Category Archives: Spacex

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched a new batch of 60 Starlink internet satellites into orbit on Wednesday evening (April 28) and nailed a landing at sea to top off a successful mission.

The veteran Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Space Launch Complex 40 here at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 11:44 p.m. EDT (0344 April 29 GMT), marking the company's 10th launch of the year.

"The Falcon 9 first stage has landed for its seventh time," SpaceX engineer Jessie Anderson said during the launch broadcast. "This marks our 81st recovery of an orbital class rocket."

Approximately nine minutes later, the rocket's first stage returned to Earth, touching down on SpaceX's drone ship "Just Read the Instructions," for its seventh successful landing.

Video: SpaceX launches Starlink 24 mission! Nails booster landing at seaRelated: SpaceX's Starlink satellite megaconstellation launches in photos

The launch marked the third of the evening, as Arianespace launched a Vega rocket from Kourou, French Guiana roughly two hours earlier, at 9:50 p.m. EDT (0150 GMT on April 29). China then launched the core module of its next space station at 11:23 p.m. EST (0323 GMT on April 29), followed by SpaceX.

SpaceX is continuing the rapid launch pace set last year, as the Hawthorne, California-based rocket builder celebrated its 12th launch so far in 2021. The majority of those launches have been SpaceX's own Starlink satellites, as the company surpasses its initial internet constellation of 1,440 broadband satellites.

That constellation could eventually be tens of thousands of satellites strong as SpaceX has permission to launch as many as 30,000, with an option for even more.

Forecasters at the 45th Space Wing's Weather Squadron predicted favorable conditions at launch and the weather did not disappoint.

The booster for Wednesday's launch, called B1060, is one of SpaceX's fleet of flight-proven boosters. The veteran flier now has seven launches and landings under its belt as the company has plans to push its Falcon 9 rockets to the limit.

B1060 made its debut in June 2020, when it carried an upgraded GPS III satellite into space for the U.S. Space Force. That mission was the first time that the military gave SpaceX the green light to go ahead and recover the booster. (Previously, all military missions flew on expendable rockets.)

Once the booster returned to Port, it was prepared for its next mission: to carry a stack of Starlink internet satellites into space. Following back-to-back Starlink missions, the veteran booster then carried a communications satellite into space for Turkey.

Its subsequent missions have all contained Starlink payloads. Wednesday's flight marks the fifth load of the broadband satellites that this particular booster has carried into space. SpaceX has been using its previously flown boosters with the most miles to transport its own satellites into space.

This is the 115th overall flight for Falcon 9, and the 61st flight of a used, refurbished booster. In fact, every single SpaceX launch so far in 2021 has been on a flight-proven rocket.

When the upgraded Falcon 9 debuted in 2018, SpaceX Founder and CEO Elon Musk told reporters that the company expected each Falcon 9 to fly 10 times with few refurbishments in between flights, and as many as 100 times before retirement.

The company has learned a lot through the refurbishment process, and according to Musk, there doesn't seem to be a hard limit on the number of flights that any given Falcon 9 can fly.

"You probably don't want to be on a life leader for a crewed mission, but it's probably good to have a flight or two under its belt, for the booster to have flown once or twice," he said during a post-launch media call after the Crew-2 astronaut mission to the space station. "If it was an aircraft coming out of the factory, you'd want the aircraft to probably have gone through a test flight or two before you put passengers on."

"So I think that's probably a couple of flights is a good number for a crew booster, and in the meantime, we'll keep flying the life leader," Musk said. "We've got nine flights on one of the boosters. We're going to have a 10th flight soon with a Starlink mission."

Musk did indicate that the company would push the Falcons to the limit and keep flying them on Starlink missions until they break, which could well surpass the 10 flights previously predicted.

Having a fleet of flight-proven rockets at its disposal allows SpaceX to keep up with its rapid launch cadence. However, company officials have stressed that while losing a booster is unfortunate, the main objective of each mission is always to deliver the payload safely to its intended orbit. Anything beyond that is a bonus.

With Wednesday's launch success, SpaceX has launched more than 1,500 Starlink satellites into orbit, which includes some that are no longer operational. This goes beyond the company's initial quota, but there are many more launches coming as the company has sought approval for tens of thousands more.

SpaceX launched its massive internet constellation, to help provide internet coverage to the world, in particular those in remote and rural areas. To that end, company engineers designed a fleet of flat-paneled broadband satellites to fly over the Earth, beaming down internet coverage to users who can access the service via a compact user terminal.

Currently Starlink is still in its beta-testing phase with users in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Germany and New Zealand able to access the service. The company is currently taking preorders for the internet service but is planning for a full rollout later this year. Prospective users can go to the company's website and reserve the service with a $99 deposit right now.

Starlink review: How good is Elon Musk's satellite internet service?

SpaceX is not the only company with aspirations of connecting the globe. OneWeb, Amazon and Telstar all have constellations of their own planned. However, OneWeb is currently the only other service with actual satellites in space.

The London-based company launched 36 of its satellites last month on a Russian Soyuz as it works to fill out its planned constellation containing 650 satellites. (To date, OneWeb has launched five of its planned 19 missions.)

There was a minor kerfuffle between SpaceX and OneWeb this month as OneWeb reported that one of its satellites had a 'close call' with one of SpaceX's Starlink satellites. More recent filings with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have shed some light on the incident, showing that there was no potential collision and that the situation was exaggerated.

SpaceX recently inked a deal with NASA to steer its satellites out of the way if there was any sort of close call with any one of the agency's satellites or the International Space Station. That only pertains to NASA though; currently there's no global or national regulation that would mandate one company to move its satellites out of the way of another entity.

In 2020, the space station had to adjust its orbit a number of times to avoid potential collisions with objects in orbit. So the creation of this Space Act Agreement with SpaceX is a huge step towards mitigating potential collisions.

Both of the fairing halves featured in Wednesday's mission are brand new, and with any luck, they will fly again soon.

That is, if they land intact. Thanks to onboard parachutes and navigation software, the clamshell-like hardware will glide itself back to Earth and gently splash down in the Atlantic Ocean. From there, the two fairing pieces will be pulled from the water by SpaceX's newest boat, a bright pink and blue vessel named Shelia Bordelon.

This is the third mission now for Shelia Bordelon, which uses an onboard crane to retrieve the fairings.

