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Abu Dhabi’s Aabar Investments to take stake in world’s first commercial spaceline – Virgin Galactic

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Abu Dhabi’s Aabar Investments and Virgin Group today announced that they have agreed to enter a strategic partnership, which will see Aabar take an equity stake in the world’s first commercial spaceline – Virgin Galactic. To date, Virgin Galactic has been wholly owned and funded by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group.

The deal, signed today at the EAA AirVenture air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin attended by Sir Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group, and Mohamed Badawy Al-Husseiny, CEO of Aabar. The signing ceremony is taking place alongside Virgin Galactic’s new carrier space launch vehicle, WhiteKnightTwo (VMS Eve) which is making its public demonstration flying debut in Oshkosh.

Under the deal, Aabar will invest approximately US$280m and take around a 32% stake in Virgin Galactic’s holding company, valuing the business at about $900m. The transaction is subject to obtaining regulatory clearances in the United States and elsewhere. Additionally, Aabar has committed $100m (plus transaction cost) to fund a small satellite launch capability, subject to the development of a full business plan. It will also gain exclusive regional rights, subject to regulatory clearances, to host Virgin Galactic tourism and scientific research space flights. Finally, Aabar has plans to build spaceport facilities in Abu Dhabi.

Commenting on the acquisition, HE Khadem Al Qubaisi, Chairman of Aabar, said, “I am pleased to announce this partnership. Virgin Galactic is the leader in the realm of space tourism, having successfully established a potential global market for its offering in a very short span of time. Aabar’s stake in Virgin Galactic will open a new avenue of opportunity for Abu Dhabi in this unique and dynamic business. The significant partnership not only falls in line with Abu Dhabi’s larger plans to inculcate technology research and science at a grassroots level but also complements its aim to be the international tourism capital of the region.”

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Virgin Galactic is in the final stages of developing and testing commercial sub-orbital space vehicles based on the prototype SpaceShipOne, that flew successfully to space and back three times in 2004. The unique and innovative designs of the vehicles will transform the cost, safety and environmental impact of access to space for people, science research and education.

Sir Richard Branson said, “We are delighted to partner with Aabar in a strategic deal that is a first for Virgin Galactic. The initiative will leverage the solid financial backing of Aabar and the pioneering technology and strong global relationships of Virgin Galactic. This exciting deal is indicative of the interesting and high value investments that mark the UAE’s commercial portfolio.”

The new joint venture also proposes to undertake additional development which would enable the space system to launch small satellites at unprecedented levels of cost, reliability and flexibility.

“This transaction carries multiple potential for the creation of an exceptional platform for space infrastructure such as research labs, space centre for commercial travel and much more,” said Mohamed Badawy Al-Husseiny.

Virgin Group has invested over $100m in Virgin Galactic since its formation in late 2004. The development of its new vehicles is being carried out by Scaled Composites, the renowned Mojave CA based aeronautical firm, owned by Northrop Grumman and led by Burt Rutan.

Scaled Composites was responsible for designing and building SpaceShipOne which won the $10m X Prize in 2004 as the first privately funded manned space vehicle. The system is highly innovative: it utilises a carrier aircraft for launch of the spaceship at high altitude, a controllable and benign hybrid rocket motor and a unique wing feathering design for a failsafe re-entry. The spaceship makes a runway landing rendering it almost entirely reusable.

The new commercial vehicles are now at an advanced stage of development. VMS Eve, VG’s new carrier aircraft is well into its test flight programme and is performing flawlessly. It is the world’s largest all carbon composite aircraft and has a unique high altitude, heavy lift capability. Sir Richard Branson is due to be onboard VMS Eve as a member of the crew for a demonstration flight during EAA AirVenture at Oshkosh on Tuesday 28th July.

The new spacecraft, SpaceShipTwo will commence its own test flight programme before the end of 2009. Both vehicles offer a unique environment for space tourism and a wide range of science research applications as well as a platform for small satellite launch.

Patrick McCall, the Virgin Group Commercial Director responsible for the transaction said, “We are building a great partnership for the development of the world’s first private sector integrated human and payload space launch system. All of us at Virgin Galactic are very much looking forward to working with Aabar’s Chairman, HE Khadem Al Qubaisi, its CEO Mohamed Badawy Al-Husseiny and the whole Aabar team as we move forward together at the cutting edge of the coming industrial revolution in space access. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Brandt Mowry, the senior vice-president of corporate development who managed the transaction on behalf of Virgin Group.”

Virgin Galactic expects the capital infusion to fully fund the company through to its commencement of commercial operations.

Posted
July 28th, 2009

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VIDEO: XCOR Lynx Suborbital Launch Vehicle Animation

The Lynx will offer affordable access to space for individuals, researchers and educators,” said XCOR CEO Jeff Greason. The spaceship, roughly the size of a small private airplane, will first take off in 2010 and will be capable of flying several times each day.

Posted
July 27th, 2009

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XCOR Aerospace Tests Lynx Suborbital Launch Vehicle Design in USAF Wind Tunnel

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(Above) The Lynx wind tunnel model is tested with red dye at the Air Force Research Labratory, located on Wright-Patterson AFB.

XCOR Aerospace has announced that it has finished a series of wind tunnel tests of the aerodynamic design of its Lynx suborbital launch vehicle. The tests took place at the U.S. Air Force test facility located at Wright-Patterson Air Base near Dayton, OH, using an all-metal 1/16th scale model of the Lynx.

