INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Spaceflight Industries, owner of both Spaceflight, Inc
and BlackSky, is selling the Spaceflight, Inc
portion of its business to Japanese industrial megacorporation Mitsui - Co, and Yamasa both of which will co-own the company in a 50/50
joint venture after its closing
The deal will see Spaceflight continue to operate as an independent business based in the United States and headquartered in Seattle, with
the same mission of providing rideshare launch services for small satellite payloads.Meanwhile, Spaceflight Industries will use the funds
generated from the sale (the terms of the deal were not disclosed) to re-invest in its BlackSky business
BlackSky is an Earth observation company that deals in geospatial intelligence, and that currently operates four satellites in orbit, with
businesses and which operates in a variety of sectors including infrastructure, energy production, IT, food, consumer products, mining,
chemicals and more, will now be in the rocket launch rideshare business as well
Mitsui also has an aerospace arm that includes a space business which provides satellite development, launch and operation services, but
has been offering its services since 2010, and has launched a total of 271 satellites on 29 separate rocket launches, with 10 missions set
to take place in 2020 alone
predictions indicating sharp uptakes in orbit-based businesses to come over the next decade.This arrangement is perhaps indicative of things
to come in the space industry, as more young companies look at their overall business and determine how best to delineate things to continue
their growth and return funds on investment to stay on mission
significant funds for it to then funnel back into its core launch business in pursuit of its goals of making humans multi-planetary.The deal
This is expected to take multiple months, and the companies say they anticipate the deal will close sometime during Q2 2020 if everything is
