The bankruptcy of British businessman Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit will provoke another dose of distrust on the part of investors in space startups, which was already high. Such an assumption in an interview with Izvestia on April 4 was expressed by the head of the Alpha Robotics Venture fund, Vladimir Bely.
“When such strong players as Richard Branson appear, everyone starts to look up to them. A PR campaign is being carried out, where he acts simply as a media person, but he himself has not made any decisions for a long time. The team competently receives money from investors and earns on the stock market, not on technology. This is a serious problem that affects the entire space industry,” Bely said.
According to him, now, before investing, it is necessary to analyze the project very well. At the same time, earlier investors did not turn to professional experts, but made investments emotionally through contacts with colleagues – if one started investing, the others “pulled themselves up”.
The day before, on April 3, Reuters reported that Virgin Orbit, which launches small space satellites, filed for bankruptcy.
Virgin Orbit’s strategy was that in-flight launches of small rockets from a Boeing 747 aircraft would allow for instantaneous launches from anywhere. However, a shift in demand towards larger launch vehicles and more cost-effective shared space flights on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket over the past two years has upped the competitive stakes for Virgin Orbit, according to analysts and industry leaders.
Earlier, in January, Virgin Orbit reported the failure of a rocket launch with satellites in Britain. It was reported that the launch vehicle was unable to put the devices into orbit.
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