Follow Amy Thompson on Twitter @astrogingersnap. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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SpaceX rocket launches another 60 Starlink satellites, nails its 7th landing at sea - Space.com

In this episode of Industry Focus: Energy, Motley Fool contributor Lou Whiteman returns to the podcast to talk with host Nick Sciple about SpaceX's winning the NASA contract to return humans to the moon, the Mars helicopter Ingenuity, and Canadian National Railway (NYSE:CNI) challenging Canadian Pacific's (NYSE:CP) bid to acquire Kansas City Southern (NYSE:KSU).

To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. To get started investing, check out our quick-start guide to investing in stocks. A full transcript follows the video.

This video was recorded on April 22, 2021.

Nick Sciple: Welcome to Industry Focus. I'm Nick Sciple. We've got lots of news to run down in energy and industrials this week, and I'm excited to have Lou Whiteman back on the show with me to break it all down. Lou, how's it going?

Lou Whiteman: I'm doing well, how are you doing?

Sciple: I'm doing fantastic. We've got a couple of topics to break down today. We'll update listeners on the Kansas City Southern acquisition we discussed about a month ago. It is already a super-complicated acquisition. We weren't sure if the government was going to approve it. Now we've got a bidding war on top of that with Canadian National Railway jumping into the mix, we'll break that down and see what could come next when it comes to this transaction. But first, I want to start with SpaceX scored a huge win at the end of last week when NASA selected the company as the sole winner in the bidding to provide the landing equipment needed to bring humans back to the moon. Lou, what does this news mean for SpaceX and for the space industry more broadly?

Whiteman: Yeah, this was a huge deal. This is part of NASA's big Artemis project, which as you say, is going to bring us back to the moon. This is $2.9 billion with a bid contract for the human landing system. This is the part that is going to bring astronauts from orbit to the moon surface and back. This has been in development for a long time, there was a who's who's list of people signed up for this. NASA narrowed it down to three bidders, we had expected two winners, but it ended up being a winner take all and SpaceX has beaten out Dynetics, which was a Leidos Holdings subsidiary, and Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin, for a really big important contract on this whole moon landing project.

Sciple: Right. One of the things we saw coming out of this news, Lou, is that how SpaceX won this deal, was they just bid significantly less than some of these other folks operating in the industry. What is allowing SpaceX to do this, is it their special rockets or what's behind this?

Whiteman: It's really interesting because since this is a government deal and you can protest it, NASA really had to justify their decision. They wrote a long 24-page document basically explaining why and what comes out is, yeah, that SpaceX was "significantly lower" than Blue Origin and Blue Origin was significantly less than Leidos, so yes, SpaceX really won on cause. But what they're doing is they're taking on a lot of the risk themselves. SpaceX volunteered to self-fund and assume financial risk for about half of the development and testing, which is a massive number, that's how you get this down to only $3 billion. It's interesting because this is a unique advantage SpaceX has. They're involved in so many things, they're working to get to Mars for Elon Musk eventually. A lot of this work will complement the work they were going to do already. With that public-private partnership, that commercial element, they are able to justify taking on this risk that a pure defense contractor that's only going to be doing this for NASA, maybe can't justify taking on that risk.

Sciple: Right. SpaceX can tell themselves a story about, "This work we're doing on this Artemis project can give us some benefits on the big super rocket that'll take us to Mars," or what have you, and so therefore, these dollars can get spent twice in a way.

Whiteman: Right. It's important to say too, SpaceX is a start-up. They're doing a good job breaking in, but they are still trying to break in. As a newcomer, you're always going to need a price to get involved. SpaceX, as far as we know, isn't a profitable company. They're not really focused on profits right now. They're focused on adding scale, adding business, hitting these huge development goals. It's much different. It's almost a fair or unfair advantage but they came into this bidding a lot different than, say, a publicly traded company that wants to do a deal and earn their X% margin. It did really set up well for them to triumph here.

Sciple: All right. You talk about technology from one part of the business, maybe there's some synergies here. A lot of people are going to ask or wonder, is this using SpaceX's renewable or reusable rockets as part of this, this Artemis deal, or is this separate technology? What do we know about where this fits in?

Whiteman: Well, by nature here you have reusable rockets, just like you did with Apollo, because you need to go both down and up. The reusables that we think of with SpaceX that they've been developing are the ones that are going to break through the Earth's atmosphere and those are the big guns. It's going to be a modification on the Starship where it's not going to have all the heat shields and all the things you need to get back to Earth. This craft is going to sit in orbit, get refueled in orbit, go down to the moon and back. It's going to be using it's thrusters over and over again, but it's not like what we've seen with the big rockets trying to break through the Earth's atmosphere.

Sciple: We talk about how this is an opportunity for SpaceX clearly, when you're the only company and you get the contract to take people to the moon. That's a big deal for your business. But you also talked earlier, Lou, about the idea that these bids can be challenged and that NASA likes to have redundancy when they bid out these products. What led to the point of SpaceX being the sole source provider and what are some potential issues for NASA that may come from that?

Whiteman: Sure. This is a new world for NASA. NASA used to do everything in-house and the new NASA is putting a lot more responsibility on the contractors. But in return, they want redundancy, they want different people involved. For example, SpaceX, there are other signature projects, the Crew Dragon getting astronauts from Earth to the space station, and Boeing won that, and so far Boeing has not been able to deliver. It's good that NASA had two. In this case basically, if you read the statement, NASA honestly didn't even have enough money for one award based on the cost and funding is going to be an issue for this project. We can talk about it, but NASA is in an odd position where originally the goal was to get to the moon by 2024. That was the previous administration. You could probably guess that the previous president who would have been term limited by 2024, wanted to see during his tenure. That was what was really driving the timeline. Obviously, he's not there anymore. We have maybe a longer timeline, and that's good because NASA said it needed $3.3 billion for this project to get there in that timeline. So far they've only gotten $700 million or so, total in the last two years. There's a risk to NASA with one bidder. There's honestly a risk to SpaceX that a lot of this could be for nothing because we really don't know.

I think we'll get to the moon eventually, but when, how, the details on this, there's just a lot of uncertainty about this and how big of a priority it is for Congress. If nothing else, SpaceX and NASA are going to get a lot of good R&D out of this. If SpaceX can establish itself, it really might have some of its competitors thinking, "How are we going to do this in the future with the low cost?" There's a lot of moving parts, there is stuff to be gained, but for all the headlines on this deal, I'm not sure this gets us much closer to the moon by 2024 anyway.

Sciple: Maybe one of the potential risks for both NASA and SpaceX in this case is that the Congress doesn't play along. There's just not enough money to make ends meet and pay the bills needed to get this project off the ground to use a pun.

