Axiom Space hopes to build the first private space station in low Earth orbit
Credit: Axiom Space/Axiom Space
A Texan space start-up hoping to launch the first private mission to the International Space Station (ISS) has raised $130m (£90m) in a funding round led by British cybersecurity investor C5 Capital.
Axiom Space, founded by a former program manager for the ISS, pitches itself as the foothold for “humanity’s next step off the planet. It plans to make history in 2022 by sending the first ever commercial astronauts to the ISS.
The company has also won a contract with Nasa to attach new modules onto the ISS, hoping to float them off as an independent station some time after 2028, when their ailing mother ship is expected to be scuttled into Earth’s atmosphere.
As part of the deal, Axiom will work with other companies in C5’s portfolio to host an orbital cloud computing and cybersecurity operations centre aboard its modules. Neither company has disclosed Axiom’s current valuation.
C5 partner Rob Meyerson, who ran Jeff Bezos’s space company Blue Origin between 2003 and 2018, told the Telegraph that he believes Axiom’s station will become a hub for new orbital businesses and will require protection from cyber threats.
Mr Meyerson said: “The cost to access space has never been lower… we would have many opportunities to invest in rockets and satellites, but there’s only one company that is building a private destination in space, and that’s Axiom.
“It’s going to be the core piece of infrastructure on which we and others will be able to build other companies – the laboratory architecture, the manufacturing facilities, the habitation modules. We believe that those companies will operate on the Axiom station for decades to come.”
The company has also won a contract with Nasa to attach new modules onto the ISS. Pictured is what the interior could look like
Credit: Axiom Space/Axiom Space
C5 managing partner André Pienaar said: “Being able to secure satellites in space so that no one tampers with them or redeploys them, or messes with their signal, is growing important. So space is absolutely integral to cybersecurity.”
New-York based investors Declaration Partners, Starbridge Venture Capital and The Venture Collective, as well as Seattle’s Hemisphere Ventures, also took part in the funding round.
Axiom was founded in 2016 by Michael Suffredini, Nasa’s programme manager for the ISS between 2005 and 2015 and now Axiom’s chief executive, and Dr Kam Ghaffarian, whose company Stinger Ghaffarian trained numerous Nasa astronauts, now Axiom’s executive chairman.
The company plans to send its first astronauts to the ISS in 2022, and to launch its first module in 2024. Eventually, it plans a set of ISS modules including a research and manufacturing facility, crew quarters and an observation cupola.
Th mission next year will be led by Michael López-Alegría, a former Nasa astronaut. It will include three astronauts Larry Connor, Mark Pathy and Eytan Stibbe. It believed each person spent around $55m for a ticket to the ISS.
C5’s Managing partner André Pienaar said that C5 was identifying and helping to build British companies that could “launch a whole range of products and services” from both the ISS and a future Axiom station.
“The partnership between the UK Space Agency and Nasa is of critical importance for the future,” he said. “Post-Brexit, the public-private partnerships that Nasa is opening up create a lot of space for the UK, both to grow its own space economy but also to continue to be a leader in the space sector globally.
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