2021 was a robust year for space venture capital, but 2022 has a "more challenging environment," with VC investment trending downward quarter after quarter, said Maureen Haverty, Seraphim Space vice president-investment, in a Space Tech Expo webinar Tuesday. She said early-stage and seed-stage investing are "holding on pretty well," but growth investment is taking a hit. She said deals in growth investment are faring better in the U.S. than in Europe, which doesn't have a strong growth investment scene in space anyway, while the U.S. investment community has more risk tolerance. Haverty said growth investors have traditionally focused on revenue and profitability, but 2021 was an anomaly where investors were more liberal in their standards. "Now the standards have returned," and companies seeking VC investment need to focus on revenue and profitability, she said. Ali Baghchehsara, president of space propulsion startup Plasmos, said the investment environment will likely remain more challenging for a while. He said for companies seeking funding, the focus needs to be on having a simple story and on achieving milestones to demonstrate progress.
Since its planned purchase by Astrocast fell through, Hiber asked to withdraw FCC applications tied to that, it told the International Bureau Monday. Last month Astrocast told investors the acquisition announced in May (see 2205310003) was terminated by reaching the Nov. 30 long stop date. "Due to challenging market conditions for fundraising the last six months, the liquidity for the Company has been tight," Astrocast said. It said it had been funding existing operations through convertible notes and it "will continue to assess strategic alternatives for strengthening its financial position on a long-term basis." Astrocast said because the Hiber deal fell through, Hiber "is claiming an obligation for Astrocast to grant a convertible loan" of $1.57 million supposedly due pursuant to the Astrocast/Hiber agreement. Astrocast said Hiber is referring the convertible loan grant to mediation and dispute resolution in arbitration under the provisions of the agreement. Astrocast said it disputes the Hiber claim.
E-Space expects to close by the end of January on Wireless Telecom Group's developer of embedded signal processing and RF modules, CommAgility, the satellite startup said Monday. E-Space said adding the nonterrestrial networks source code into its capabilities will speed up its payload and customer use case development.
The 18.8-19.3 GHz and 28.6-29.1 GHz band segments are used by at least six other geostationary orbit satellite operators, and that use has gone on for years without interfering with non-geostationary systems, Viasat CEO Mark Dankberg told FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, per a docket 21-456 filing posted Monday. That compatibility comes by avoiding in-line interference through angular separation between NGSO operations and the GSO arc, Viasat said. It urged the FCC to ensure GSO operators continue to have access to the bands as it looks at updating its NGSO fixed satellite service sharing rules.
OneWeb's next batch of satellites, scheduled for launch Tuesday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, will let it expand service and begin offering coverage between the South Pole and 35th parallel South, opening up connectivity services in southern Australia, South Africa and parts of South America, it said Friday. The scheduled launch of the 40 non-geostationary orbit satellites would be OneWeb's 15th.
Massachusetts weather technology firm Tomorrow Companies is seeking FCC International Bureau approval of its planned constellation of passive microwave sounder small satellites for weather monitoring and forecasting. In a bureau application last week, Tomorrow said the 18 non-geostationary orbit earth exploration satellite service satellites, the Tomorrow.io Weather Constellation, would use the S and X bands.
Sunsetting non-geostationary orbit satellite protections by condensing processing rounds over time without the loss of interference protection rights for earlier rounds could encourage NGSO innovation and competition, Intelsat representatives told FCC International Bureau staffers per a docket 21-456 filing Friday. Intelsat said sunsetting shouldn't mean later-round licensees can interfere with earlier-round ones or that it puts earlier- and later-round systems on equal footing for coordination. It said it doesn't support sunsetting licenses or interference protections. The sunsetting provision in the NGSO spectrum sharing NPRM adopted in December has been an area of contention (see 2203280029).
To make sure SpaceX's proposed second-generation broadband satellite constellation doesn't create too big an astronomy problem, it must operate below 580 km and reach a coordination agreement with the National Science Foundation to protect optical ground-based astronomy, the FCC said in an authorization order released Thursday. The authorization green-lights 7,500 of the proposed 29,988 Ku-/Ka-band Starlink satellites, deferring on the rest of the constellation and on SpaceX's request to also use the E band. The partial grant lets SpaceX start deployment while also "protect[ing] other satellite and terrestrial operators from harmful interference and maintain[ing] a safe space environment, promoting competition and protecting spectrum and orbital resources for future use," the order said. Among the conditions, SpaceX must submit regular reports to the FCC about progress to protect optical astronomy and limit operations in some frequency bands to one satellite beam from any of its second-generation Starlinks in the same frequency in the same or overlapping areas at a time.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce joined in-space services, assembly and manufacturing advocates in urging the FCC to move toward an NPRM on licensing ISAM missions (see 2211290047). In docket 22-272 Thursday, the Chamber said the agency also should use the 2023 World Radioccommunication Conference as an opportunity to push international discussions on ISAM spectrum needs.
As SpaceX's Starlink broadband service adds subscribers -- with numbers hitting roughly 400,000 in Q2 -- its download speeds continue to slow, Ookla said Tuesday. It said its average download speed in the U.S. during Q3 of this year, 53 Mbps, was a 17% decline year over year. It said upload speeds were largely unchanged year over year, with Starlink averaging 7.22 Mbps in the U.S. It said Starlink's U.S. customer base has grown sizably over the past year, from at least 10 unique users in 776 counties -- which is roughly 25% of all counties -- to 2,399 counties, which is about 75%.