Entrepreneurs look to skies for next frontier of products
Patrick Bahn believes it doesn’t take rocket science to see the potential for riches in space. But he knows reaching for the skies will require rocket engines.
Bahn’s company, TGV Rockets & Propulsion Systems of Washington, is developing an electric engine and fuel system that it hopes will become as standard a component in space rockets as microprocessors became in personal computers.
“We want to take the science out of rocket science,” Bahn said this week as he and several other companies pitched potential investors and business partners during a two-day Space Technology & Investment Forum in San Francisco.
“Conventional rockets are very steampunk in nature,” Bahn said. “It’s very 19th century, lots of brass, lots of big nuts, lots of big fittings on them. We’re moving it into the 21st century digital cyberpunk era, digital controls, smart management of everything.”
The conference, sponsored by the nonprofit industry
advocacy organization Space Foundation of Colorado Springs, spotlighted 10 startups that are trying to take advantage of a growing commercial space industry.
The global space industry, which includes both commercial and government spending, grew to $329 billion last year, up from $251.2 billion in 2007 a decade ago, the foundation said in a report.
The commercial space industry, including telecommunications, broadcasting and Earth observation services, made up $126.6 billion of the 2016 total, the report said. Those now include hundreds of smaller, cheaper satellites using offthe-shelf components that are being launched into low-Earth orbit by companies like San Francisco’s Planet.
“What we’re seeing in this industry is a radical transformation where these small companies are sending up satellites and doing all sorts of cool things at a lower cost than a lot of the traditional guys who have been sending up satellites for communications or for defense,” said Rob Senders, chief financial officer of Vorago Technologies.
The Austin, Texas, company makes semiconductor components designed to withstand the extreme temperatures and radiation of space.
“So you’re seeing this new land grab in terms of the new frontier of space,” Senders said.
Another company at the showcase was Ripple Aerospace, a Norwegian startup trying to develop a reusable rocket that can launch from the ocean, eliminating the need for a launching pad.
The company hopes to increase the number of rocket launches needed to get those small satellites in orbit, said Chief Financial Officer Elliot Carol.
“With this, we could launch whenever there is a need,” Carol said. The company hopes to launch its rockets this decade.
Bahn later looked over at the scale-model Ripple rocket that Carol had on display. “And he’s going to use my cheap air-cooled aluminum engine,” he quipped.
Garrett Goldberg, a partner in the earlystage venture-capital firm Bee Partners of San Francisco, said he looks over potential space industry investments all the time, but most are “too far from market.”
“These founders are so cool,” Goldberg said. “They’re dreamers, but they’re engineers, so they’re practical and they’re building really cool things.”
However, Bee Partners has invested only $1.5 million, in one space company, RBC Signals, a San Francisco startup that helps small satellite companies schedule time on a network of 30 ground antenna receivers around the world.
The company bills itself as an Airbnb for small satellite companies.
Goldberg said he waited about a year after meeting RBC Signals CEO Christopher Richins to give time for the demand for the startup’s services to increase. “Fast-forward 12 months, and all of a sudden, that market is maturing. And he’s where the puck is going to be,” Goldberg said.