pursuing the suborbital tourism market, with the former closely copying Blue Origin’s fully reusable New Shepard vehicle and the latter developing a winged vehicle that could be adapted for hypersonic point-to-point travel between distant locations on Earth.

CAS Space, a.k.a., Guangzhou Zhongke Aerospace Exploration Technology Co., Ltd., is developing a single-stage reusable rocket that lands under its own power topped with a capsule that descends under three parachutes.

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  • Parabolic Arc
  • August 23, 2022
Commercial Space Travelers Outnumbered Professional Astronauts in First Half of 2022
Axiom Mission 1 astronauts, left to right, Larry Connor, Mark Pathy, Michael López-Alegría, and Eytan Stibbe. The astronauts are approved by NASA and its international partners for Axiom Space’s first private astronaut mission to the International Space Station. (Credits: Chris Gunn – Axiom Space)

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

The first half of 2022 saw more commercial travelers — 16 — launch into space than the 10 professional astronauts who work for government-run space agencies. However, those numbers come with an asterisk or two.

Four of the 14 astronauts who launched into orbit flew on Axiom Space’s privately funded and operated crew flight to the International Space Station (ISS). Blue Origin launched 12 individuals into space on two flights of the company’s New Shepard suborbital vehicle.

The other 10 astronauts who launched to ISS and the Tiangong space station worked fulltime for NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), China Manned Space Agency, or Russia’s Roscosmos State Space Corporation. SpaceX flew American and European astronauts to ISS on the company-owned Crew Dragon spacecraft under a NASA contract. The Russians and Chinese flew aboard government-owned and operated spacecraft.

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  • Parabolic Arc
  • July 25, 2022
JAXA & Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance to Cooperate on Developing Space Travel Insurance Business

TOKYO (JAXA/Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Co. PR) –– Sumitomo Mitsui Marine Fire Insurance Co., Ltd. (President: Shinichiro Funabuchi) of MS & AD Insurance Group and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA, Chairman: Hiroshi Yamakawa) aim to create space-related businesses with new ideas. Under the framework of “JAXA Space Innovation Partnership (J-SPARC)”, we started co-creation activities related to “Space Travel Insurance Business” in July 2022.

Details of co-creation activities

Currently, insurance for space travel is not yet in full swing. The reason is none other than the small number of space travelers. Under such circumstances, 2021 was called the “first year of space travel,” and for the first time in history, the number of space travelers exceeded the number of professional astronauts. Now that space travel by various means has been realized or proposed, space travel insurance that meets the needs is required. Sumitomo Mitsui Marine and JAXA are co-creating activities related to “product development of space travel insurance” and “support for expanding the space travel market”, and by creating and disseminating the “space travel insurance” that is now needed. It adds peace of mind to space travel and contributes to the expansion of humankind’s economic sphere.

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  • Parabolic Arc
  • July 24, 2022
Virtuoso Partners with Virgin Galactic for Ticket Sales Referral Program
Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo’s first flight above 50 miles on Dec. 13, 2018. (Credit: Virgin Galactic)
  • Virtuoso adds spaceflight partner to its exclusive global portfolio
  • Limited number of remaining seats available to Virtuoso’s global client base

NEW YORK & TUSTIN, Calif. (Virtuoso/Virgin Galactic PR) — Virtuoso®, the leading global network specializing in luxury and experiential travel, and Virgin Galactic (NYSE: SPCE), an aerospace and space travel company, today announced a strategic partnership to make a limited number of seats for Virgin Galactic’s spaceflight experience available to Virtuoso’s global client base.

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  • Parabolic Arc
  • July 22, 2022
Virgin Galactic Announces New Spaceship Manufacturing Facility in Mesa, Arizona
Credit: Virgin Galactic

MESA, Ariz., July 14, 2022 (Virgin Galactic PR) – Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: SPCE) (the “Company” or “Virgin Galactic”), an aerospace and space travel company, today announced it has signed a long-term lease for a new final assembly manufacturing facility for its next-generation Delta class spaceships. Located in Mesa, Greater Phoenix area, adjacent to the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, the facility will be capable of producing up to six spaceships per year and will bring hundreds of highly skilled aerospace engineering and manufacturing jobs to the area.

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  • Parabolic Arc
  • July 14, 2022
Suborbital Spaceflight by the Numbers
New Shepard launches on its 21st flight of the program on June 4, 2022. (Credit: Blue Origin)

Part II of II

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

The first half of 2022 was a busy period in suborbital space with 23 launches conducted that did not involve tests of ballistic missiles or defensive systems. Twelve people flew above the Karman line, new boosters and space technologies were tested, and the first commercial suborbital launch was conducted from Australia. And some science was done.

We covered the above mentioned flights in depth in a story published on Tuesday. In this piece we’ll look a broader look at who launched what, when, where, why and on what.

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  • Parabolic Arc
  • July 13, 2022
Virgin Galactic Sees Departure of Chief Legal Officer & Director of Safety as Company Fights Lawsuits
Michelle Kley (Credit: Virgin Galactic)

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

Virgin Galactic has seen the departures of its director of safety and chief legal officer over the past month.

Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel Michelle Kley is leaving Virgin Galactic as of July 19 after two years and seven months with the company. She will become chief legal officer at Volta, a company that runs an electric vehicle charging network.

Her departure comes as Virgin Galactic battles lawsuits from unhappy shareholders who claim to have lost money since the company went public more than 2.5 years ago.

Kley joined Virgin Galactic as executive vice president, chief legal officer, general counsel and secretary in December 2019. She previously served as senior vice president, chief legal officer, general counsel and secretary at Maxar Technologies from July 2016 to March 2019.

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  • Parabolic Arc
  • July 13, 2022