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British rocket start-up Orbex, which is vying to be one of the first companies to launch a satellite from mainland Britain, has appointed a former space agency head and tech entrepreneur as its new executive chairman ahead of future funding. The management team has been strengthened by appointing him as Chief Executive Officer. Executive.
Philip Chambers, co-founder of employee engagement platform Peakon, will become CEO of Orbex, while Miguel Bello Mora, former head of the Spanish Space Agency, will lead the nine-year-old space startup. Appointed Chairman of the Board.
Chambers, who sold Peacon to Workday for $700 million in 2021, said his job was to take Orbex “from launch to scale.” Much of my experience has been that way. ”
Founded in 2015, Orbex has grown rapidly in recent years and is looking to move forward in development, according to former director Martin Coates, who took over as interim chief executive following the sudden departure of his co-founder. It was necessary to move to a stage. Former CEO Chris Larmore was appointed in April. “We can’t continue to have a startup mentality,” Coates told the FT in a recent interview. “Now we need to really mature as an organization.”
Orbex is one of dozens of European companies aiming to capitalize on the growing demand for launch services into low Earth orbit (LEO), a region up to 2,000 km above the Earth. SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 rocket has reduced the cost of launching into space and opened up new commercial markets for LEO for activities such as Earth observation and broadband communications.
Orbex is developing the Prime Micro Launcher, a 19-meter-long two-stage rocket designed to carry small satellites weighing up to 180 kg. The rocket is one of the smallest under development in Europe and will be built in northern Scotland, one of several locations the company is supporting the UK Space Agency to build sovereign launch capability. It is scheduled to fly from the spaceport inside.
But Chambers and Coates said that even before the company’s first Prime flight, Orbex was already discussing the possibility of developing a larger rocket to meet demand. Analysts say this will require significant additional funding.
“Certainly those ideas are real,” Coates said. “Prime is a start. It’s the beginning of a journey for this organization.”
“It makes sense logically if you want to bring the price down, but all of this is actually only achievable with large rockets,” Chambers told the FT. “The question is how do we support it financially.”
Mr Chambers, who invested in Orbex when it raised £40m in its third round of funding at the end of 2022, said his experience raising money for growth companies was partly what led him to join. . “I’ve been pretty successful at fundraising,” he said. Orbex has already raised £86.5m after three rounds of funding, including support from the UK and Danish governments and the European Space Agency. The company will ultimately “need to raise more money… primarily from European investors,” Chambers said.
Coates said the group is expanding its facilities to meet its goal of one launch per month and may raise new funding within the next year. However, he stressed that this could be done through a variety of channels, including debt and asset-backed financing as well as equity rounds. In September, the start-up reported a loss of £5.2m for the year to the end of December 2022.
Orbex has not yet announced an initial release date. However, the group has already confirmed six commercial satellite launch contracts.
The company, headquartered in Scotland and with design and testing facilities in Denmark, encountered a series of setbacks on the way to its maiden flight. It was forced to take over management of the spaceport at Sutherland in northern Scotland after Lockheed Martin abandoned the project in favor of another launch site, namely Saxavord in the Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland. In December, the UK Civil Aviation Authority granted Saxavode a vertical launch license.
Efforts to develop the Sutherland Spaceport have also been hampered by environmental protests and the coronavirus.
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