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Here’s how SpaceX will accelerate on SpaceX and Starship

3 years ago babelfish

Here's how SpaceX will accelerate on SpaceX and Starship

Musk's SpaceX will support the Starlink and Starship projects, all the details

Last week SpaceX, Elon Musk's aerospace company, raised $ 850 million in another round of funding, pushing the company's valuation to about $ 74 billion. This was reported by Cnbc , which spoke to people with knowledge of the facts.

The funds were raised by selling shares for $ 419.99 each. The new funding round for SpaceX raised the company's valuation by approximately 60%, compared to the previous funding round in August.

The company is devouring money as it pursues ambitious projects such as the Starlink Internet satellite "constellation" and the Starship spacecraft .

Earlier this month, CEO Musk announced that there could be an IPO (initial public offering) in the future of Starlink.

All the details.

THE NEW ROUND OF FUNDING

According to CNBC , SpaceX has raised an additional $ 850 million, raising its valuation to around $ 74 billion. This is about a 60% increase: SpaceX was last valued at $ 46 billion in a funding round in August 2020.

According to the report, the company raised only a fraction of the funding available on the market, as the company received "crazy demand" of around $ 6 billion in offers in just 3 days.

FINANCIAL AMBITIOUS PROJECTS

SpaceX is developing two ambitious projects simultaneously: with the first, Starlink, it intends to build an Internet network interconnected with thousands of satellites, to provide high-speed Internet to consumers anywhere on the planet. The second concerns Startship, to eventually replace the existing Falcon 9 rockets and the Dragon spacecraft. The aim of the project is to develop a fully reusable launch vehicle that would transport cargo, and possibly passengers, into space at a lower cost than other existing spacecraft. With Starship, Musk aims to bring humans to the Moon and Mars.

STARLINK CONTINUES TO GROW

In addition to successfully launching US astronauts into space in May last year, SpaceX continues to expand the Starlink satellite constellation. On February 16, SpaceX launched another 60 Starlink satellites.

Compared to previous launches, however, the return of the reusable first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket to one of the floating platforms in the Atlantic Ocean has failed this time.

Starlink satellites are designed for low earth orbit: they are located at about 550 kilometers of altitude. More than 1,000 are now in orbit. "Starlink will continue to expand until it achieves near-global coverage of populated regions of the world in 2021," SpaceX tweeted.

SpaceX expects to reach 1,500 units in this first phase of orbit and has already received authorization to launch at least 12,000 satellites. The company has announced that some tests are underway on Starlink's internet service in the northern United States, southern Canada and some areas of the United Kingdom, and that the first online bookings of the service have been activated, but that they will still need at least six months before it can start working.

IPO IN SIGHT?

Musk's plans are to spin off Starlink from SpaceX and create an IPO once the service is up and running and "cash flow can be predicted reasonably well," as Musk himself wrote on Twitter.

“SpaceX must go through a deep chasm of negative cash flows in the coming year to make Starlink financially viable. Every new constellation of satellites in history has failed. We hope to be the first not to, ”Musk wrote in another tweet.

THE HERITAGE OF ELON MUSK

According to Forbes' calculations, Musk, who is the second richest person in the world, behind Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, owned about 48% of SpaceX before this latest round of funding.

It is therefore unclear whether Musk's ownership has been diluted by the new round. If he managed to keep all 48 percent, his stake would now be worth about $ 32 billion, up from about $ 20 billion previously, according to Forbes estimates. This would increase Musk's net worth by $ 12 billion. But it's still not enough for him to outdo Bezos and appropriate the title of the richest person on the planet.

Recall that most of Mr Musk's fortune lies in his stake in the electric car company Tesla , of which he is CEO.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/ecco-come-spacex-accelerera-su-spacex-e-starship/ on Thu, 18 Feb 2021 05:32:54 +0000.