Could NZ Birth the Next SpaceX? Dawn Aerospace Closes Series B

I'm still a little skeptical of Starship ever being aircraft like reusable just because it's not aircraft like reliable. Even a Patriot missile system that's been around for 20 plus years, we don't really understand what it's capable of. The The actual cost of flying a vehicle can be as low as 50k for sure. We're going to be flying to nearly 350,000 ft. The fastest anything's ever flown off a runway is about Mach 3.3.

Will Dawn eventually become a bigger company than SpaceX?

Depends how big space get. But like with a series B, we'll almost have equity sale catch up to real sale.

Let's go and do it and see what [music] happens.

Ideas are worth like jack Absolute jack Like if you can't execute, there

is nothing. Just take that initiative to actually take [music] whatever crazy ideas that they might have and just try to see what comes of it.

Don't be afraid of ambition. Chase it. Love it. Wrap your arms around it and and say it out loud.

don't know any better and they will just get up and give it a shot.

[music]

That's why we were first to get to the top of Mount Everest. Go to dream that ultimate dream. Like what is it that you ultimately want to do and it's all achievable.

Okay, cool. Yeah, Stefan, we had you on a year ago, a bit more than a year ago for a very long discussion hearing all about your background, your time in Germany and then going to German kindergarten as a teacher. And yeah, since then lot lot of things have happened. So we're very excited to catch up and hear more about where things at with Dawn. And yeah, to start with, since we spoke last year, we actually joined your cap table and we are super proud to be an investor now of Dawn as well in your current round that yeah, I would love for you to talk a little bit more about.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Firstly, I'm like well well welcome aboard. Yep, things are things are certainly moving. Yeah, last couple years, it's there's there's been a massive amount of change in the company just like huge amount of momentum especially in our in our space plane program. You know, we we've gone from it being like a prototype sort of product and this is kind of what it can do and it's interesting in some ways.

Who knows exactly how to now like there is a you know, a cornerstone customer there the It seems like that partnership is really about funding that next generation of like the full performance version of Aurora that's going to demonstrate find a space twice in a day and it's really even before the prototype is actually fully proven out there's there's some sort of product market fit there and and now we're really sharpening up pencils on like what actually is this vehicle going to be useful in in that first generation application and yeah, it's that's kind of been a funny experience in the sense that it was originally intended as a technology demonstrator. So there was no original intention to go and find product market fit but now that now that we're here it's like oh this is actually a massive opportunity that we can't let up as a as a company.

So that's kind of all you know, that's that's been happening. So Aurora was always envisioned as a technology demonstrator because it was all about like let's just show that we can get to space twice in a day that you can get like the the performance of you know, the first stage of a Falcon 9 rocket but in something that truly operates like an aircraft like a you know, horizontal takeoff and landing it comes back you refuel it and you're flying hours later not days or weeks later. Like don't get me wrong what SpaceX has done is awesome but it's not aircraft like reusability and to be honest I'm still a little skeptical of Starship ever being aircraft like reusable just because it's not aircraft like reliable. Like aircraft like reliability is insane. Like it's 10,000 times better than a rocket. Even a Falcon 9.

So to get to aircraft like reusability is still a bit of a leap there in my mind. So Aurora was supposed to prove that and we're well on the way to doing that. The thing that we didn't maybe we were just too naive. We didn't realize that if you have a Falcon 9 first stage which is actually reusable like an aircraft even even at a subscale it's incredibly useful for a whole bunch of other stuff. Suddenly suborbital space flight becomes really, really interesting. Suddenly simulating missile trajectories to improve missile defense systems, which is actually a way bigger industry than space launch, becomes really, really interesting. You know, we I think we actually just weren't clued into those industries.

And that was because, you know, I and and four of the five founders came from a a space background and we actually just straight up didn't have enough exposure to these other worlds that we were inadvertently going going into. So, you know, now we're deeper into these worlds and we and we realized it is a ton of commercial application.

