SpaceX considers further acquisitions after recent bolt-on, president says
12 JAN 2018
SpaceX, a private space launch company, is considering further acquisitions after a recent bolt-on deal, said Gywnne Shotwell, president and COO.
The Hawthorn, California-based company recently acquired EDM Xpress, a Placentia, California-based machine shop, said Shotwell, speaking on the sidelines of TAMEST 2018 Annual Conference: Aerospace taking place on 11 January in League City, Texas. The acquisition of the Southern California company made sense since most of its work was being done for SpaceX, she said. She did not provide further details on the transaction.
The company will consider other acquisitions, she said.
In October, this news service reported SpaceX might look to acquire regulatory rights from a company holding a higher position on the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) bandwidth queue or it could look to a broader deal, like a merger or joint venture that would create a new entity holding these rights.
SpaceX, like several other satellite groups, plans to launch 4,425 satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO) to provide broadband internet, but the date of its filings with the ITU places it at lower priority than other competitors.
LeoSat, which holds the No. 2 slot behind Loral Space & Communications [Nasdaq: LORL] subsidiary Telesat for the Ka-band was flagged as a potential target in the October report. Ka-band uses the 26.5-40 GHz segment of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Asked if its position within the ITU queue might be a challenge, Shotwell said the company is "pretty" happy with its position. SpaceX has not had talks with LeoSat, she said.
The satellite effort is not a large part of SpaceX's business, Shotwell said, and it does not dedicate a large number of people to it. But "if we get it right" the market could be very large, she said, noting telecommunications is a much larger market than the rocket launch market.
Documents leaked to the Wall Street Journal a year ago showed SpaceX expects revenue from satellite internet to outgrow revenue from rocket launches by 2020 and eventually fund missions to Mars.
The global broadband market has many contenders but few successes, Iridium Communications [NASDAQ:IRDM] being an exception, Shotwell said.
During her presentation, Shotwell said SpaceX’s planned spaceport under construction in Brownsville, Texas, should be ready late in 2018 or early 2019. The company’s flagship Falcon Heavy rocket is on the launchpad and preparing for its first flight, she added.
If successful, the Falcon Heavy will be the most powerful operational rocket in the world, with an expected payload of 119,000 pounds, according to the company website. The Falcon Heavy’s first payload will be a Tesla Roadster that will be slung toward the planet Mars.