Phantom Space Corporation

Phantom is developing the next generation space transportation to make space commerce commonplace 🚀

[Phantom Space Corporation @PhantomSpaceC]

Small satellites under 600 kg make up 90% of satellites launched. Three decades ago, they weren't considered mainstream. Today, they are key to national security & our commercial space future. Phantom's focus is exclusively on this market segment.
https://t.co/tyZAlzgsle

[Phantom Space Corporation @PhantomSpaceC]

40+ years ago, President Ronald Reagan called on both the US military and private sector to redefine America’s role in the world with the creation of a space-based missile defense network and the opening of Earth orbit to free enterprise.

This bold vision is finally becoming real — not simply because of the passage of time but because multiple generations of builders and risk takers refused to give up on the hope, promise, and opportunity that space holds for free civilization.

As long as we continue to build and invest in a free, spacefaring future that's led by freedom-loving Americans, our future will be bright as ever. As President Reagan said, the opening of space as a new frontier is “good news for all mankind and for our country.”

https://t.co/accgGSlR0x

[Phantom Space Corporation @PhantomSpaceC]

As we’ve been saying, the USA is running out of launch sites as industry-wide cadence scales faster than the available infrastructure. This shortage of launch ranges is becoming such a strategic bottleneck that the US Space Force is now openly talking about the need for new spaceports for small, heavy, and super-heavy launch vehicles.

The challenge is, the current rules constrain the ground-based locations where launches (and booster landings) can take place; and attempts to launch or recover boosters at sea adds significant cost. It is possible to add launch sites abroad in certain ally and partner countries, but that brings increased regulatory, diplomatic, and geopolitical complexity.

While many vertically integrated space companies and launch service providers are struggling to secure the launch sites necessary to scale cadence, Phantom Space has been ahead of this trend. We look forward to scaling our own launch cadence via our launch sites at Vandenberg in California and Cape Canaveral in Florida once our Daytona rocket reaches orbit and enters commercial service.

https://t.co/ziKwsEDTM4

[Phantom Space Corporation @PhantomSpaceC]

America is the home of the free because of the brave. On this Memorial Day, we honor the courageous souls who have served our country with honor and paid the ultimate price in defense of national independence and individual freedom. Because of their sacrifices over the last 250 years, we now have an opportunity to build the businesses that will lead mankind decisively into the new frontier of space and enable future generations to reach for the stars.

[Phantom Space Corporation @PhantomSpaceC]

We could not agree more with Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos here:

“If I do my job right, the value to society and civilization from my for-profit companies will be much, much larger than the good that I do with my charitable giving.”

The best way we can serve others is to build businesses which solve big problems, open new frontiers, and unleash new abundance.

That’s why we are building Phantom Space.

We are a mission driven company dedicated to making space accessible to all and unleashing market forces on orbit by building and scaling rockets, satellites, and space data networks.

If we do our jobs right, an explosion of human creativity can follow and a commercial economy will start to emerge in Earth orbit before growing out into the solar system.

https://t.co/cTlDwXcJZj

[Phantom Space Corporation @PhantomSpaceC]

When future generations look back on the fall of 2008 a century from now, they won’t remember the global financial crisis. They’ll remember the successful launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 1 rocket and the breakout of the commercial space era.

Almost 20 years later, this story is just beginning. With a relentless focus on Mars, one company has led the way and, in the process, has ushered in a new era of orbital infrastructure. Some of us who were present at the creation of this world changing company still have unfinished business — not simply to make life multi-planetary, but also to unleash a market revolution in space and empower free people and free enterprise on Earth.

At Phantom Space, we are focused on making space accessible to all and unlocking the benefits of orbital infrastructure as a platform for human creativity. Our breakout moment is coming with the forthcoming launch of our Daytona rocket and Phantom Cloud demonstration satellites and we are excited to use these capabilities to expand both physical and digital access to space.

https://t.co/7hF2bnMta4

[Phantom Space Corporation @PhantomSpaceC]

The Space Shuttle promised to make the use of space “economical and routine” through reusability and high launch cadence.

It enabled the creation and servicing of the International Space Station, the Hubble Space Telescope, and small volumes of satellites for commercial, scientific, and military applications ranging from communications, Earth science, deep space observation, military reconnaissance, and early warning systems. But after delivering less than 20% of the intended capacity at dramatically higher unit costs, the Shuttle failed to catalyze the anticipated explosion of human and robotic activity on orbit.