We're going to talk about your Aurora and the refueling business as well in a minute, but also wanted to give you the opportunity to talk about the series B at $25 million that you just closed. Yeah, it's that I got congratulations and I guess that's going to be a great accelerator for both of those business lines.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So, that like the space plane line has come massively forward and and in the meantime the the in-space propulsion side has really just gone from strength to strength. You know, 2 years ago we had sort of in the order of about 70 thrusters in space. We have over 200 now on on 50 different satellites. And in terms of nitrous propulsion market share, you know, there's there's about 63 odd systems in orbit that are nitrous bi-propellant and Dawn's about 52 of them. And you know, we've got another like 20 launching in October. So, there we've kind of gone from like pioneering a small market being one of a few players to really dominating it. And I think it's fair to say, you know, with like 90% of the hardware on orbit in in in the next 6 months is going to be like of of nitrous space propulsion as Dawn. So, yeah, like like what have we raised money for?

Like doing all this we we've actually gotten to cash flow positive. Like we've been putting cash away in the last 6 months. And we'll continue to for the next few. So, why did we go and raise money? Because we we we I think we have an incredible technology position, but we can do so much more on the business development side and and we can start leaning into the successes that we're having. So, with more cash and it's actually not crazy amounts of cash. Like, we don't actually need hundreds of millions of dollars just because of how different the way that we develop technology is. With relatively small amounts of money, small amounts of dilution in the business, we can have disproportionate acceleration in in the business. So, really, you know, approaching the market, especially the US market in a in a much more serious way. Sales is not it's not cheap and and it is a long process.

So, that's that's one that we're really stepping into in a big way and we want to invest heavily in. Same in Europe. There's there's a massive uptick in spending. There's huge geopolitical shift. You know, NATO spending's going from you know, it's just gone through 2% and some some countries are going to 5%. Like, I think the the German federal spending in 20 in the early 2030s will be like 25% defense. They're going to be spending 35 billion dollars over 5 years on satellites.

Yeah.

Like, that's that is crazy. That's a tectonic shift and we're we're super well placed to have a have a significant role there. So, the and and and the key technology that we want to unlock is is refueling. So, you know, that's that's where we take our nice satellite propulsion business, right? To replace hydrazine, great to have a more scalable way of doing stuff. That's where we go from that being a a good step forward to being a total unlock of like you get a strategic capability. You can refuel your satellites, you know, massively drop capex of of a satellite constellation. And for defense users, it's it's an absolute critical piece of deterrence. Like, their satellites need to be refuelable so that they they don't have their capability depleted. So, yeah. Series B unlocks all that.

And just as a reminder for the viewers, so um Dawn has two business lines. It's the satellite propulsion business that you've been talking about that includes refueling infrastructure and then the space plane business, Aurora. And maybe to start with going a little bit more into the propulsion business. I think last year when we when we talked on the podcast, you said and I can I can quote from from the transcript actually, you said one day you'll be able to actually get refueled by a Dawn satellite or some other satellite, but that's a very long way away. That's what you said last year. How far away do you feel it is now?

So, the the the intention is that we're doing that in mid-2028. So, in in startup world, I still feel like that's a long way away. But, yeah, I suppose that like it's really only 2 years away. Like that's that's what our schedules are. Like that's what we're locking into. Yeah. So, that's

And why are you refueling? Maybe you can lay it out a bit more why that is such a critical thing to do to lower costs and create infrastructure in space.

Yeah, so so the starting point like the the first people who really really want this capability is is defense because there's there's a problem right now where there's quite a few satellites in especially in geostationary orbit. So, like why is uh in-space refueling so important? Like the the first users is going to be defense and that's because they have a really critical problem right now, which is that, you know, especially in geostationary orbit, they have legacy assets that have a limited amount of fuel that's baked in and it's not going to change. You can't refuel them now. And they are having that fuel depleted by other, you know, adversary satellites just coming around, poking at them, sort of sniffing their packets, and getting up in their face, if you like, and and forcing them to perform maneuvers.

And every time they have to perform a maneuver that they didn't intend on doing, that that reduces their mission life. It it degrades their their their capability. So, many space forces around the world are rushing to get what they would call like bodyguard satellites into place so that you have a satellite that can get in the way of the satellite that's about to get in your way. You know, that can fend these ones off. And ideally these bodyguard satellites are refuelable so that, you know, this this bodyguard capability doesn't itself get degraded. And if you have that and you publicize it, then it's much more like much less likely that your adversary elects to come and contest you because, you know, that they know that they'll just they'll just kind of degrade themselves more than they're going to be able to degrade you. So, you know, this is this is deterrence in action.