Whiteman: Yeah, and obviously, since this project was written up, we've had a lot of big expenses with COVID. The new administration has a lot of priorities and it's in their first year. We have infrastructure, we have a lot of things going on, so I don't think we're going to hit that 2024 deadline. I think regardless of it though, it's a good win for SpaceX and it should advance their mega-projects along, but it's far from certain for any side what's going to actually come out of this right now, I'd say.

Sciple: But before we move on from SpaceX, zooming out from Artemis, talking more broadly about space as a business and SpaceX as a company, what are your biggest questions about SpaceX's future? Is it government funding or something else?

Whiteman: I think SpaceX has really proven itself that it will get a share of the business, both from the Pentagon side and NASA side. Without doubt, SpaceX has done a lot of amazing things, especially for a start-up in a very difficult business to get established in. I think the biggest question would probably be concerning NASA and funding. There's going to be X amount of business from the Pentagon, but that's lower margin, less ambitious stuff. It's more reliable, but SpaceX has some $150 million rocket launch deals. Those are much more reliable but they pale in comparison to a $2.9 billion NASA deal. It's a good, steady business, but these home runs and how certain they are, how well they'll get funded, and how much you can rely on them to build your business, that would be the bigger question out of NASA, I think.

Sciple: Moving on this space topic, a little bit less investing focus, but more about the state of technology and the role that space plays in moving that technology forward. Just over the past few days, we've seen the first flight of the Mars helicopter Ingenuity. Lou, what can you tell us about this project and what it says about space technology and the state of drone technology today?

Whiteman: This is NASA at its best. This is NASA the scientist. This is an $80 million project, maybe $85 million if you count those packing up and going on, all done in-house. There is no contractor involved here. This is done by an internal team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory working with off the shelf parts, basically just science for the sake of science to prove that this was possible. This is a heck of a challenge. Mars's atmosphere is about 1% of the density of Earth, which if you understand anything about helicopters, makes helicopters very hard. The gravity is only 38% strong, but they're using a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor that we got rid of in our phones five, six, seven years ago because it wasn't good enough. It's the most powerful silicon on the entire Mars mission though, because they were able to buy it off the shelf. It's $80 million, it's a drop in the bucket if it was a contractor thing, but this is a reference for bigger projects that we'll see contractor involvement.

You're going to see contractors working with the JPL coming out of this for what's next, not only in space. You can see space just surveying bigger helicopters, autonomous, because of the delay, the thing has to fly on its own. You have an eight-minute delay, you cannot do this remote, so this has to be fully autonomous. The developments in miniaturization, in autonomous, in just how you do things on a foreign world, you will see that trickle-down, maybe not as quite the same as the way Tang came out of the Space Program, but this is a reminder of the bleeding edge R&D and the stuff that we take for granted that does come out of just science for the sake of science.

Sciple: Lou, you've talked about several times so far on the podcast of this shift from NASA doing its own development in-house to more of a reliance on contractors. You also mentioned Tang and you talked about Velcro or lots of other different types of technology developed in space, developed through the Space Program. Is space still an area we can think of as developing the absolute cutting edge of this technology? Does NASA still play that role or is that something that has also moved over to contractors?

Whiteman: They do to some extent, but if nothing else, NASA is a powerful grant writing body. Even if one day the next helicopter doesn't come out of NASA, I think it will come out of Stanford University or some research lab with NASA funding. I think for the sake of the mission of NASA, they have to constantly push that envelope forward. Yeah, I think science for the sake of science or science just to see if they can, which is what this helicopter was trying to do. Let's see if this is possible. That's still an important part of NASA's role and whether or not it's inside the JPL or a $80 million deal with some contractor. That's more reasonable to expect than these $3 billion deals, to be honest, I think.

Sciple: Moving on from space, we've talked about this absolute cutting edge of technology, both with the new moon mission as well as what's going on with the Ingenuity Mars helicopter. I want to transition back from cutting edge technology to probably the opposite of cutting edge technology, railroads, 200-year-old technology that's really been under development since, maybe, the early 1800s. Last month we discussed Canadian Pacific's $30 billion proposal to acquire Kansas City Southern, which would have been the first railroad acquisition in over a decade. This week we've seen Canadian National launch a competing bid at $33 billion. Lou, what can you tell us about what's going on here?

Whiteman: This is getting very interesting because we have had, as you said, the status quo of railroads for a long time. Now that someone's going to break that up, everybody's looking to get involved. Canadian National has always played the big brother foiling Canadian Pacific's plan, so it actually works. The narrative is perfect here. We're not building more railroads. We need more shipping efficiencies. Kansas City Southern has a unique set of assets running down the spine of North America to Mexico. Buying them here is a play on insourcing. It's a play on post-COVID, the renaissance in manufacturing in North America, in particular Mexico. That is the part of these sets of assets that you cannot replace. Now that it's on the market, everybody's trying to figure out, "If someone's going to get that, I wish it would be me," and so here we are.

Sciple: When you look at Kansas City Southern coming up for sale this year, you've got an asset that you're never going to see, probably come up for sale again in an industry where you're not going to see a new railroad probably ever be constructed. In that context, it's the perfect scenario for a bidding war. If you're an executive at a railroad company and you want to have on your resume that, "I did a big acquisition," this may be the only time in your entire career that you get this opportunity. If there's some structural advantage for you to gain for your business by attaching a complementary asset, this may be the only complimentary asset that ever comes available as well.

Whiteman: Yeah, and what is the price to put on it? Last fall, Blackstone, which obviously wanted a good deal, but they are very sophisticated investors. Their best and final record on Kansas City Southern when they were going to take it private was about $20 billion. Now we're at $30 billion, now we're at $33 billion. When Berkshire Hathaway bought Burlington Northern, now granted this was a while ago, they were sold for about three times sales. We're pushing 12 times sales now with this deal. These are valuable assets. As we said, with the trends, you'd think that connecting Mexico, Canada, to the United States, it's only going to grow more important, but at some point it is that lost opportunity. This is your one opportunity to get these assets. I don't know if it can go higher, but certainly, we're past the point where you can just sit down with a spreadsheet and say, "Yes, this makes sense." There's more to it than the numbers at this point, which gets interesting.

Sciple: If you're Kansas City Southern, what are you to do in this situation as the executives at that company?

