- The team aboard the International Space Station grew to 11 on Saturday following the arrival of SpaceX's (SPACE) third crewed capsule in less than a year (Demo-2, Crew-1, Crew-2). It was also the first group to be propelled into orbit via a rocket booster recycled from a previous spaceflight. Reused boosters are at the heart of SpaceX's rocket strategy to help make spaceflight more economical.
- Close call: While en route to the ISS, the SpaceX capsule, called Endeavour, had a near miss with an unknown object. Astronauts on board were told to "buckle up and prepare for a crash as there was no time to perform an avoidance maneuver." The SpaceX team also had the crew don their pressure suits "out of an abundance of caution," but they thankfully arrived at the ISS unharmed.
- After the space shuttle program was retired in 2011, NASA turned to private companies for space station deliveries. SpaceX began supply runs in 2012, before launching astronauts last year and ending NASA's reliance on Russia. NASA also hired Boeing (NYSE:BA) for a taxi service under its Commercial Crew program, but the company's Starliner capsule isn't expected to fly astronauts until next year. "While not done yet, [Commercial Crew] is poised to save the Agency approximately $20B-$30B, and provide two, independent crew transportation systems," according to NASA commercial spaceflight director Phil McAlister.
- Investing sphere: "With another $4.5B invested into 77 space companies in Q1, there has now been $186.7B of equity investment into 1,480 unique companies in the space economy over the past 10 years," Space Capital managing partner Chad Anderson wrote in the latest Space Investment Quarterly. "Coming off a massive year of investment in the space economy, the trend towards larger late-stage deals continued in Q1, with the top 10 rounds accounting for 77% of total investment in the quarter. At the early-stage, we're seeing larger deal sizes at higher valuations and looser terms as VCs push to deploy the historical amounts of capital they raised in 2020."
- Latest to the launch pad is Cathie Wood, whose ARK Space Exploration & Innovation ETF went live last month.
- Related: SPCE, LMT, AJRD, MAXR, IRDM, NOC, RTX, HON, LHX, LDOS, BLL, LORL, VSAT, HEI, TDY, CACI, ORBC, GILT, TRMB, SIRI, GRMN, OTCPK:EADSY, BORGN.
- ETFs: UFO, ROKT, ARKX