Stephan, is that is that a a function of the fact that the adversarial satellites do not have a refueling function? Like if they eventually also get a refueling function, then then then that sort of becomes a moot point, right?

Well, absolutely. I mean, this becomes an arms race like of of mobility. So, you want to be ahead of that, right? So, you know, you you got to get your satellites to be refuelable and then you've got to have a bigger stockpile of fuel and ultimately like more mobility. But this this this becomes a a logistics battle. But yeah, the the current the the current state is no one's refuelable. They're all single-use assets, single fuel tank assets if you like. So so that's the first users. Everyone's kind of pointing at like 20

users? Are they are the bodyguard satellites or the or the main satellites?

Well, the the even the bodyguard satellites at the moment are single single fuel tank. But you know, it's it's better to degrade the fuel tank of a bodyguard satellite than it is of your, you know, billion-dollar asset that's been there since, you know, 2015 or something.

Right, right. And you guys have figured out, I mean, I cuz like your whole kind of thesis is very interesting, which is that like the chicken and egg problem, right? Where like if there are no refueling satellites, no one's going to put a way to refuel their satellites on of the satellites, right? And then if there no one puts a way to refuel satellites on satellites, there's no market for a way to refuel satellites, right? So, there's like if you don't have like the the gas stations, you're not going to make a gas tank in a car, right? And there's no gas tank in a gas tank. So, you guys solved this in a very clever way.

Exactly like that's that's the classic chicken and egg problem and that's that's I think the mistake that a lot of like satellite refueling startups are making is that they're rushing straight to the application, which is of course satellite refueling is where the money is, where the application is. Like that's what everyone needs, but you can't just jump straight to it because you even if you just clicked your fingers and had a refuel like a fuel like a gas station in the sky. If if the idea was hey I'm a startup, please fund me so I can put this gas station in the sky and in 5 years later hopefully I get some revenue out of it. It's not particularly attractive. It Our approach is completely the opposite. We actually start We actually started with the fundamental fuel of like what's a what's a refuelable scalable fuel and then we'll build a thruster and we started launching that.

And you know, D-Orbit was the first company that put our thruster in space. This is long before we even built propulsion systems and it's okay people don't want to buy just thrusters, they want to buy whole propulsion systems. So you know, now we're producing whole propulsion systems and that's the majority of what we do now. You know, we'll build about 50 propulsion systems this year. And and now we can start you know, because we're a major supplier of propulsion systems, we can start replacing the you know, what would normally be the fuel drain valve like where you would fuel the satellite up on the launch site, you can just make that the port that is also a dockable port in space. So you replace the the manual fuel drain valves, replace it with a a passive side docking adapter that they can use in space to refuel as well.

So you kind of delete an old component, put in the new component and now every propulsion system you make, even if they actually have no intention of refueling it, it's at least prepared for it. So that when they do run out of fuel, they can make the credible decision of hey, do I actually want to refuel this thing instead of rebuilding a whole new one? If that's a credible decision they can make at the time, that's like that's I think that's a that's an idea customers right now can buy into and say, "Yeah, you know, it would be nice to have that optionality. I certainly won't pass it up if I can get it for free."

But the real question though is like, "A, why can't you use those fuel ports that you're replacing? Why can't you use those for refueling space?" And why Second question is why aren't other thruster companies doing the same thing and putting a, you know, a way to refuel into their thrusters? Like it seems like, you know, like if you guys are just replacing the the the port, right? Is that I mean, maybe somebody could have actually gone and refueled through through the old port.

Yeah. The the the I guess the problem is is that nobody's known what ports to just put on there because no one's known what refueling service is going to come. So, there's no There was no obvious answer for like, "Oh, what should you replace it with?" There is no obvious standard. So, we're I I I still think it's a really it's really hard for the industry to come up with a any sort of standard. And what's going to become the standard is just going to be what's the most prolific. So, that's kind of why we started on like, "Let's just be the most prolific." If we can be that, then there's also the biggest commercial imperative to actually start refueling because, you know, there's a significant market out there of satellites without refueling port on it.

why why haven't other companies who make who make thrusters do the same thing?