Whiteman: They've been pretty silent forever. Right now the bidders are fighting each other. Canadian Pacific came out yesterday on their earnings call. Really talked down the Canadian National offer, said it was much too reliant on debt, which makes you wonder, does that paint them in a corner where they can't raise theirs and take on more debt, but also their warning that the Canadian National deal can't get by regulators. Canadian National is out today saying baloney, so it's back and forth with them. Kansas City Southern just lying back and saying, "You guys just figure out what [laughs] size of check you want to write and we'll take it," I think, right now, but yeah, it's a weird time. We used to have three, maybe four at Berkshire. We have large U.S. railroads that I think would face a lot more of a challenge, but who knows. We can even see another bidder get involved for all I know.

Sciple: Kansas City Southern, hush up and let them pump the price up as much as they want. The other player in this and you mentioned maybe another railroad gets involved. We'll see what happens there, but regardless, there's a 4th player involved. We've got the two Canadian railroads, trying to acquire Kansas City Southern, and then we have the government, the regulator involved in this, and it's not clear that the regulators will let anybody acquire Kansas City Southern.

Whiteman: Right. The reason we haven't seen any major railroad deals is because last time they tried this in the '90s, they screwed everything up and made things miserable. The Surface Transportation Board, the relevant regulator, basically said "no more." Now Kansas City Southern was the smallest of the big railroads. They always were sort of exempt from this, and I think a deal can get done with them, but both of the Canadian companies want to come up with some trust that is going to get you the payout sooner because right now we're talking at least a year for regulatory approval, even when it was just one bidder. The Department of Justice has come out and said that's a mockery of the regulation. You can't have that happen, so there is so much out there. It's really hard to read.

I will say, I do think Canadian National has the tougher case to make. It is much bigger than either of these other companies combined in terms of revenue, Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern would still be smaller than Canadian National in terms of revenue. Canadian National back in the late '90s, bought a company called Illinois Central. It gave them track down the Mississippi to the Gulf Coast. That is redundant to what Kansas City Southern brings in the United States. You cannot make the same argument Canadian Pacific that it creates a new competitor with one line track, so I do think it is a thornier, but I certainly don't think it is undoable to the point where they shouldn't have even bothered. I think it's just a crazy situation right now where the regulator has a lot of difficult decisions to make that will impact the fate of the industry and all of these companies.

Sciple: We talked about previously, Lou, that best-case scenario, even without another bidder getting involved, this is probably a two-year process to close this transaction. Now, that Canadian National has jumped into the bidding, is that push this out even longer. Are we looking three, four years before this could realistically close, given all the machinations behind the scenes.

Whiteman: I doubt it goes that far, but I do think it could make things go [...]. For one thing, we don't really know if the clock has started yet because we don't know what the application is going to end up being. I do think that summer of 2022 is suddenly looking optimistic instead of a long way off. One other thing I'd note, I don't think this is Canadian National's primary motivation. I do think they want the access to Mexico, but it serves them, and probably the U.S. railroads are just fine to muddy the waters enough that no deal gets done, and the status quo remains where Canadian Pacific and KSU are smaller railroads that have to partner with these big guys. There's really no downside for Canadian National other than they're going to have to figure out how to integrate it and pay down the debt if they actually win it, but the status quo benefits them, which adds to the intrigue of what they'll do and how they'll play it out, I think.

Sciple: There's a whole poker game going on, and who is bluffing, who's got a great hand, and it's still to be determined. At the end of the day, the regulators are going to call a lot of the shots in what goes on here. When we get some official opinions, that'll be some impactful information.

Whiteman: It's going to be fun. This is the early stages of this. We've already gone a long way, but yeah, it's going to manage to see where that goes.

Sciple: We'll continue following the story, Lou. I thought maybe a fun closing question for you. Mac Greer likes to do the desert island questions. So desert island, you've got to own one of these for the next five years. You've got SpaceX. We're going to assume SpaceX is a public company, its most recent private round is $74 billion, so I'll give you SpaceX at $74 billion, or you can buy shares in any of these railroads: Canadian Pacific, Kansas City Southern, or Canadian National. You've got to hold it for the next five years. Which would you pick and why?

Whiteman: This is such an interesting question, isn't it? Let's start with SpaceX. I am very impressed with SpaceX and they are definitely my favorite Elon Musk related company. They have done a lot. There's a lot to like about where they're going, but $75 billion, for that $75 billion, you can buy all of Northrop Grumman plus all of Leidos holdings and get two powerful space businesses plus a whole lot more. I know we're not supposed to fixate on valuation, but that is a heck of a valuation for a small revenue wise, niche business that is probably not profitable. That takes me to the railroads and absent going into this, I could have made a case to buy any of those three. My cheating answer is probably I will buy the Canadian one that doesn't win the auction because they're not going to have the integration, but just since that's cheating, I'll take Kansas City Southern on the fact that I do think trends are going in their direction as far as Fortress North America and the advantages of Mexico. If a deal gets done, it's cash and stock, so you get a payout plus you get to ride the rails with whoever wins it for the long term. There's just a lot to like about railroads right now, and it might take a while for this to work out, but Kansas City Southern's sitting pretty right now.

Sciple: I think I'd agree with you, Lou, Kansas City Southern, maybe a bidding war bubbling, and this idea with the USMCA, they're the perfect railroad for that, and I think they've been pitching themselves. If you wanted to go with the Rule Breaker approach, I wouldn't blame you with going with SpaceX. It is the top dog and first-mover and it checks off every box, including the extreme overvaluation according to financial media. If you want to take a big swing on growth, SpaceX checks off just about all the David Gardner Rule Breaker boxes. We'll certainly be paying attention to that company if it's ever something we have an opportunity to look at for public investors, and when that time comes, Lou, you will be on the show with me to talk about it. If you're willing to come on.

Whiteman: Pleasure, and I'll probably be pretty positive because it is a cool company. [laughs]

Sciple: Well, until then, as always, people on the program may own companies discussed on the show and The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against the stocks discussed, so don't buy or sell anything based solely on what you hear. Thanks to Tim Sparks for mixing the show. For Lou Whiteman, I'm Nick Sciple. Thanks for listening and Fool on.

This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the official recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. Were motley! Questioning an investing thesis -- even one of our own -- helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.

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SpaceX to the Moon and a Railroad Bidding War - The Motley Fool

A Falcon 9 rockets launches a Starlink mission on January 20, 2021.

SpaceX

Private investment in space companies hit $1.9 billion in the first quarter, according to a report on Wednesday by New York-based firm Space Capital.

"The trend towards larger late-stage deals continued in Q1, with the top 10 rounds accounting for 77% of total investment," Space Capital managing partner Chad Anderson wrote in the report.

"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," he noted.

The quarterly Space Capital report divides investment in the industry into three technology categories.

