SpaceX’s Elon Musk didn’t say anything really new in his speech yesterday at the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, at least compared to his address last week at a satellite conference in Washington. However, there is one new development that he did not mention in his speech. As reported by socalTECH.com yesterday, SpaceX has raised an additional $15 million in funding through the sale of company stock, part of a planned $60-million round. The article cites an SEC filing that also states that seven investors have already invested in the offering, but does not name them, nor provides any other details about the deal (including how big a stake in the company SpaceX is selling.)
This is not the first time SpaceX has raised outside funding: in August SpaceX raised $20 million from the Founders Fund, a VC firm that includes a number of managing partners who, like Musk, are alumni of PayPal. At that time Musk said the funding was to “top of the war chest” to ensure that the company had enough money on hand to do another three launches. He said that if Flight 4 failed the company would then raise more money; Flight 4, launched in late September, was a success. What SpaceX plans to do with this latest round is unclear.
“What SpaceX plans to do with this latest round is unclear.”
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….SPEND IT…
( Sorry, I couldn’t resist the opportunity
I’m guessing they’re looking to invest in some serious rocket construction leading up to the NASA supply contract. I assume there are going to be other private customers that will be booking flights in the coming years that aren’t currently on the books. Those combined with the NASA agreement makes for a pretty big capital investment before any rockets actual leave the ground.
There’s also a good possibility that they’ll make some investment on lobbying COTS-D, a program that could add some profit opportunities as well as subsidize Dragon development costs, thereby opening the avenues for more Bigelow work.
The pieces started coming together for SpaceX when they got L4 off the ground. If they can put another few up there including a F9 or two, they can ride this investment into a regular operational state versus the extended development they are currently in.
Here’s hoping.
Let’s see… SpaceX can’t seem to get more than two rockets off the pad per year, at huge delays past when the launches were promised. They’re doing R&D on 3 major projects and their related assembly lines.
I have hope that once they start recovering F1’s they can start changing the rules, but right now they have a bunch of paper contracts without anything like the operational history to fulfill them. They’re copying the same operational and technical concept as everyone else who has done this, and realizing maybe it’s not so easy just because lots of Exciting Young People are doing it. Again, I have hope they can change the rules of the game, but so far I don’t see it.
Most likely it is to meet COTS agreement Milestone 14: Financing (http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/216459main_spacex_amend_2.pdf), triggering another $10M payment from NASA.
I think this is one of the few times imo when privatization is a really good idea. Whether we think it’s necessary or not, we need to continue to develop new forms of space travel and technology to facilitate it. What the ppl whose only argument is “we have too many problems down here to be worrying about this,†they fail to understand the two most important implications of aeronautical research. The first is for national defense… it’s bad enough that nasa has to rely on Russia to ferry them to the ISS. If we keep going at this rate, our disadvantage will only grow as they continue to develop new technologies in their space program while we pump the brakes on ours. Is air and space superiority something you really want the Russians to have? It doesn’t seem like a good idea for any one country to have, let alone one whom we have a sketchy history with. The second is that with aeronautical research comes a flood of new technologies, most of which are very applicable to us down on earth. For example, if it wasn’t for nasa, we wouldn’t have the chips that we use for non-invasive biopsies, solar energy, and a whole litany of other things (http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html#Top has a good number of inventions that most of us don’t know came from our space program). And if you’re one of those ppl that are so skeptical (or cynical imo) that you still don’t think that any of the things on this list warrant a larger investment in a privatized space industry, just remember that while you sleep at night, you most likely have nasa to thank for that, too. If you use any type of home security system, chances are they use infrared and laser technology that came out of nasa’s research (just look at the adt home security infrared camera page. They even admit that the technology came from nasa!)