They just haven't had a strategy of being vertically integrated. Like most most companies that build thrusters never even got to the propulsion system step. They just supply their thruster. So, you know, that they're like two major thought processes away from like, "Let's be a refueling company." And then most people who decided there's value in being a refueling company decided that they would jump straight there. They probably buy in thrusters. Like, you know, an Astroscale, for example. You know, they they buy thrusters from various different parties. And and they've had they've had some success, but it's it's a much bigger chasm that they have to cross because they want to go straight to straight to being a refueling company while we're able to take things much more bite-size and every step of the way, you know, building thrusters, that was a profitable endeavor.

Building propulsion systems now, that's a profitable endeavor. We can keep doing those things and even if the next step fails, we still have an underlying good business.

I mean, it makes a lot of sense, but what How is it that you were able to do all these things? And I guess a thruster is sort of a subcomponent of a bigger propulsion system, right? So, why aren't other companies that are either building thrusters, why don't they graduate up to building propulsion systems? Like, how have you guys been able to do it and also do it profitably?

Yeah, and like part of it's timing. Like, I think we we came into the market really at the right time, like just when SpaceX was kicking off Transporter, like that was when our thruster development was just kicking into into high gear and we had our first customer. And then, suddenly, effective and cost-effective propulsion really became needed at scale. Where previously it was it's not it was never really needed at scale. But, you know, we as a business always had this theory that space is going to come out of being a niche into the mainstream. We're going to go from tens or hundreds of satellites to thousands, tens of thousands, and soon hundreds of thousands. So, you know, we That that's scalable, sustainable space transportation. We had that vision early on and I think we just kind of nailed the timing.

So, to some extent, that's getting lucky, but the the other reason I think is just raw execution. Like, if you look at businesses in space, there's there's a lot of them. Some of them have great ideas, some of them not so great ideas, but the real differentiator is the ones who can actually build stuff in a cost-effective way, ship product that works as on orbit, and you can, you know, you can check the TLEs, like, does it maneuver? Does it work? You'd be surprised how many ship product that never does a maneuver, or it takes 5 years from the first one to to actually have something going well. You know, same is true on the spaceplane side. There's there's a lot of launcher companies that have never flown yet or never never flown anything successfully, even suborbitally. So, built a good muscle of just actually executing really hard engineering year after year.

And let's talk about the spaceplane business a bit more. So, the whole philosophy behind this is it's essentially a plane that has the performance of a rocket. How many times have you flown this now?

It's 60 on 60 64. I Honestly, I lose count. We are in in the 60s now. And so, decent amount of flight hours this year. And we've done that over over a number of campaigns. Yeah, we're we're now in a big upgrade cycle to you know, we've kind of gotten to the limits of performance of the the airframe that we had. And now yeah, we're rebuilding that vehicle to uh be able to fly to 100 km altitude. And then yeah, multiple times a day.

And can you remind the listeners um we talked about this last time in at length, but why is this such a big deal? Why did you come up with this concept in the first place?

Yeah, like it's the the same thing on the satellite propulsion side. You know, we we had this vision for there's going to be a lot more satellites out there. Everything that we have to do has to be much more scalable and much more sustainable. And the key bottleneck in space launch is is reusability. You know, some 10 years ago, some people thought you could get around this bottleneck by just factory producing a a lot of cheap rockets. And I think that's been pretty solidly debunked. I think everyone realizes reusability is the way. And and people start to talk about aircraft-like reusability. I think we're probably the most hardcore in trying to be aircraft-like. And in in that, you know, following that theory, if you like, we build aircraft that are certified as aircraft. They fly, you know, horizontal takeoff and landing.

The only thing that makes them a rocket is the fact that it has a rocket engine on board, not a jet engine. And that just allows you to get beyond the performance constraints of a of a jet engine and beyond the reaches of the atmosphere. So, um you know, there's no fundamental reason you can't get rocket-like performance out of something that looks like an aircraft. It's really just a question of how good is your engineering? Can you hit the mass fractions you need? Can your rocket engine have the performance that you need? If you're staying away from things like cryogenic propellants because, you know, things like cryogenic propellants like aircraft don't use cryogenic propellants. They can't, you know, they need to be mission flexible. If they have a 30-minute delay, they have a 30-minute delay. You can't let that, you know, boil off so much propellant. You can't operate right now.