The first, infrastructure, includes what many would consider space companies, such as firms that build rockets and satellites.

The other two categories are application and distribution. The former includes space-dependent services, like ride hailing or navigation, while the latter represents terrestrial-based technologies that connect to space-based networks.

In total, Space Capital tracks 1,480 companies with $186.7 billion in cumulative global equity investment since 2012 across its three categories.

The broad analysis of the space economy reflects Anderson's underlying thesis, and a phraseincreasingly repeated in the industryhe coined to represent it: "In the same way that every company today is a technology company, every company of tomorrow will be a space company."

Anderson thinks it's "very likely" that space infrastructure investment exceeds $10 billion this year, which would top 2020's record $8.9 billion.

The satellite broadband communications efforts of OneWeb, Amazon, and Telesat are expected to raise additional capital "throughout the rest of this year," Anderson said.

He noted that Jeff Bezos hasn't yet "put any new cash into Blue Origin so far," and Elon Musk's "SpaceX is going to need additional capital as they continue to push on their big initiatives, Starlink and Starship."

Anderson also said that investments in satellite companies, which make up about half of the deal activity in space infrastructure since 2012, directly affect the applications layer of companies that Space Capital tracks.

"It's all of the data that's coming off the satellites driving that $150 billion [total equity investment since 2012] in applications," Anderson said.

The 16th Electron launch in November 2020, when the company recovered the rocket after splashdown for the first time.

Rocket Lab

Space Capital is tracking eight space deals with SPACs, or special purpose acquisition companies, that are expected to close and "more exits are on the way," the report said.

Seven of these companies are in the space infrastructure segment and, in all, the close of the SPACs will add nearly $3 billion in cash to company balance sheets.

A SPAC or special purpose acquisition company is a shell company that raises money from investors via an initial public offering and then uses the capital to buy a private company and take it public, usually within two years.

"We welcome the access to additional capital that SPACs offer for infrastructure companies, but are cautious that valuations and growth targets may be out of reach for companies that don't have a defensible data angle," Space Capital said.

A defensible data angle means a company is offering a service beyond launching rockets to orbit, Anderson said. He gave Rocket Lab, which is merging with SPAC Vector Acquisition, as an example. Last year, the company expanded its business into spacecraft system services.

"We've seen SpaceX again leading in this way. They're a launch business first, but the main driver of their valuation is their satellite communications services business [called Starlink], and so many other things that they're doing," Anderson said.

The PIPEs, or private investments in public equity, of these SPACs are going to also boost the second quarter's investment totals, which Anderson says "is going to be massive."

He believes there are three companies "that are highly likely" to announce SPAC mergers in the coming months, and expects about a dozen space SPAC deals in total for the year.

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Space companies brought in $1.9 billion during the first quarter, led by SpaceX's 'mega-round': Report - CNBC

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Space launch company Rocket Lab USA recently announced it will attempt to recover the first stage of its rocket during its next mission.

Rocket reusability, pioneered by Elon Musks company SpaceX, helps drive down the cost of reaching space. Its an important milestone for the company. Success will boost investor confidence, but watchers should still be wary. Rocket recovery, after all, is difficult as SpaceXs own experience has shown.

Rocket Labs launch vehicle is the Electron rocket which has 19 successful launches under its belt, deploying more than 100 satellites. Its a smaller rocket, standing about 60 feet high with a payload capability of about 300 kilograms, or about 661 pounds. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands more than 200 feet in the air and can carry almost 23,000 pounds to low earth orbit. The Falcon 9 has been launched more than 110 times.

When the first rocket stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 comes back it lands straight up. Rocket Labs Electron will splash down, using a parachute to slow from speeds of greater than 8 times the speed of sound. The complex mission is the next major step toward making Electron the first orbital-class reusable small launch vehicle, enabling rapid-turnaround launches for small satellites, reads the companys news release.

The process doesnt sound easy. The air around Electron heats up to 2,400 C.the nine 3-D printed Rutherford engines on the first stage will bear the brunt of this extreme heating. To withstand the immense temperatures, this Electron features an evolved heat shield designed to protect the engines and direct the force of the plasma away from the rocket. Its the stuff of science fiction.

The company successfully deployed the parachute system in November 2020, validating its approach to recovery. The new mission will test updated systems, including the heat shield.

The launch is slated for May. The Long Beach, Calif.-based company will conduct the launch from its facility in New Zealand and will deploy two Earth observation satellites for BlackSky.

RocketLab and BlackSky arent officially public companies yet, but both are in the process of merging with special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs. Rocket Lab is merging with Vector Acquisition (ticker: VACQ). BlackSky is merging with Osprey Technology Acquisition (SFTW).

Based on shares outstanding when the mergers are completed, Rocket Lab has a pro-forma market capitalization of about $5.4 billion. BlackSky is valued at about $1.5 billion. SpaceX, for comparison, is valued at about $74 billion in private markets.

Barrons recently wrote positively about Rocket Lab. The company is already generating sales, making it one of the best bets for investors looking for high growth, speculative exposure to the new commercial space business. Since the article appeared in mid-March, shares are down about 4%, trailing behind comparable gains of both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite Index of roughly 5%.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com

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SpaceX Pioneered Reusable Rockets. Rocket Lab Is Trying to Do It Too. - Barron's

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched a new batch of 60 Starlink internet satellites into orbit on Wednesday afternoon (April 7) and nailed a landing at sea to top off a successful mission.

The veteran Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Space Launch Complex 40 here at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 12:34 p.m. EDT (1634 GMT), marking the company's 10th launch of the year.

"Falcon 9 has successfully lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station carrying our stack of Starlink satellites to orbit," Jessie Anderson, a SpaceX manufacturing engineer, said during a live webcast of the launch.

Approximately nine minutes later, the rocket's first stage returned to Earth, touching down on SpaceX's drone ship "Of Course I Still Love You," for its seventh successful landing.

Related: SpaceX's Starlink satellite megaconstellation launches in photos

SpaceX is continuing the rapid launch pace set last year, as the Hawthorne, California-based rocket builder celebrated its 10th launch so far in 2021. The majority of those launches have been SpaceX's own Starlink satellites, as the company inches closer to filling its initial internet constellation of 1,440 broadband satellites.

Though that constellation could eventually be tens of thousands of satellites strong as SpaceX has permission to launch as many as 30,000, with an option for even more.

Forecasters at the 45th Space Wing's Weather Squadron predicted favorable conditions at launch and the weather did not disappoint. It was nothing but blue skies over the space coast today as the Falcon 9 rocket climbed to orbit.

