Hello, I’m Bruce Einhorn in Hong Kong and welcome to Bloomberg’s weekly newsletter about the new space economy. Small nations are making impassioned pitches to space ventures that they need more services to survive. But first …
Three things you need to know today:
- Elon Musk postponed a trip to India, where SpaceX is waiting for the government to license Starlink — just days before his scheduled meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
- Virgin Galactic is proposing a reverse split of its beaten-down shares.
- Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered the creation of a new military unit for space.
The great divide
For officials and entrepreneurs in the US, China or Europe, space exploration is driven by a combination of profit, security, science and pride. For Madin Maseeh, head of the first space organization in the Indian Ocean nation of the Maldives, the motivation is more existential.
With a mean elevation of 2 meters (about 6 feet, 6 inches) above sea level, the country of some 1,200 islands near the equator faces obvious risks from climate change and melting ice caps. Satellites can play a critical role in monitoring the effects of rising sea levels that threaten to overwhelm the nation and its half a million people.
Better use of space-based assets can also help preserve the coral reefs that form the foundation of the islands.
“If our corals die off, it doesn’t matter if we are still afloat, the entire ecosystem is destroyed and the livelihoods of the islanders are destroyed,” says Maseeh, 30. “We know we need to monitor them. That’s where satellites come in.”
Maseeh is the driving force behind the second Space for Island Nations Conference, running through Wednesday at a resort near the capital city Male.
At the conference, he expects to release more details about a project to send coral into space late this year aboard a rocket from Jeff Bezos-backed Blue Origin to test how it responds to microgravity. Previous research on microorganisms in space has helped scientists better understand genetic pathways.
“If we are able to send corals to space in certain conditions, we might be able to bring that back to earth and seed some reefs with more resilient corals,” Maseeh says.
Companies and officials also need to focus on ways to improve the ability of satellites to observe tiny islands, according to Maseeh. “A lot of the use cases for these satellite providers are over larger land masses,” he says. “There’s a lot of room for them to optimize, calibrate, tailor their offerings for island nations.”
About 60 speakers are scheduled for the conference, with representatives from small nations like the Bahamas and the Seychelles as well as bigger countries like Japan and even Canada (which qualifies thanks to the more than 36,000 islands in the Arctic Archipelago). Executives from satellite operators such as San Francisco-based Planet Labs and Tokyo-based Axelspace are scheduled to be there, too.
As more people recognize the threat of a new space divide — with first movers from wealthier countries grabbing the most desirable spots in low-Earth orbit and the moon — events like the Maldives conference can improve the visibility of countries that traditionally haven’t been part of the space discussion, says Maseeh.
One of the goals is “to represent our voice in the space conversation,” he said. “Previously it was dispersed, or not even there. Now we have to have a more united and amplified voice.” — Bruce Einhorn
Lynk Global’s defense deal
Lynk Global, which aims to connect ordinary cell phones to low orbiting satellites, has signed its first major defense contract. Lynk will be competing for up to $900 million worth of orders over the next five years, along with other companies, to provide communications services to the US Department of Defense and other government organizations, according to the company.
Similar to plans SpaceX has for Starlink, Lynk intends to launch an array of satellites that will connect to regular cell phones on Earth, allowing them to send and receive data when they are out of sight from cell towers. Lynk has five satellites in orbit so far, and will look to expand this to 74 by the end of 2025 and ultimately a network of 5,000. In December, Alex Rodriguez’s special purpose acquisition company announced its intent to merge with Lynk Global in order to take the company public.
Rodriguez, who remembers that his family “lost connectivity for weeks” when Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992, told Bloomberg that Lynk technology will allow the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other government services to have “emergency backup communications services from space when the next hurricane hits.” — Loren Grush
The UN’s view of the space divide
Aarti Holla-Maini, director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, spoke to C-SPAN earlier this month about the space economy, ways the Global North can help the Global South and how all nations could benefit from new innovations, since “without imagery from space, we wouldn’t even know that there’s a climate crisis.”
What we’re reading
Northrop Grumman and SpaceX are working on a classified spy satellite project that’s already capturing high-resolution imagery of the Earth, Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the program.
Images taken by a satellite from Umbra Space revealed evidence of probable damage at an Iranian air base following an Israeli strike, the BBC reported.
SpaceX has begun a crackdown on unauthorized Starlink users in countries such as South Africa, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Space stock to watch
L3Harris Technologies inked a couple of deals last week. The Melbourne, Florida-based space and defense contractor said April 18 it will expand a rocket-motor manufacturing facility in Virginia and announced a contract with the US Space Force worth up to $187 million to upgrade space domain awareness. On April 19, the firm declared a quarterly cash dividend of $1.16 a share. Nonetheless, shares are down slightly so far this year after ending 2023 with a nice boost.
In our orbit
April 24-26: Space Technology Conference, Central Eurasia, takes place in the Turkish capital of Ankara.
April 25: China’s Shenzhou-18, the country’s first crewed mission of 2024, is scheduled to carry three astronauts to the Tiangong Space Station.
April 30: A rocket from German startup HyImpulse is expected to take off in the first mission from Australian spaceport operator Southern Launch’s Koonibba Test Range.
Talk to us
Please send us ideas, tips and questions. As always, you can reach Bloomberg’s global business of space editor, Eric Johnson, at ejohnson453@bloomberg.net (or via Signal). If you don’t receive this newsletter, you should sign up here.
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Written by: Bruce Einhorn @Bloomberg
The post “Tiny Islands Look to Space to Save Them From Global Warming” first appeared on Bloomberg
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