So, Evan, just to maybe kind of take it back a step. So, you basically built a plane that uses your thruster and propulsion system, which has a special type of propellant that that doesn't boil off, that is not used in typical typically in rockets, that can basically take this plane to 100 km above the Earth's surface. And And this is this is an unmanned plane, right? There's no people inside.

Yeah, exactly. It's a It's It's an unmanned aircraft. The propellants are not particularly special. I mean, you use them since the '60s as well. It's just that that non-cryogenic hydrogen peroxide and kerosene. But, yeah, it was an exercise in taking a lot of existing technologies. Like no single bit about it was like crazy new science project needed a like like a rotating detonation engine or something. It was all existing technologies brought together in an in a new way and to to make a genuinely new product, which is also certified under aircraft law and and, you know, uses uses runways. I I would say it's actually very similar to what SpaceX did with Falcon 9. Like almost nothing about Falcon 9 is revolutionary at the component level. Like open cycle LOX kerosene engine, aluminum structures, even vertical landing. Like we vertically landed on the moon in the '60s. Like it's not new.

But, bringing all of these things together

Wait, wait, Evan, Evan. I thought the moon [clears throat] thing was a I thought the moon thing was a hoax. Thought they just showed

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, if you think that one's a hoax, like there's there's that's been redone in the '90s and then the 2000s again. You know, SpaceX is not by a long shot the first people to vertically land a rocket. So, but you know that it but no one debates that Falcon 9 is an absolutely revolutionary vehicle because it is. But it's revolutionary at the more like at the at the system level. And it's revolutionary in terms of the economics. So, in the same way that's that's how Aurora should be revolutionary. No, it's it's not a science project at the at the component level, but it's revolutionary in that you will have rocket performance, but you will have fleet economics. You know, rocket performance, fleet economics. That's the huge unlock. And that that means you can do so many things that you could never do before with a rocket because the economics is just limiting.

Help me help me understand. So, can you take an existing like, you know, I took I took a plane, you know, earlier this this afternoon and can you just put your your thruster on that, you know, passenger jet and just take it all the way up 100 km? Or what or what like or and like if no, why not?

No, the the short answer is no because the like aircraft are very highly integrated things. You know, everything interacts with with one another. So, and and being a rocket, it's it's very very good at short burst supply performance. So, you know, the the intent is not to replace existing aircraft. The intent is more like to replace existing rockets. So, you know, the So, you know, what what's the effect? What's the point then? You know, anything that I would have loved to be able to use a rocket for, but it was just horrendously expensive, like way too expensive for I can now do with an aircraft that has the performance of a rocket. So, for example, billions of dollars are spent a year on missile defense systems. Hardly any of them are actually tested effectively or to their limits. So, there's actually people don't actually understand the limits of capability of these systems.

You know, even a Patriot missile system that's been around for 20 plus years, we don't really understand what it's capable of. The troops that use these things are not actually as well trained in live fire situations as as what they could be. The radars, you know, billions of dollars of radars designed to track all these different and new threats, we don't understand them as well as we

why is that? Why is that? Is it because we don't want to pay money to like launch missiles and and and intercept them? It costs too much, the why?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's That's exactly it. Like missiles are extremely expensive and they're extremely dangerous. So, if you want to go actually test your radar and actually test your troops in a live fire situation, you have to go out to a firing range and the missile's going to cost you easily millions, often tens of millions of dollars per flight. You know, all of these things but like if if you could just go and do this test for 50 grand because you can fly a vehicle that's truly an aircraft and and you can you could do that test every other day if you

So, are you saying your your planes your planes cost 50k?

Per flight? If you if you own and operate an Aurora, you know, the the actual cost of flying a vehicle can be as low as 50k for sure.

And whenever like you're doing some kind of test with an Aurora, do you So, it's not like you're not actually intercepting the Aurora. You're not hitting the plane, right?

Right.

No. So, how are you How are you actually How are you actually like testing?

So, the the the test of all of that system, like firing the missile's the very last thing. You know, they they would talk about find, fix, track, target, engage, assess. Like they call F2T2EA. So, that whole process, only the last the second to last bit is actually firing something. That that F2T2 part is all about radars tracking and and assessment, coordination of firing solutions, all this kind of stuff. Like that's actually where the majority of cost and training is. So, you can do all of that stuff without actually shooting a missile at all. So, yes, of course, you can use you could you could shoot it down as well. That's a As soon as you're firing something, you know, your your interceptor is probably at least high single digits to multi-digit million uh sorry, like tens of millions per shot anyway.