Commercial satellite and space infrastructure concepts which made sense in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s were therefore crowded out, denied access to space, and deferred indefinitely— until SpaceX came along with the Falcon 9 and began to offer ride-share missions to popular orbits. Now, the space industry is booming again, old ideas are coming back to life, and more space infrastructure concepts are getting funded than ever. However, similar to the 1980s and 1990s, demand for affordable space access is rising faster than supply.

SpaceX and other vertically integrated launch companies are signaling plans to use more of their capacity to advance their own missions and our military is moving fast to deploy a new generation of space infrastructure against the backdrop of escalating geopolitical competition. These dynamics present an existential challenge to satellite operators which do not control their own rockets and thus depend on others to scale their ideas into space.

To meet the growing need, Phantom Space is building a full stack of space operations — from rockets and satellites to orbital data backhaul and computing networks. With our Daytona rocket and Henry Ford-style production plan, we will provide a pathway for the commercial space economy to continue developing, enable an explosion of innovation and competition on orbit, and make the benefits of space more accessible to regular people than ever before.

https://t.co/bK55Qqk1yJ

[Phantom Space Corporation @PhantomSpaceC]

The Apollo astronauts trained in Arizona. The small satellite revolution began in Arizona. Now, Phantom Space is building rockets and satellites in Arizona and preparing to scale an entire ecosystem of customer constellations supported by our Phantom Cloud orbital computing network and patent pending Space App Store. While we plan to build and operate rockets and satellites in many other states, and eventually many other countries, we are proud to call Arizona home.

https://t.co/k8bhIEfbEc

[Phantom Space Corporation @PhantomSpaceC]

The economist Joseph Schumpeter changed the modern understanding of capitalism with his theory of creative destruction. Economies naturally stagnate under the control of incumbents but can experience bursts of transformation and renewal when challengers succeed in fighting new ideas and technologies into the market — upending the status quo for the benefit of all.

This called PROGRESS.

Such changes do not simply arise in the course of history; they require entrepreneurs to organize new businesses and attract risk takers to enable their often capital-intensive visions.

As Schumpeter wrote, “The function of entrepreneurs is to reform or revolutionize the pattern of production by exploiting an invention or, more generally, an untried technological possibility for producing a new commodity or producing an old one in a new way, by opening up a new source of supply of materials or a new outlet for products, by reorganizing an industry and so on.”

We can think of no better example in the world today than the emergence of the commercial space industry which is already reorganizing our civilization and opening both territorial and technological frontiers that will enrich and reinvigorate free societies. As the commercial space industry drives a transformation of our modern economy, every entrepreneur and every company intending to contribute must organize and operate as agents of creative destruction.

In that spirit, our team at Phantom Space has our own vision to transform the commercial space industry — and our larger civilization — just as Henry Ford once did with the mass production of automobiles. We do not aspire to create another closed ecosystem in space, but an open, data-driven, digitally-orchestrated ecosystem which can allow human beings to thrive in the decades to come.

[Phantom Space Corporation @PhantomSpaceC]

In 1997, Joan Johnson-Freese and Roger Handberg wrote about what it would take to open the dormant frontier of space. Today, their words seem almost prophetic.

“The overarching goal for these times ought to be ‘reinventing space’ — changing the paradigm from one of space activity directed by the government and often in a manner akin to a public works program, to a space development paradigm in which the private sector takes an active role and carries out projects as economic development ventures. Only then will there be comparatively stable funding and sustained long term growth in the civil program. The private sector would continue development efforts as long as there is money to be made. Funding by the private sector would also unencumber money for science, exploration, and national defense efforts that would continue to be funded by the government, and hopefully private firms would utilize more cost-effective processes and hardware developed through competitive development efforts.”

The long dormant frontier is finally opening. As long as competition remains robust and capital formation continues through boom/bust cycles, a shocking level of progress is likely — but not guaranteed — over the coming decades.

If we want our children and grandchildren to inherit a future in which commercial space development allows them to extend free civilization to other planets and unlock the material wealth of our solar system, we must take the initiative to build out the foundational infrastructure and unleash market forces in Earth orbit.

[Phantom Space Corporation @PhantomSpaceC]

Morgan Stanley equity analyst Adam Jonas recently published a note to the firm’s clients saying “Space is back in a big way.”

“A combination of scientific advancements, geopolitics and economics have rekindled investor attention on the Space theme to the highest levels we have seen since launching [our] space team nearly a decade ago.”

After a few difficult years in which all but the biggest companies struggled to raise capital, the industry is booming, financial momentum is building, and the public equity market is hungry for new space companies.

The problem, of course, is that commercially available launch capacity is being crowded out by urgent military need and the expansive ambitions of the vertically integrated launch companies themselves.

