Today is July 24th, 2025. I'm Alice Carruth and this is T-minus. Spain is offering up to 400 million euros to attract the 30-meter telescope to the Canary Islands. All space has been awarded 3.42 million euros from ESA's Space for 5G, 6G and Sustainable Connectivity Strategic Programme. It's by a global to expand its space reconnaissance portfolio with new radio frequency geospatial intelligence capabilities. Iridium Honeywell and Elfrey Harris have reported Q2 financial results. iRocket plans to go public in the US through a $400 million merger with special purpose acquisition company BPGC Acquisition. Our guest today is Chad Anderson, CEO and founder of Space Capital. Chad spoke to our host Marie Valmarz about the financial landscape after the second quarter of the year. We have some great insights to share so stick around for more on that later in the show. So today should come as no surprise that we're sticking to a financial theme. We'll have more on the overall outlook later in the show but for now we're kicking off with the news of a new public offering and three major space company Q2 reports. Innovative Rocket Technology is better known as iRocket plans to go public in the US through a $400 million merger with special purpose acquisition company BPGC Acquisition. Yes my friends, SPAC is back. There have been 58 filings for SPAC IPOs on US exchanges so far in 2025 and according to data from Deologic, that's up from 31 in 2023 and 57 filings total in 2024. What's old is new again and we know there are more space companies courting the idea of SPAC offerings in the coming months. Now back to iRocket, for those not familiar with the brand they were formed in 2018 as specialised in liquid oxygen and methane fuel rocket propulsion technology. Wilbur Ross, the 39th US Secretary of Commerce and a sponsor of BPGC says that "iRocket's unique combination of proven engineering talent, reusable launch systems and solid rocket motor capability positions the company to capture a strong and powerful rocket engine." "The company to capture a significant share in the global launch and propulsion market." I guess time will tell. iRocket isn't trading yet, the transaction is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2025. The companies intend to list the merge entity on NASDAQ. Now on to some financial reporting for the second quarter starting with communications giant Iridium. I reported a net income of $22 million down from the same period in 2024. Iridium says the drop is due to the result of a one-time $19.8 million game related to the acquisition of Satellies recognised in the second quarter of 2024. It's not all bad news though, Iridium reported total revenue of $216.9 million, an increase of 8% versus the comparable period of 2024. Defence and Aerospace Company Honeywell reported second quarter year-over-year sales growth of 8% and organic sales growth of 5% led by double-digit organic sales growth in defence and space and universal oil products. Honeywell announced in February a separation of its automation and aerospace businesses. The planned separation coupled with the previously announced plan to spin off advanced materials will result in three publicly listed companies and is intended to be fully completed in the second half of 2026. And Elthory Harris Technologies reported strong second quarter results as well with revenue of $5.4 billion. They have forecast further growth with the proposed US Golden Dome driving the most interest in their business growth area. Pretty impressive given that we still don't know the full plan for the Golden Dome. The idea alone is apparently enough. Moving on from financial news, Spire Global has announced an expansion of its space reconnaissance portfolio with new radio frequency geospatial intelligence capabilities. The company says its new offering will deliver persistent monitoring, real-time geolocation and multi-layer situational awareness designed to support both US and international missions. Spire says it's aiming to enable government agencies, the security and defence sectors and integrators worldwide to access advanced RF intelligence tools tailored to a wide range of mission needs such as emergency beacon detection, GNSS interference tracking and more. We're heading over to Europe now. All space has been awarded 3.42 million euros from the European Space Agency's space for 5G, 6G and sustainable connectivity strategic programme under ESA's advanced research and telecommunication systems known as ARTIS. ARTIS supports the development of advanced SACCOM products and services from within ESA's connectivity and secure communications directorate. The new funding will accelerate the development of integration of 5G non-terrestrial networks into all spaces' terminals. ESA's ARTIS programme plays a vital role in de-risking emerging technologies and supporting European competitiveness. And Spain's government is offering up to 400 million euros to build what will be the largest and most advanced telescope in the Northern Hemisphere. The Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities Diana Morant has announced that the Spanish government is willing to offer up to 400 million euros through the Centre for Technology, Core, Development and Innovation to attract the 30-metre telescope known as TMT to the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands. Currently there are two possible locations to host the TMT infrastructure, Hawaii or the Canary Islands. [Music] We'll be keeping an eye on that story in the coming months. We're also keeping an eye on other stories making the headlines with our producer Liz Stokes. Busy Lizzy, what do you have for us? Okay, alright, so I have my own nickname already. Okay. Well, we have four additional links in the selected reading section of today's show notes. SpaceX launched NASA's Tracers mission yesterday. Turkey's Rokestan has unveiled a new launch vehicle. Royal Canadian Air Force Brig General Kyle C. Paul is the new deputy combined Joint Force Space