The industry faces an interesting dichotomy. Demand has surged from launching a few satellites on small rockets to launching swarms of satellites at once using bigger rockets, even as investors shy away from the sector in search of safer bets.
The failure of billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Orbit, which filed for bankruptcy this month, has only ratcheted up pressure on rivals trying to keep up with Elon Musk's SpaceX, Rocket Lab and the Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture, United Launch Alliance. "It was a lot better to just put those resources into Terran R because that's going to be a way-more-profitable way to allocate the team that we have," Ellis said.
Firefly and Astra have added other business lines to make up for lost revenue, while Relativity has said its 3D printers used in rocket construction will be eventually employed for other products. Despite the startups' struggles, launch demand has soared after sanctions following Russia's invasion of Ukraine cut off access to Russian rockets. Recent failures with Europe's Arianespace's Vega-C rocket have added to demand in the U.S., outstripping the number of available rockets.