Related: What's that in the sky? It's a SpaceX rocket, but it sure doesn't look like it

The booster for today's launch, called B1058, is one of SpaceX's fleet of flight-proven boosters. The veteran flier now has seven launches and landings under its belt and is quickly rising up as one of the fleet leaders.

B1058 made its debut almost a year ago, as it became the first to sport NASA's iconic worm logo. "The worm is back," former NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted at the time.

The iconic red worm logo was created in the 1970s and used for a time before the space agency leaned solely on its other iconic symbol the NASA meatball.

While the meatball is still the main logo, NASA has opted to feature the worm on its crewed missions. The once bright red script is now dark and sooty, a result of its many trips to space and back.

B1058 was the first commercial rocket to deliver astronauts to the International Space Station as part of NASA's commercial crew program. It's historic first flight, the Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission, which blasted off from Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center here in Florida on May 30, 2020, marked the first time astronauts blasted off from U.S. soil since the end of the shuttle program in 2011.

After that, the booster flew a second time in July 2020, delivering a communications satellite into space for South Korea's military.

The booster also delivered the first upgraded Dragon cargo capsule to the space station in December 2020 and made history again in January as the booster to deliver the most satellites in a single payload into orbit. That rideshare mission, dubbed Transporter-1, deposited a record 143 small satellites into space. (The previous record was held by Indias space agency for launching 104 small satellites in 2017.)

This is the 113th overall flight for Falcon 9, and the 59th flight of a used, refurbished booster. In fact, every single SpaceX launch so far in 2021 has been on a flight-proven rocket.

The mission also marks the fifth consecutive successful landing for SpaceX, after the company lost one of its six-time fliers on Feb. 15 when the rocket lost an engine during flight and subsequently failed to land on the drone ship, ending a more than two dozen catch streak.

SpaceX attributed the anomaly to an inflight shut down of one of the engines. The rocket's first stage is powered by nine Merlin 1D engines and is designed to be able to complete its mission even if one of the engines shuts down prematurely.

Unfortunately the rocket was unable to slow itself enough to land on the drone ship as expected. Company officials have stressed that while losing a booster is unfortunate, the main objective of each mission is always to deliver the payload safely to its intended orbit. Anything beyond that is a bonus.

However, having a fleet of flight-proven rockets at its disposal allows SpaceX to keep up with its rapid launch cadence.

With today's launch success, SpaceX has launched a total of more than 1,400 Starlink satellites into orbit, which includes some that are no longer operational. This almost fills the company's initial quota, as some have deorbited. And there are many more launches coming as the company has sought approval for tens of thousands more.

SpaceX launched its massive internet constellation, with one major goal: to connect the globe. To that end, company engineers designed a fleet of flat paneled broadband satellites to fly over the Earth, beaming down internet coverage to users across the globe especially those in rural and remote areas who otherwise would not have connectivity.

Starlink review (hands on): How good is Elon Musk's satellite internet service?

Currently Starlink is still in its beta-testing phase with users in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Germany and New Zealand able to access the service. SpaceX is taking preorders in preparation for when its full commercial services rollout sometime later this year. Prospective users can start reserving the service with a $99 deposit right now by signing up on the company's website.

SpaceX is not the only company with aspirations of connecting the globe. OneWeb, Amazon and Telstar all have constellations of their own planned. However, OneWeb is currently the only other service with actual satellites in space.

The London-based company launched 36 of its satellites last month on a Russian Soyuz as it works to fill out its planned constellation containing 650 satellites. (To date, OneWeb has launched five of its planned 19 missions.)

Both of the fairing halves featured in today's mission have flown before, and with any luck, they will fly again soon.

That is, if they land intact. With the help of onboard parachutes the clamshell-like hardware will gently splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean and be pulled from the water by SpaceX's newest boat, a bright pink and blue vessel named Shelia Bordelon.

Participating in its second mission, Shelia Bordelon will use an onboard crane to retrieve the fairings. It's unclear if this boat will be a permanent member of the fleet or if she's just helping out short term.

SpaceX is officially retiring it's twin fairing catchers GO Ms. Chief and GO Ms. Tree and will be relying on other recovery vessels to retrieve the falling fairings in the future.

Follow Amy Thompson on Twitter @astrogingersnap. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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SpaceX launches another 60 Starlink satellites into orbit and sticks rocket landing - Space.com

How do you launch and land a rocket in the same day? Here's how.

SpaceX

A couple of weeks before the April 8, 2016 CRS-8 launch, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module was loaded into the trunk of the Dragon spacecraft.

SpaceX

The day before launch, Dragon was loaded with "late load" cargo in advance of the April 8 trip to the International Space Station.

SpaceX

And then the Falcon 9 was ready to go.

NASA

The Dragon spacecraft wrapped up tight.

SpaceX

The instantaneous launch window meant the Falcon 9 had to go right on time.

NASA

The perfect day for a launchhardly a cloud in the sky.

NASA

And there it goes.

NASA

The Falcon 9's nine engines burn with a thrust of more than 1.5 million pounds.

NASA

Before the landing, Elon Musk tweeted out this photo from the autonomous drone ship.

Elon Musk

There's the rocket!

SpaceX

Almost down.

SpaceX

There. It. Is.

SpaceX

I was born a mere four months after the final Apollo astronauts brushed gray dust from their spacesuits and lifted off from the Moon. As my interest in space grew over the years and writing about this industry became my profession, I felt a deepening sense of regret for missing that glorious moment of triumph in our shared space history. I lived with that regret for decadesright up untilApril 8, 2016.

Five years ago today, SpaceX successfully landed a Falcon 9 rocket first stage on a boat.

I was not prepared for the experience of watching a skinny, black-and-white rocket fall out of the sky against the azure backdrop of the Atlantic Ocean and land on a small drone ship. As whitecaps crashed into the side of the boat, it seemed like a portal opening into the future. This breakthrough in rocket technology washed away any regrets I had about missing Apollo. In my mind, landing a Falcon 9 first stage at sea represented an essential step toward reducing the cost of getting people and payloads into space and unlocked a bright spacefaring future.

After nearly a dozen failed attempts, subsequent landings soon filled a SpaceX hangar full of used rockets. This caught some SpaceX engineers off guard. "It even surprised us that we suddenly had ten first stages or something like that," Hans Koenigsmann, one of SpaceX's earliest hires, said a few years afterward. "And we were like, well, we didn't really account for that."