Component Commander at S4S headquarters. And the Karman Project has announced that its Karman Week 2025 will take place in Bangalore, India. Lots to keep up with in space. Thanks for that Liz. And as a reminder, those links can also be found on our website space.intk.com. Just click on today's episode title. Hey T-miners crew, if your business is looking to grow your voice in the industry, expand the reach of your thought leadership or recruit talent, T-miners can help. We'd like to hear from you. Send us an email at space@intk.com or send us a note through our website so we can connect about building a program to meet your goals. T-miners host Maria Varmazis is spoke to Space Capital CEO Chad Anderson about the latest in financial reporting and asked him his thoughts about the second quarter. This is an interesting quarter. So particularly given the volatility in the markets and the big swings that we've seen from a macro perspective, a space investment has continued and was very strong this quarter. It has gone from a niche sort of venture curiosity to a macro relevant asset class. It's reshaping defense, connectivity and global intelligence. The space economy just posted one of its hottest quarters since 2021 and that was without the help of a single SpaceX mega round. So European governments are really leaning into sovereign solutions, which is starting to create some interesting dynamics. But there's a big hill for them to climb since most of their space and defense related technologies are imported. But there's a lot of initiative going on there, a lot of interest and willpower to focus on sovereign solutions. The exits are back. So the IPO window is showing tentative signs of life and an M&A is on track to beat the record that was set in terms of volume last year. Why don't we work our way backwards and start with the M&A and the exits and then go back to European sovereignty. So any notables in the M&A world or certainly in exits, I can think of a few that I've thought of, but I'd love to hear what was interesting to you. There is a lot of M&A happening. It's not a lot of high dollar M&A. It's a continuation of what we've seen last year, which is a lot of consolidation as we work our way through the post zero interest rate period run up in 2021 and the correction that's happened since then. So there's a lot of companies that are in a difficult situation capital wise and are looking to combine forces with others to strengthen their position. Also, we're seeing consolidation happen up at the highest levels as well. So there is a trifecta of European defense contractors that are looking to join forces to take on the likes of SpaceX and others. M&A has been high volume but low value throughout last year and continued into this year. But there are some high value acquisitions that are happening later this year that we're keeping an eye on. So M&A will be very interesting to watch throughout the rest of this year. And then there were 20 exits in the quarter, eight M&A deals and two IPOs. Yeah. And it sounds like we're, I'm thinking back to some of our previous conversations over the years. And some of our chats were kind of marked by things are a little unstable right now. And it sounds like the consolidation is also giving a bit of a stabilizing force at the moment. Things don't seem quite as frenetic. Maybe that's just my impression. I'm curious if that's sort of just that you're feeling also. So venture capital dollars make up a large percentage of investment into space companies. And that was true for what we've seen in the first half of this year. Almost 80% of the entirety of this year's funding has come from venture capital firms. So, and that's up from 50% last year. So that really signals that professional investors are doubling down even as public markets wobble. So this is important because we have seen some pretty big swings over the quarter. So, I mean, at the beginning of the year, we saw a lot of optimism for the new administration coming in that they were going to double down on space. Tariffs have sort of put a pause on the IPO window opening. Like we started to see some movement there at the beginning of the year. And that's really important because as we've talked about before, that liquidity, you know, investors need to make money so that they can reinvest that money back into the ecosystem. If there's no liquidity and investors aren't making money, then things really start to slow down. So tariffs put a pause on the IPO market opening up at the beginning of this quarter. And then towards the end of the quarter, things started to heat back up again. So we've kind of gone through some pretty big swings. Yeah, I understand. It's a tricky situation. I'm going to pin in that because I wanted to ask you about what golden dome, the impacts you have seen so far. But I wanted to make sure we get to European space sovereignty because that really is one of the strongest threads that certainly we've been seeing also. And I'm so curious about your view on the economic impact of that because that is a major story. I mean, it's definitely another trend that's worth talking about, right? So Europe is getting serious about the space domain, really pushing for a lot of European sovereignty and pushing to buy European NATO members pledged 5% of GDP to defense. And the EU has carved out space as a key area for its competitiveness fund. So a lot of government dollars are being made available. And now it's a matter of like where those government dollars are going to go. So the French president announced that they're going to invest a billion six into the USAT. And, you know, which is really put out as the primary, you know, their best counterbalance to Starlink. And SES has proposed 2.8 billion euro in Telsat merger is happening and has completed this quarter. So, you know, there's a lot going on in Europe. I think, like I mentioned, 80% of their defense hardware is still imported, mostly from the US. So, you know, the immediate term, so this is