TechCrunch Newsletters - Max Q - Bezos to blast off

Monday, June 07, 2021 • By Darrell Etherington

Jeff Bezos wants billionaire space bragging rights and it’s gonna be pretty hard to top that in terms of space news this week. But SpaceX had a busy week doing what it does best: launching rockets to orbit, and meanwhile some of the upstart younger launch companies are making moves, too.

Bezos brother Blue Origin bonanza

Jeff Bezos is going to ride on his company’s very first rocket to cary humans, which is pretty bold (and also maybe one reason behind the timing of his stepping back as Amazon CEO, since huge multinational public companies don’t typically love putting their top execs in high risk situations like traveling to space). He’s also bringing along his brother Mark, which is just a solid brother thing for a hundred billionaire to do.

One of the other seats on this first flight, which is happening on July 20, will be auctioned off: Bidding now sits at $3.2 million as of the writing of this newsletter on Monday morning, which is up already $400,000 since Bezos made his big announcement earlier in the day. Rubbing shoulders with the Big Jeff while taking in views of Earth from the edge of space seems to be a good pot sweetener for selling this ticket. There’s still time for the bids to go up, with a final live auction taking place on June 12 to decide the winner.

Meanwhile, Blue Origin’s capsule actually has room for up to three more passengers, though we haven’t heard anything about whether or not this first flight will carry a full complement of passengers as of yet.

Image Credits: Matthew Staver/Bloomberg / Getty Images

SpaceX has a couple of launches

SpaceX has kept up its epic launch pace this year, and the two that took place this past week weren’t even Starlink flights: Last week, it flew its 22nd resupply mission under contract to NASA to the International Space Station, from Cape Canaveral, Florida. That flight used a brand new Falcon 9 booster (which made a picture perfect landing) and carried some interesting science, including toothpaste.

SpaceX also flew another mission for customers SiriusXM over the weekend, delivering that company’s 8ths new generation satellite to its target geostationary transfer orbit. SpaceX also launched SiriusXM’s last satellite, delivering it to its intended destination in December, but that spacecraft then failed once it reached its orbit, which had nothing to do with SpaceX or its services.

So SpaceX is doing a lot of launching, which is now normal for the company, but it also announced some news with partner Axiom last week that will be far from business as usual: It’s going to fly a total of four private astronaut missions on behalf of partner Axiom to the International Space Station through 2023, starting next January. That’s the full available stock of private astronaut visits to the ISS based on NASA’s past guidelines, so basically SpaceX’s private space station ferry service is at capacity in terms of demand.

Image Credits: SpaceX

Acquisitions and funding

Meanwhile in startup land, launcher Astra has picked up space propulsion firm Apollo Fusion, which will help it build out its full-service lineup of offerings with the ability to propel spacecraft beyond Earth’s orbit, to destinations including the Moon. The company has been upfront about its desire to eventually offer commercial clients just about everything up the stack when it comes to space services, and this is a piece of the puzzle that its forthcoming SPAC merger and public debut will help it fund.

LeoLabs, the startup that has made a name for itself spotting close passes for orbital objects, has raised $65 million in a Series B to help it build out its offering. The company tracks even very small objects on orbit, making it a more detailed offering than is currently available from public agency sources, and it could be a cornerstone service in the coming space economy as orbital objects continue to proliferate.

Join us at TC Sessions: Space in December

Last year we held our first dedicated space event, and it went so well that we decided to host it again in 2021. This year, it’s happening December 14 and 15, and it’s once again going to be an entirely virtual conference, so people from all over the world will be able to join.