A few months prior to this boat landing, of course, SpaceX had successfully returned a Falcon 9 first stage to its "landing zone" along the Florida coast, near its launch pad. This was a huge achievement. But landing on a drone ship is that much more difficult. When landing on the coast, only the rocket is moving. When touching down at sea, both the rocket and the drone ship are moving, and there are sea states and more to consider.

Yet the economics pretty much require landing downrange of a launch site. That's because over the course of a launch, a rocket gradually leans from a vertical to horizontal orientation as it prepares to release its second stage on an orbital trajectory. At this point, it requires tons of propellant to arrest this horizontal velocity and reverse course back to the launch site. It is much more fuel-efficient to have the rocket follow a parabolic arc and land hundreds of kilometers from the launch site.

This is borne out in the performance data. A Falcon 9 rocket that lands on a drone ship can lift about 5.5 tons to geostationary transfer orbit, compared to 3.5 tons for a rocket that lands back at the launch site. Had SpaceX not figured out how to land the Falcon 9 first stage on a drone ship, it would have eliminated about 40 percent of the rocket's lift capability, a huge penalty that would have negated the benefit of reusing rockets.

Trevor Mahlmann

Nearly a decade ago, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin patented the concept of landing a rocket on a barge for this very reason. (This forced SpaceX to go to court, and its challenge against the patent eventually succeeded.) But there is a big difference in knowing something and actually doing something. Since acquiring its patent,Blue Origin has yet to launch an orbital rocket, let alone land one. Bezos has retrofitted and named a platform ship, Jacklyn, but it is unlikely to catch a rocket before 2023 at the earliest.

By contrast, since its first successful landing on the drone shipOf Course I Still Love You, SpaceX has safely returned 56 more Falcon 9 rockets at sea. Ocean-based landings have proven a remarkably enabling technology. Of SpaceX's 10 orbital rocket launches in 2021, every one of them rode to orbit on a previously flown first stage. Some returned to space within four weeks of a previous launch.By landing its first Falcon 9 rocket at sea, SpaceX began a revolution in launch. No longer is reusing rockets a noveltyit's considered an essential part of the business.

"Im really surprised when I see new launch vehicles in development now that arent reusable," Peter Beck, the founder of Rocket Lab, told me in December.

The dramatic landing of that first stage also launched me on something of a personal journey. I realized that SpaceX was not just a really interesting company doing interesting things in space. Rather, it was the transformative space company of my lifetime.

I began reporting more deeply on the company's activities, trying to understand where it had come from to more fully glean the motivations of SpaceX founder and chief engineer Elon Musk. This ultimately resulted in a book, Liftoff, on the origins of the company. One thing I took from this reporting is that, as miraculous as automated drone ship landings may seem, they're just one in a long line of miracles that must be realized to put humans on the surface of Mars.

In the 2000s, SpaceX very nearly died on multiple occasions as a fledgling company with its Falcon 1 rocket. In the 2010s, SpaceX iterated on the Falcon 9, first winning contracts for NASA launches and commercial satellites. These missions, in turn, gave SpaceX engineers the breathing room to experiment with recovering and refurbishing used rockets. Thanks to this, they're now able to fly first stages rapidly and at significantly reduced costs.

CRS-8 first stage landing on April 8, 2016.

Now, with Starship, SpaceX is seeking to reuse a much larger orbital vehicle and bring back not just the first stagein this, the Super Heavy booster is a lot like the Falcon 9 first stagebut the Starship vehicle as well. This represents a whole other challenge, as Starship will be coming back to Earth at orbital velocities, about Mach 23. And after this, SpaceX engineers will need to figure out how to refuel Starships in low Earth orbit, and then how to keep a crew alive en route to Mars, on the surface, and on the way back home. Each of these represents a huge engineering difficulty.

However, in reflecting on how far SpaceX has come in five years since that first boat landing, I am left with a single overriding thought. Ifthis company could land rockets on boats in the middle of the ocean, what could it not do? So I am now glad to have missed the Apollo era if it means I can be alive at this very moment, with an uncertain but boundless future before us.

Listing image by SpaceX

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SpaceX landed a rocket on a boat five years agoit changed everything - Ars Technica

SpaceX and OneWeb's satellites were dangerously close to colliding with each other in orbit last weekend, according to reports.

The Verge reported that it was the first known crash-avoidance incident for the two companies as they try to grow their new broadband-beaming networks in space.

The event occurred after OneWeb blasted a new batch of 36 satellites into orbit and had to dodge through an array of Starlinks to reach its targeted orbit.

The outlet said "red alerts" were sent from the US Space Force 18th Space Control Squadron to both companies. The US government agency found the satellites only 190 feet apart. A collision would have sent hundreds more pieces of debris flying around space. This could potentially also have led to further collisions with other nearby objects.

OneWeb's satellites operate at an orbit roughly 550 km higher than SpaceX's Starlink. This means OneWeb's constellation must pass through SpaceX's sea of satellites.

As both teams tried to coordinate, it was discovered that SpaceX disabled its automated AI-powered collision-avoidance system to give OneWeb the opportunity to drive its satellite out of the way, according to Chris McLaughlin, chief of government, regulation, and engagement at OneWeb.

McLaughlin spoke to Insider's Kate Duffy last week to discuss OneWeb's strategy. He addressed concerns relating to the way big space companies are launching thousands of satellites.

He said the practice is "not a responsible way forward for future generations," adding that OneWeb is "adopting a more responsible use of space."

OneWeb plans to have 648 satellites at 1,200 km in orbit in line with its goal to provide a global broadband service. The company's most recent launch on March 25 took it up to 146 satellites.

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SpaceX and OneWeb satellites nearly crashed into each other in orbit, according to reports - Business Insider

Eric Berger, a soft-spoken Ars Technica journalist, meteorologist, and lover of all things space-related, has spent a lot of time with Elon Musk during the past few years. While watching the billionaire SpaceX founder closely as he sat in on board meetings and gathering with his family on flights to Texas, Berger discovered the formula behind the companys two-decade ascension to space industry dominance.

It starts with Musk an enthralling, passionate, laser-focused, relentless, moody, and sometimes difficult leader, with a unique gift for engineering. His greatest talent, according to Berger, may be his ability to locate and surround himself with the right people those who mix well with his personality and can keep up pace for long periods of time. The people who helped Musk send his first Falcon rockets into space come into clear focus in Bergers new book Liftoff, a widely-praised chronicle of SpaceXs establishment in the early 2000s.