something that's going to take some time to play out, but there's certainly the will. There's certainly capital being made available, at least from the government side. Yeah, I'm always curious about the risk in that specific situation because as you mentioned of that uphill climb that they have and also, you know, how long will the sort of the political will sustain given that it's going to take them some time to catch up to where they need to be. But I guess we'll see. I mean, we don't have crystal ball, but it will be very interesting to see how that plays out. So I wanted to get your thoughts also on Golden Dome and economic implications of that. I mean, again, another very hot topic. I feel like every press release I've read, make sure to mention Golden Dome somewhere in there. So certainly I'm seeing that. I'm curious what you've seen specifically in Q2. I mean, there's a lot of interest in this program because of the size, right? We don't know exactly how big it's going to be, but the numbers big floated around are on the orders of $175 billion. And in this latest bill that's, you know, making its way through, there was 25 billion set aside as kind of an initial payment. Everyone from startups to established defense contractors, everyone is gunning for a piece of this. The really interesting thing that happened in the quarter was SpaceX was apparently a shoe in. A lot of the reporting was talking about how SpaceX was in pole position to win a lot of those dollars. But then with the fallout between Moscow and Trump, you know, what's going to happen with that? You know, there was a follow up reporting that was talking about how people were looking for alternative solutions and things like that. And where else could they put this money? This is high priority for startups and incumbents alike. Everyone's gunning for it. And with the giant SpaceX, you know, in an interesting position that might create some opportunity for some competitors to get a tow-hole. Yeah, I look forward to seeing what happens in that arena as well. I was just thinking to myself, Firefly just announced they're going to go IPO. I wonder that's going to be very interesting. So that's something to keep an eye on. When we next chat in Q3, any thoughts on what we might be covering then? Some predictions. Yeah, well, I mean, just to pick up on what you're just talking about, I think, again, we're going to see more M&A activity. We've got a bunch of actually high value acquisitions and mergers that are on the docket. So this is going to be a really interesting year for M&A in terms of volume and also value. We did have a couple of IPOs this year. We had a couple in Q1, we had a couple in Q2, and there are, you know, Firefly's already announced in the first couple of weeks of Q3 that they're going to go public. There are other companies that are exploring it. You know, iSci is a space capital family company. They are reportedly, you know, exploring an IPO. And, you know, there are others that are talking about it. So I do think the conditions are right. There are, you know, the IPO winter is thawing. And I think that we're going to see some more of that, some more, you know, companies that are really focused on space and defense. The public markets seem very hungry for these types of companies. And so I think, you know, I think we're going to see other companies that take advantage of this window of opportunity. [Music] We'll be right back. Welcome back. When you think of space research here in the US, there are a few labs and universities that come to mind the specialised in space. I bet the names that are floating around in your mind right now don't include the University of North Dakota, but that's where a new Neutral Buoyancy Lab is being developed for training. At the bottom of an Olympic-sized pool inside the Ultra Sports Complex, UND researchers will have their own place to explore Neutral Buoyancy. A new facility will allow researchers, students and astronauts in training to simulate the weightlessness of space. It will also be used for equipment testing, unmanned vehicle deployment and motion analysis. Now, why North Dakota? Well, that's all thanks to UND's Department of Space Studies Professor and Chair of the Department, Pavla de Leon. Leon started doing underwater extravehicular training in spacesuits in Huntsville, Alabama in the 1990s. He moved to UND in 2004 and since then has been advocating for the University to have its own underwater training facility. Leon says it feels like a dream come true after these many years. Dr Leon hopes that the underwater facility will open the doors not only for UND, but for national and international researchers looking to experience an environment similar to space without leaving the planet. Who knew that North Dakota could be the next centre for space training. [Music] And that's it for today's T-minor Sports U-Bot N2K Cyberwire. We'd love to know what you think of this podcast, your feedback and shows. We deliver the insights to keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. If you like the show, please share a rating and review in your podcast app. Please also fill out the survey in the show notes or send an email to space@n2k.com. We're proud that N2K Cyberwire is part of the daily routine of the most influential leaders and operators in the public and private sector. From the Fortune 500 to many of the world's preeminent intelligence and law enforcement agencies. N2K helps space and cybersecurity professionals grow, learn and stay informed. As the nexus for discovery and connection, we bring you the people, technology and ideas shaping the future of secure innovation. Learn how at N2K.com. N2K's producer is Liz Stokes. We're mixed by Elliott Peltzman and Tre Hester with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Eiben. Peter Kilpie is our publisher. Maria Varmazis our host. And I'm N2K senior producer Alice Carruth. Thanks for listening. [Music] T-minus. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