So, you know, even even if the thing you're hitting is millions of dollars, too, you know, you're you're kind of you're pretty committed to a high-cost exercise at that point.

Yeah, and just so people get an understanding of what these missions actually look like. You've just done one in New Zealand like a a defense New Zealand in March um and you're going to fly from Oklahoma in 2027. Uh can you talk a little bit about those two missions and what they're about?

Yeah, exactly. So, so the DART mission was the uh Dawn Aerospace radar tracking experiment that we did with the New Zealand Navy. So, they brought down one of their frigates, they parked it essentially off the off the coast of Tāwhaki, the National Aerospace Centre where we fly, and we flew up to high altitude and then flew up Let's call it like a missile-like trajectory back towards towards the ground as if we were engaging the frigate. Now, we could do so I mean we we still keep pretty healthy standoff distances, but you can do that sort of exercise and and we did that a couple of times for them, which allowed them to to train, try some different settings on their on their equipment, and and start to understand the the actual limits of of their radar. Now, this was this was really just a capability demonstration to show that we can use these new generation vehicles.

You know, that they would typically have done these sorts of tests with Learjets, but they can get a much more credible threatening uh missile stimulant with the Dawn product. So, that that was like a really a new thing for them to be working with a New Zealand company on this. Totally new vehicle, totally new trajectories, pushing the limits in lots of ways for and for their gear and for their for their troops. And yeah, really

how is how is your plane different from doing it with a different plane? Like what makes Aurora special? Like if it's something that's coming down from 10 you know high to low, aren't all the objects falling the same trajectory? What what makes Aurora different?

No, I'm like a Learjet that you know has a service ceiling in the sort of 40,000 ft and it's flying reasonably slow like Mach 0.8. We can fly very high very like steep up 80° trajectory. You know, we got to mid 70,000 ft on this trajectory. So we're like twice as high as what a Learjet would be able to fly at and then we're able to fly a very steep aggressive and even supersonic descent trajectory as well. So you know, that's much just without going into too much detail much more aggressive than what you'd be happy to do

I see. And is that because like a regular jet has a person inside?

Yep. Yeah. And and most regular jets have have much stricter limitations on on speeds and altitudes that you can fly. Like very few jets could even get to 70,000 ft. Like that's incredibly high. You know, most top out in at you know, in the 50s or the 60s. Really you know, commercial jets in the 40s. But you know, even military jets really struggle to get to these altitudes. But I would also stress this is like this is the lowest performance aircraft that we'll ever produce and it's already at the upper end of performance of what any aircraft can do. You know, the the highest an aircraft has ever flown off a runway was 125,000 ft. You know, we're going to be flying to nearly 350,000 ft. The fastest anything's ever flown off a runway is about Mach 3.3. Yeah, we're going to be getting to Mach 3.7.

The highest climb rate to 60,000 ft is you know, was an F-15 doing it in 122 seconds and we've already demonstrated 118 seconds. So you know, Aurora is a relatively modest performance version of what we want to be doing. We'll be the highest flying the fastest flying and the highest climb rate aircraft ever produced. And and that's really what the performance of a rocket and an aircraft really is. Like it's it's insane by aircraft metrics because it really is a rocket.

And Savannah, there's now in Ukraine or recently Russia is using hypersonic missiles and those are from what I understand like impossible to intercept. Would does does Aurora the simulator allow people to you know simulate yeah a hypersonic missile and then in turn build defensive systems against that?

So Aurora can help. You know, Aurora tops out in the sort of mid Mach 3s. So it's it's certainly not hypersonic, but I mean people talk about hypersonic weapons that are usually actually meaning something that flies quite fast but is also very maneuverable. You know, like even even a a V2 missile you know, that the Germans used in World War II. Like that was hypersonic, but people don't really call that a hypersonic weapon because it's just a ballistic missile. Hypersonics is really about that combination of speed and maneuverability. So Aurora can help there. Next generation aircraft will be able to help even more cuz they will be they'll be significantly faster and and more more maneuverable as well.