More objects are being launched into space each year than ever before, but the number of satellite and space systems companies that can reliably access Earth orbit is likely to shrink unless new companies emerge to build launch capacity and scale launch cadence.

Orbital rockets take years to develop, but our Daytona launch vehicle is finally nearing completion, testing, and our first launch attempt in late 2027 or early 2028.

While we absolutely intend to use a large portion of our own launch capacity to build our proprietary Phantom Cloud orbital data backhaul and computing constellation; building, manufacturing, and launching small satellite constellations is a core element of our vision to unleash an open ecosystem in space.

We look forward to lowering the barriers to commercial space access and building the foundations of a vibrant, competitive, and innovative economy on orbit.

https://t.co/tzE0b0f71S

[Phantom Space Corporation @PhantomSpaceC]

In a recent essay published in the Journal of Space Commerce, Mike Turner describes the global space economy as “a $613 billion industry the world does not understand.”

It’s common to think of space as a novelty or a future frontier; the reality is that space has already become a critical layer of the modern economy. The importance and value of space infrastructure is growing fast and yet the only companies positioned build on this high frontier are the companies capable of accessing it at scale.

That’s precisely why we are building a vertically integrated stack of space operations with our nearly-complete Daytona launch vehicle as the foundation of the open ecosystem we intend to build on orbit with our customers and partners.

https://t.co/2CrF51lR0c

[Phantom Space Corporation @PhantomSpaceC]

Modern maritime logistics are largely subject to choke points. And as we’ve seen in recent years, disruptions at those choke points can ripple through the entire global economy.

In times of crisis not related to military conflict, air logistics can keep some critical goods moving. However, in times of war, air logistics can be disrupted at increasingly low cost.

Similar disruptions are also possible in digital logistics as key submarine cables continue to be cut under suspicious circumstances.

Fortunately, a path exists to circumvent key logistics bottlenecks in times of war and peace — rendering the traditional choke points on Earth less relevant.

As Amir Blachman explains, space infrastructure can enable rapid delivery of both digital information and physical goods from orbit directly to their intended destinations on Earth.

In the coming years, Phantom Space is working to add to US spaceborne resilience with launch vehicles, satellites, orbital data backhaul and computing infrastructure, and our patent pending Space App Store.

Together, these capabilities can contribute heavily to the progression of a robust economy in space, an easing of terrestrial logistics bottlenecks, and a new era of peace and prosperity on Earth through strength and connectivity.

https://t.co/hXdHEDd64L

[Phantom Space Corporation @PhantomSpaceC]

Thanks to rising commercial launch cadence, the US military is rapidly building a larger and more capable presence in Earth orbit and on/around the Moon.

Similar to the years before WWII, when air power evolved to trump land and sea power, space power is redefining the way wars are both fought and deterred. Moreover, satellites and satellite constellations are emerging as the key orchestration layer for all other war-fighting domains (i.e., air, land, sea, cyber, space, etc).

This strategic transformation is coming at the very moment that America faces its most formidable challenge in decades with a now significantly depleted conventional arsenal.

As this insightful article notes, space is the best offset to improve America's position — allowing our military to project power all over the world from a handful of US spaceports even with a constrained industrial base and a limited mass of conventional weaponry.

The faster American space companies scale launch vehicle supply and responsive launch cadence, the more likely we will be as a nation to restore peace through strength.

https://t.co/dstpseCveJ

[Phantom Space Corporation @PhantomSpaceC]

It’s become common knowledge that space is open for business.

The space economy currently represents about $600 billion of annual revenue. Popular forecasts from the Space Foundation, Morgan Stanley, McKinsey & Co, and the World Economic Forum popularly agree that this collection of frontier industries (and their underlying supply chains) could surpass $1 trillion in the early 2030s and approach $2 trillion by 2040.

Such forecasts, however, often involve growth projections of established industry niches instead of predicting the emergence and rapid scaling of new markets and new use cases.

Popular forecasts may be right if the industry continues to scale a series of closed ecosystems in their current form, but the space economy could grow far larger and faster if and when companies like Phantom Space succeed in unleashing free markets and scaling an open digital ecosystem in Earth orbit which extends farther into space over time.

https://t.co/j4bf0VwerE

[Phantom Space Corporation @PhantomSpaceC]

Our team at Phantom Space couldn’t agree more with TBPN Co-host John Coogan in his YouTube mini-doc on liquid-fueled rocket inventor Robert Goddard:

“There will always be skeptics looking to maintain the status quo and refusing to imagine a better future. But they must be ignored.”

https://t.co/tvwJv0ieTL

[Phantom Space Corporation @PhantomSpaceC]

The marriage of Earth observation data with on-orbit computing has been discussed for a number of years, but the industry is still far from realizing the potential of this use case with a planetary scale satellite constellation architecture/ecosystem capable of capturing and processing high frequency imaging data.

