{"id":60324,"date":"2020-02-20T00:25:37","date_gmt":"2020-02-19T16:25:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/spaceflight-blacksky-separation-will-bring-focus-to-both-businesses-execs-say\/"},"modified":"2020-02-20T00:25:37","modified_gmt":"2020-02-19T16:25:37","slug":"spaceflight-blacksky-separation-will-bring-focus-to-both-businesses-execs-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/spaceflight-blacksky-separation-will-bring-focus-to-both-businesses-execs-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Spaceflight, BlackSky Separation Will Bring \u2018Focus\u2019 to Both Businesses, Execs Say"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

Last week, Spaceflight Industries<\/strong> \u2014 made up of launch service provider Spaceflight<\/strong>, and geospatial intelligence business BlackSky<\/strong> \u2014 announced a deal to sell Spaceflight to Japanese company Mitsui & Co.<\/strong>, in partnership with Yamasa Co<\/strong>. Spaceflight Industries plans to use the capital from the deal to invest in BlackSky, which is set to launch at least eight more Earth Observation (EO) satellites this year. Spaceflight CEO Curt Blake, and Spaceflight Industries President and BlackSky CEO Brian O\u2019Toole spoke with Via Satellite<\/i> about the acquisition, and what it means for both Spaceflight and BlackSky. <\/p>\n

Mitsui has been an investor in Spaceflight Industries, and led the company\u2019s Series C funding round, which closed in March 2018 with $150 million. O\u2019Toole said Spaceflight fit Mitsui\u2019s long-term plans to expand into the space business. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis opportunity emerged as really a win for everybody,\u201d he said. \u201cWe feel that there needs to be a laser focus brought to both businesses, and the appropriate capital and resources applied to both businesses to ensure that we can capitalize on what we see is a very large market opportunity for both. \u2026 As a startup in this industry, focus and capital [are] critical to the success of these businesses.\u201d <\/p>\n

When the deal goes through, it will leave BlackSky under the parent company Spaceflight Industries, a brand heavily associated with rideshare launch business. O\u2019Toole said the EO company will be considering a name change with the parent company. <\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, there\u2019s a tremendous brand associated with that name and the rideshare business,\u201d O\u2019Toole said. \u201cSo we\u2019ll be working through that as we get through the government approval process.\u201d<\/p>\n

The acquisition must be approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), and the review process takes several months. The companies anticipate the deal to be approved in the second quarter of 2020. If it is approved, Spaceflight will continue to operate out of Seattle, as an independent U.S.-based company, with a 50\/50 joint venture ownership stake by Mitsui & Co. and Yamasa. Blake will keep his role as president and CEO, reporting to a primarily U.S.-based new board of directors. The company will also set up a separate U.S.-based subsidiary for U.S. government customers. <\/p>\n

Blake said with the transition to being foreign-owned, the company is considering the internal flow of information to make sure that \u201cwe do everything the right way\u201d for U.S. government customers and International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). <\/p>\n

As for Spaceflight\u2019s plans for growth, Blake said the acquisition will bring a chance to reinvest in the business, and grow its presence in the Asian and European market. Specifically, he said the launch service provider is looking into more service offerings for customers, such as insurance, and building out its web portal, in addition to investments and acquisitions. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re kind of a one-stop shop for launch right now, there\u2019s a number of activities that happen before and after the period in which we service the customer,\u201d Blake said. \u201cThere\u2019s just a whole bunch of different things that we can do to add on to that one-stop shop. We\u2019ve been interested in doing that for a long time, but just haven\u2019t been able to have the financial wherewithal to do so.\u201d <\/p>\n

O\u2019Toole said that although the relationship between Spaceflight and BlackSky will change legally \u2014 BlackSky is Spaceflight\u2019s largest customer, and will continue to use the company as its primary launch service provider. <\/p>\n

BlackSky, which began commercial operations in 2019, has four satellites on orbit, and 20 satellites in production through its partnership with LeoStella<\/b>, and plans to launch at least eight satellites in 2020, working toward a projected constellation of 60 satellites. The company also has its own intelligence platform, that pulls in data from different sources, including social media. O\u2019Toole said BlackSky is hoping to move faster than its projected eight launches for the year. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis capital will help us go faster,\u201d O\u2019Toole said. \u201cThere\u2019s quite a bit of opportunity in the analytics area for customers that we\u2019re working to expand on. It generally just helps provide more fuel to let us move faster into the market.\u201d <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, Spaceflight Industries \u2014 made up of launch service provider Spaceflight, and geospatial intelligence business BlackSky \u2014 announced a deal to sell Spaceflight to Japanese company Mitsui & Co., in partnership with Yamasa Co. Spaceflight Industries plans to use the capital from the deal to invest in BlackSky, which is set to launch at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60324"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}