Expedition Space: Space Launch, Events, News

by Jason Rainbow TAMPA, Fla. — Astranis, a startup developing small geostationary satellites, has raised $250 million in a funding round that values the company at $1.4 billion. Funds managed by BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, led the Series C financing round.  It means San Francisco-based Astranis has raised more than $350 million to expand its microsatellite platform, following a $90 million debt and equity round in February 2020. At around 350 kilograms, the venture is developing one of the smallest geostationary spacecraft in the commercial industry.  Astranis is focusing on the affordable broadband market. One of its first customers is U.S.-based Pacific Dataport, which will lease the 7.5 gigabits per second capacity on its first commercial satellite for internet services across Alaska. “We already had the funding in hand to start service with our first commercial satellite, the satellite we’re launching later this year for Alaska,” Astranis co-f...

by Jeff Foust The wave of deals involving special-purpose acquisition corporations (SPACs ) has grabbed the space industry’s interest in the last few months. It’s also prompted more than a few people to ask: what, exactly, is a SPAC? SPACs are an alternative way for companies to go public. They’re sometimes called “blank check companies,” which is an apt description. A SPAC forms and goes public through a traditional initial public offering. The SPAC uses the proceeds of that IPO to merge with a private company, allowing it to go public without itself going through a lengthy IPO process. A SPAC typically has two years to complete a deal or return its proceeds to shareholders. SPACs are not new, having been used since the 1990s. Virgin Galactic, which kicked off the latest surge in SPACs in 2019, is not even the first space company to go public via a SPAC: Iridium went public by merging with a SPAC in 2009. However, SPACs are soared in popularity in the last year thanks to the spee...