Our team at Phantom Space is working to change this dynamic once and for all by designing, building, and operating rockets, satellites, and orbital computing networks for ourselves and our customers.

Our nearly complete Daytona launch system is specifically designed to deploy small satellites to custom orbits at reasonable cost, on manageable timelines, and at a scale few satellite networks have ever attained.

Moreover, our Phantom Cloud data backhaul and orbital computing constellation is purpose built to change the way Earth imaging data — and a wide variety of other space data — is captured, routed, and processed to enhance our customers’ competitive advantages on Earth and in space.

The future is incredibly bright for vertically integrated space companies who control their own space access and know how to use those capabilities to build value on orbit.

https://t.co/LQeBggx3BX

[Phantom Space Corporation @PhantomSpaceC]

Dallas Kasaboski at Analysys Mason has this right: "The satellite launch bottleneck is not a new problem, and operators are soon going to face significant challenges deploying their constellations at all, let alone on time."

As we’ve been saying, the bottleneck in launch services is tightening even as launch cadence expands. Between urgent military needs and the expansive ambitions of launch service providers themselves, much of the commercial satellite industry is at risk of being crowded out.

It’s one thing to have a compelling idea for a satellite constellation or to test impressive new capabilities on orbit. But as a general rule, none of it matters unless you have the ability to scale good ideas into viable infrastructure.

At Phantom Space, we are working hard to ease this bottleneck with our nearly-complete Daytona launch vehicle, deliver timely space access for new and existing satellite operators, and enable an open digital ecosystem on orbit with our Phantom Cloud computing constellation.

https://t.co/fZQVEJjDNQ

[Phantom Space Corporation @PhantomSpaceC]

For decades, space hardware from computer chips to satellite components have represented small, specialized markets with small TAMs. Companies thus required very high prices per unit to justify focusing their R&D budgets in these areas.

It should be no surprise then that space hardware has broadly lagged comparable hardware designed for Earth conditions which represent much larger TAMs and which in many cases have enjoyed exponential and world changing advances in capability versus cost.

Fortunately, as the number of rocket launches, satellites, sensors, and computers in space scales, this gap is finally beginning to close. Space hardware is now starting to flip from a market of small numbers and low TAMs to a market of huge numbers and TAMs large enough to encourage aggressive innovation.

Given this growing momentum, we could soon see accelerating improvements in performance per dollar in the years and decades ahead which transform the space economy -- and the daily reality of life on Earth.

The more we do to keep the space economy growing, the more pronounced the associated theological revolutions will be.

[Phantom Space Corporation @PhantomSpaceC]

Read it, absorb it, remember it. This is a foundational article. Space is already a contested domain and is as important to national sovereignty and economic independence as the open seas. Like it or not, this reality will shape both near-term and far-term space development and infrastructure.

https://t.co/aw9yuq612m

[Phantom Space Corporation @PhantomSpaceC]

It has become common knowledge that economies inevitably grow, stock markets rally, and living standards rise over time. The trouble is, common knowledge is often wrong. To paraphrase Mark Twain, it’s not what we know which gets us into trouble; it’s what we know that just ain’t so.

The reality is that nations with freedom, dynamism, and the strength to uphold their own security do tend to enjoy long-term economic prosperity; but under more stifling conditions, as has been all too common throughout most of human history, economies, markets, and living standards can also stagnate or decline in real terms.

The freedom and prosperity our people have experienced over the last few centuries is the exception to the rule; whereas empire, bureaucracy, tyranny, and misery are far more common. And each generation must choose for themselves how to proceed. Will we choose to content ourselves with a future of scarcity and tyranny or will we dedicate our efforts to opening new frontiers, unlocking new sources of abundance, and unleashing new waves of creative destruction?

At Phantom Space, we are choosing to build capabilities and networks that we believe can contribute to a vastly better future. We see a historic opportunity to unleash market forces in Earth orbit, usher in the next American century through commercial space power, and open the next great emerging markets of our time.

Our vision starts with mass producing and operating rockets and satellites in Earth orbit and scaling our proprietary Phantom Cloud orbital computing network and patent pending Space App Store; but can build momentum at both the micro level and the macro level with each turn of the fly-wheel.