“Ever since the Wright Brothers pioneered wind tunnel testing here in Dayton, aerospace engineers have used it as a tool to improve aerodynamic design,” said XCOR CEO Jeff Greason. “Computational Fluid Dynamics and other computer design tools are very useful, but you have to build real models and let real air flow around them to get real results. We are grateful that the U.S. Air Force made this facility available to do our first subsonic wind tunnel testing under a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA).”

“The CRADA allows us to form productive partnerships between the U.S. Air Force and private sector companies,” says Barry Hellman, an aerospace engineer at the Air Vehicles Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) at Wright Patterson AFB. “We will work together to develop the aerodynamics of the Lynx which will provide valuable knowledge to help the Air Force develop future access to space systems.”

Greason said that in return for the subsonic wind tunnel testing, the AFRL will get access to the data derived from the process. XCOR has already won several contracts with the AFRL, including a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research contract to supply operational data from the Lynx which will help in the development of operationally responsive space craft. The Lynx, which is designed to safely fly to the edge of space and back multiple times a day, is expected to make its first flight in 2010.

Greason said that the XCOR team has taken the model and data back to their Mojave, California base to analyze the results. Because the Lynx is designed to travel at supersonic as well as subsonic speeds, refined models of the vehicle will be built and tested in a supersonic wind tunnel later this year.

“We are at a very exciting point in the Lynx program,” he said. “While we are refining the aerodynamic design, we are making progress in fabricating the Lynx’s crew cabin, testing cryogenic pumps that will be used in the propulsion system, and continuing the test program of the liquid fuel rocket engines that will propel the Lynx to the edge of space. We are making concrete progress in turning our dream of affordable space access into reality for the participants who have already bought tickets and all of our future clients.”

Posted
July 27th, 2009

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Study Predicts $1.5 Billion Market for Commercial Lunar Services over Next Decade

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Playa Vista, CA (July 16, 2009) – A study performed by the Futron Corporation, an aerospace consultancy based in Bethesda, MD, predicts that companies such as those competing for the Google Lunar X PRIZE will be able to address a market in excess of $1 billion over the course of the next decade. The results of the study resonate with the expectations of the X PRIZE Foundation, which conducts the $30 million competition that challenges space professionals and engineers from across the globe to build and launch privately funded spacecraft capable of exploring the lunar surface. The market projection demonstrates the breadth of commercial opportunities that companies are likely to pursue either during or after the conclusion of their Google Lunar X PRIZE missions.

The study, which involved a detailed examination of the 19 teams already registered in the competition, as well as a robust analysis of potential lines of business, identified six key market areas: hardware sales to the worldwide government sector, services provided to the government sector, products provided to the commercial sector, entertainment, sponsorship, and technology sales and licensing. Taken together, the study projects the value of these markets to be between $1 – $1.56 billion within the next decade. Additionally, some Google Lunar X PRIZE competitors have set their sights on additional market sectors that fell outside of the scope of the Futron report, which could result in an even higher total market size.

The breadth and the size of these projected markets are attributes of a new era of lunar exploration quite different from the Apollo era. “The glories of the first Moon race were accomplished with only two real developers and two real customers–the national space programs of the United States and of the Soviet Union,” said William Pomerantz, Senior Director of Space Prizes at the X PRIZE Foundation. “Now, we’re entering a new paradigm – Moon 2.0 – that features an enormous variety of innovators each trying to serve a wide range of customers. National space programs such as NASA’s will certainly benefit, but so will academia, the general public, and the economies of those nations where teams step up to meet the challenges of lunar exploration. That breadth of impact will make Moon 2.0 much more sustainable and longer lasting than the first era of lunar exploration”

“We examined a wide range of markets that teams could address, both those that exist today and those that could be enabled by low-cost commercial lunar exploration,” said Jeff Foust, a senior analyst with the Futron Corporation. “If one or more teams are able to win this prize competition, they will be able to serve markets potentially far larger than the prize purse.”

For more information about the Google Lunar X PRIZE and the teams currently registered in the competition, visit GoogleLunarXprize.org

ABOUT THE GOOGLE LUNAR X PRIZE

The $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE is an unprecedented international competition that challenges and inspires engineers and entrepreneurs from around the world to develop low-cost methods of robotic space exploration. The $30 million prize purse is segmented into a $20 million Grand Prize, a $5 million Second Prize and $5 million in bonus prizes. To win the Grand Prize, a team must successfully soft land a privately funded spacecraft on the Moon, rove on the lunar surface for a minimum of 500 meters, and transmit a specific set of video, images and data back to the Earth. The Grand Prize is $20 million until December 31st 2012; thereafter it will drop to $15 million until December 31st 2014 at which point the competition will be terminated unless extended by Google and the X PRIZE Foundation.

ABOUT THE X PRIZE FOUNDATION

The X PRIZE Foundation is an educational nonprofit prize institute whose mission is to create radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity. In 2004, the Foundation captured the world’s attention when the Burt Rutan-led team, backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, built and flew the world’s first private spaceship to win the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE for suborbital spaceflight. The Foundation has since launched the $10 million Archon X PRIZE for Genomics, the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE and the $10 million Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE. The Foundation, with the support of its partner, BT Global Services, is creating prizes in Space and Ocean Exploration, Life Sciences, Energy and Environment, Education and Global Development. The Foundation is widely recognized as a leader in fostering innovation through competition. For more information, visit Xprize.org.

Posted
July 16th, 2009

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