In this episode of On Orbit, Berger brings us behind the scenes of writing Liftoff. He explains the influence that people like Tom Mueller and Gwynne Shotwell (who just become Via Satellites most recent two-time Executive of the Year winner) had on SpaceXs success, and who he enjoyed speaking with the most while conducting research. Berger also shares some insights that werent included in Liftoff, as well as thoughts on who might lead SpaceX after Musk.

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Eric Berger, Elon Musk, and the Stars of SpaceX's Origin Story - Via Satellite

By: Trends Desk | Agra/new Delhi, New Delhi | Updated: April 8, 2021 10:54:43 am

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is known for his love for dank memes and conversations involving outer space. However, its not just restricted to space explorations and astronomical researches, he left netizens in a frenzy as he accepted that he is an alien!

While it may have been another instance of him having some fun and goofing around on Twitter, his affirmative reply to Twitter user is now going viral. The tweet has even left people divided online with some jokingly furnishing proofs and commenting he launched SpaceX just to return to his home planet.

It all started when recently, the SpaceX CEO tweeted: The Earth is not flat, its a hollow globe & Donkey King lives there!

When one fan replied to the tweet asking if he was an alien, in a cryptic message, the entrepreneur just replied: Obv, meaning obviously, leaving all in an uproar, including the person who asked it.

However, this is not the first time he replied this way to such queries. Earlier in February, 2021, he responded to a tweet of follower saying: Im an alien.

The tweet came in reply when a fan wondered how Musk manages so many billion-dollar companies with such flair and ease. When the fan called upon him, the dark lord looking for answers, he admitted he is not from this planet.

People on social media were amused by his reply, and many reacted with memes and jokes.

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Elon Musk, are you an alien?: SpaceX CEOs reply leaves people in frenzy - The Indian Express

Larry Connor

The Connor Group

Larry Connor, the leader of eponymous Ohio-based real estate firm The Connor Group, earlier this year signed on to fly to the International Space Station. But first, before beginning his astronaut training, Connor will dive to the bottom of the ocean.

Connor is partnering with deep sea specialist EYOS Expeditions to next week explore both the Challenger Deep and the Sirena Deep of the Mariana Trench in the DSV Limiting Factor submersible of Triton Submarines. Then, in January 2022, Connor will be the pilot for Axiom Space's 10-day AX-1 mission to the ISS, flying on SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft.

"I've never had the time and never had the money, but I've always had a passion about exploration and about trying to do groundbreaking research," Connor told CNBC about his upcoming missions. "I'm not a scientist, but I believe that the private sector can do unbelievable things to help all people."

Connor said that EYOS Expeditions reached out to him shortly after the AX-1 mission was announced, asking him if he would help cover part of the costs of an upcoming mission and, in return, join the trip as a co-pilot and mission specialist.

"They've been doing groundbreaking research in the Mariana Trench over the last couple of years [and] they want to continue that, but it's very expensive," Connor said. "Frankly, I didn't know anything about deep sea exploration but the more I learned, the more I became convinced that these individuals were absolutely professional, and that it could be done and could be done safely, and that the research would in fact be valuable."

While Connor may not be a scientist, he considers himself "fortunate in that I've done a lot of unusual things" due to his passion for exploration.

The Connor Group operates in 15 U.S. cities, which the entrepreneur credits to "an immensely talented and experienced group" who will keep the firm running during his trips.

Deep ocean submarine DSV Limiting Factor is seen above the deck of the ship DSSV Pressure Drop.

Reeve Jolliffe/EYOS Expeditions

Next Monday he will travel to Guam, with the first dive to the Challenger Deep on either Wednesday or Thursday dropping down more than 35,000 feet to the extreme environment of the deep ocean floor.

A few days later Connor will dive again, to the Sirena Deep "where there's only ever been two humans there before," he said.

"Our challenge is going to be trying to map some of the bottom, and explore where nobody's ever been. We anticipate that being a long dive probably 13 to 15 hours in total," Connor said.

The submarine DSV Limiting Factor features a small cabin, about four and a half feet wide by four and a half feet tall, for its two passengers. "It's literally a titanium ball that you sit in," Connor said.

While visiting Triton Submarines' headquarters in Florida last week to check out a simulator and get some basic training, the real estate entrepreneur said that the "short answer is you really don't" train for this kind of deep sea mission.

Connor is aiming to be the first person to travel to both the deepest part of the ocean and outer space within 12 months.

He'd be just the third person in history to travel to both, as former NASA astronaut Kathy Sullivan became the first and the first woman when she dove to Challenger Deep in August 2020, with private astronaut Richard Garriott becoming the second on a dive earlier last month.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket about to launch the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft is seen before the Demo-2 mission with NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley onboard.

NASA/Joel Kowsky

While the deep sea dive has come together in a matter of months for Connor, he's been researching flying to space for nearly seven years.

The AX-1 mission will be led by former NASA astronaut Michael Lpez-Alegra, as well as two mission specialists in former Israeli fighter pilot Eytan Stibbe and Canadian investor Mark Pathy.

"It will be the first private mission to the International Space Station and, in my opinion, we're going to do it right," Connor said. "We're going to do it to professional astronaut standards, we're going to do the training, because I think we have an opportunity but a real obligation to to get it right."

Connor said he and Lpez-Alegra will undergo two weeks of additional training, beyond the 15 weeks of training the full crew plans to begin in the fall of this year.

He said the crew visited the headquarters of Elon Musk's company once so far to be fitted for their spacesuits, describing the facility as "a beehive of activity" and saying he was "struck by the masses of really talented, committed people who, I got a sense for, were working crazy hours to make groundbreaking things happen."

He credited NASA for its experience in human spaceflight, as well as for turning to private companies to begin flying astronauts frequently and efficiently.

"In my experience, if you really want to propel things forward at a rapid rate, you've got to get the private sector involved, whether it's going to the bottom of the ocean or going to outer space," Connor said.

SpaceX's Crew Dragon Endeavour seen docked with the International Space Station on July 1, 2020.

NASA

Connor also recognized that, while AX-1 may be the first all-private trip to the ISS, it's still "very expensive."

"But hopefully in making what we believe is an investment upfront in 20, 30, 40 years, whether it's going to the bottom of the ocean or outer space, it is far more accessible to people, to go along with the value of the research," Connor said.

Asked for his advice to young entrepreneurs, he delivered a simple response.

"Aim high. Never set limits. Never put a ceiling on what you can do. The impossible is only impossible if you think it's impossible," Connor said.

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Real estate entrepreneur aims to be first to reach space and the bottom of the ocean within a year - CNBC