A recent article delivers the sad news of another space-tech startup shutting down. SpaceLink (not to be confused with Starlink) started a couple of years ago to develop a constellation of communications satellites in medium-Earth orbit to relay data between the ground and low-Earth orbit. It was under a parent company EOS, which is also going through financial difficulty. SpaceLink would require a few $100m to complete their objective to set up a constellation as a commercial service moving data for remote sensing, moving data for human spaceflight etc.

Since there is an ongoing recession that is set to deepen. The excitement for private space-tech is probably affected more than most companies. Space is a field where commercialization and profit are long-term goals, any investor will likely not see their money back for a couple of decades at least. The security implications of this are hard to measure but in a sense, this makes space-tech less friendly as an industry. In other sectors, commercialization leads to better technology, standards and communication between organization