The future of the $447 billion space industry in 15 incredible pictures

ABL is not only building its own rocket to deliver small satellites into orbit but also has developed a launchpad that can send a rocket to space from anywhere there’s a flat patch of concrete. It’s “a launch site in a box,” says CEO Harry O’Hanley, a propulsion engineer who worked on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket before cofounding ABL. The El Segundo, California–based company’s rocket, the RS1, and its ground system can be packed into shipping containers and transported worldwide, enhancing the flexibility and speed with which it can serve customers. ABL has yet to launch its rocket, but it’s raised more than $200 million and has contracts with NASA and Lockheed Martin, which hopes to use ABL’s system for 58 launches this decade, potentially generating hundreds of millions in revenue for the four-year-old startup.

Tim Ellis was just 25 years old when he cofounded Relativity Space, in 2015, with the idea that he could upend 60 years of building rockets by 3D-printing them. Relativity has developed what it calls its “factory of the future,” which relies upon digital engineering to construct, test, and iterate on its vehicles, and then uses 3D printing to customize them. Relativity’s first rocket, Terran 1, can be built in two months with less than 1,000 parts, compared to a traditional one, which requires two years and roughly 100,000 parts. CEO Ellis, who, while a student at USC, wrote the code for the first rocket launched by a college team, is confident that Relativity will succeed, but regardless, he says, “Somebody will be building the next great aerospace company around this approach.” Terran 1 has a demonstration flight scheduled for early 2022 and then a June launch to deliver satellites for NASA.

NASA estimates that there are more than 100 million pieces of space junk, the flotsam of decommissioned satellites and rockets. In November 2020, Millennium, which has been building small satellites for customers, such as the U.S. Air Force since 2001, launched an experiment to clean up debris in low Earth orbit (LEO). Eight months later, the El Segundo company, which has been pursuing more scientific and commercial missions since Boeing acquired it in 2018, removed a satellite from orbit using a 230-foot tether that pulled it toward Earth (where it burned up upon reentry into our atmosphere). As companies and governments rely more on satellites, this kind of system could reduce congestion and ensure that a broadband network, for example, works as planned. Millennium, says CEO Jason Kim, feels “that responsibility of keeping space—in this case, LEO—sustainable and safe.”