Can you talk a little bit about the contract with Oklahoma and the work you're going to do there?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so it's just like defense is a part of our work, but Oklahoma is a really great example of where um there's there's very much a civil side to these applications as well. So yeah, Oklahoma, like the state, has partnered with Dawn where essentially bringing setting up an an like the first space line if you like like a an airline with a with a space capability in at at their Infinity One Spaceport in in Western Oklahoma. So that's it was a an an old Air Force base and then after that it was a emergency landing site for um the space shuttle. So it has some pretty unique um airspace, you know, airspace to infinity, which is great cuz we need that. We're going pretty damn high.

So yeah, it's a great place to put a space plane and we already have a a of interest from many different research institutes around Oklahoma and and and the the wider country to come and do all kinds of things. All kinds of microgravity experimentation for like biomedical and and pharmaceutical industries as well as for for semiconductor as well as developing avionics and all kinds of stuff for for high-speed drones. Yeah, lots of lots of interested parties that are going to come to Oklahoma and you know, use this this space-faring capability because you know, Aurora operating at Burns Flat at Infinity One Spaceport is going to like that's going to be the busiest suborbital spaceport in the world. You know, we're going to be doing 100 flights a year there. So, they're they're very excited about that. We're super excited about it.

We should be there in in 2027, we'll we'll start flight operations.

Let's talk about the industry in more general. I think this will probably air after SpaceX has gone public. We're recording this and while they've filed their S-1, but before they went public, so we can't really speculate on what's going to happen. Otherwise, we'll look bad. I just kind of yeah, using that moment to talk about how you see the space industry evolving and what that IPO means for your industry that you've been operating in for the last 10 years.

Yeah, I mean like SpaceX is kind of the it's the like the poster child of the space startup, right? Like it's it's been it's been wildly successful and the the valuation that they're bringing to this this IPO like you know, it'll be the largest IPO either. I think it's kind of indicative of that. It's it's a whole lot of hard work coming to fruition. What does it mean for the rest of the space industry? I think it'll it'll certainly be a big tailwind in the sense that it'll bring a lot of a lot of attention to an industry that's had an absolute ton of growth and I believe it would still has a lot of growth ahead of it. Like we're still kind of at the start of some really big technologies actually being profitable world-shaping technologies. Like Starlink is still is still a nascent technology, but you know, you can see now from the from the financials, Starlink is a strong business.

Like it it prints cash for sure. And there is there's plenty of scope for that that to continue. And space launch, I think everyone's everyone in the space industry now knows and understands it to be such a strategic capability. And I think that'll only be strengthened. Like people will really start to dig in on what a space mean as a technology, but also as like a sovereign capability. Like why is this important for nations to have? It's people starting to wise up to the fact that it's it's kind of non-negotiable if you want to be at these, you know, be be like a strategic world player.

Yeah. And Steven, what do you think SpaceX gets wrong?

What do they get wrong? I mean, the space nerd in me is a little bit like hates it a little bit that xAI got tacked on the side. We'll see how that plays out, but it's like I've I I love SpaceX as a pure space play. Maybe I'm I'm not across or deep enough into AI to really understand.

Well, I I I think the idea there was like There's like orbital. Well, I think there's two arguments, right? One is that it was bleeding cash. And then they needed to like have, you know, have it not bleed so much cash. And then the second was the the data centers in space.

Yeah, yeah. So so the former the former but it's like xAI should have figured out its own cash burn. But but the the latter I Yeah, the latter I'm I don't know. I'm I'm I'm naturally a skeptic. I think we we built Dawn on the on the principle of I don't know what's going to be valuable in space. I only know there's going to be a lot of like there's there's about 10 different things it could be. Orbital data centers is kind of the the latest hype. We'll see how it plays out. I don't know if it's actually like if it's the thing or not, but if it is, they also have to get to space and they'll also need mobility when they get there. So you know, we're we're going to be in the mobility part. I'm pretty sure that's solid, but yeah. Um that's

um

a big leap of faith in my opinion.

Yeah, I mean even without XAI this would have been a trillion-dollar plus IPO, right? They were talking about these numbers before they decided to roll in SpaceX XAI. Um, yeah, does that Do you think that that's going to kind of signal to investors in the market that, you know, there's lots of growth in in space and you can build like huge like trillion-dollar companies? And how do you think it's going to affect your your journey over the next 3 years?

Yeah, yeah, I like in terms of hard financials, I think it it makes people realize that you can't just price space and especially launch as a like, you know, any old hardware company where you you know, you get somewhere between 3 and 10x revenue, you know, that and that's your valuation because it's it's just way more important as a technology sector than that. Like it's a sovereign capability it unlocks. You know, it is the the the road to the gold mine of space. So, you know, how much of a extra toll if you like can you charge on the road to the gold mine? Quite a lot. And and I think like Rocket Lab is already seeing this. They get way over a 10x multiple. You know, they're they're more like in the 70s or 80s now, which is it's kind of getting almost insane, but I think that with a with a 70 or 80 or 100x is the right multiple or not that's not the point.

The point is is like this is not a standard technology. You can't just price this in the same way that you could some other, you know, whatever car manufacturing or something, some other technology sector. This is really important strategic capability that nations depend on and they'll pay a premium for it.

What do you What do you think about, you know, I think I think there's there's there's always concerns about SpaceX and Elon sort of, you know, having control personally over such a critical piece of infrastructure. Whether that's for the US, whether that's for the global, you know, sovereignty of other nations. I mean, like it made such a huge difference again in Ukraine when he turned off Starlink for for for the Russian army. Like that point they stopped advancing in Ukraine actually we took the initiative and it was it was it was really really like he's sort of like able to single-handedly determine the outcome of like wars, right? And folks are a little worried about that in some cases. What do you think about that?

Yeah, I I I think you you're you're exactly right. I mean you see that worry playing out in real action. Like that's why Europe is getting serious about space. That's why Germany's earmarking 35 billion dollars over the next 5 years to build out similar types of capability. That's that's exactly why that's happening cuz you Yeah, you're right. The world doesn't want to stay dependent on Starlink. At least not as the only option. It probably doesn't matter if it's the most economic best option as long as there is some sort of backup that you can pay for some high price for, you know, in a in a wartime scenario whatever. You can you can use that or you know, a business is not completely, you know, paying monopolistic prices as at least some sort of semblance of competition out there. Like that like that's important for the world.

And I I think that that competition will then, you know, it will not just be in broadband. It will also be in earth observation and it will not just be in competition in the US. It's in Europe and it'll be in Asia and you know, basically every major strategic player on the on on the world stage will need to have these sorts of capabilities.

How how will Germany spend that 35 billion? Like I think they've been to rebuild with SpaceX has has just built as as you know, it takes a lot more money and probably requires a couple of different companies working together, right? And I think they have some alternative. I forgot some kind of bias sat or something. I forgot the name. They have some like other alternative but it's like it's like a tenth of the capabilities of of Starlink, right? And every and every and every measurement. So what what can you actually like how realistic is it actually build a competitor? What what would you need for that?

Yeah, and and that 35 billion is is for more than just just building a communication satellites. Yeah, I I think like that's a really complex European question that Europe has to answer. Like how are they going to build out strategic capabilities across across Europe? I think that that number's really just a big signal from Germany of that getting serious about space. France is certainly a very serious player as well. And and even you know, we're we're particularly conscious and and aware of of of the Netherlands. You know, they're they're building their own sovereign capabilities as well. You know, one of which mission called Pami. You know, they're they're already looking towards key technologies like refueling. And so you know, we're building the propulsion system for um that Pami mission, which is their their flagship earth observation installation.

But yeah, like I I wish I knew exactly how each every dollar of that 35 billion was going to get spent.

I mean, well, I guess what I'm asking is like do you think given that you're you're able to launch multiple multiple times a day on on your Aurora plane, can you put some of these satellites? Do you think there'll be ever a business line that Dawn does this?

So eventually, yes. The the point is to get to orbit. We see a lot of steps in between that. You know, because we're bringing the price down so much, there's there's a lot more market in everything before we get to orbit. So that includes suborbital microgravity. It includes all these, you know, threat representation applications that we talked about.

Mhm.

Um you know, there's there's actually a lot of really cool non-space things you can do with a space plane.

Stefan, will will Dawn eventually become a bigger company than SpaceX?

Depends how big space get.

Well, let's go let's call it, you know. I mean, you don't need to call numbers, but just like capabilities wise. Like what is your vision and how will it be bigger? Do you or will it be bigger? Maybe it won't.

Well, SpaceX is an interesting one in that they you know, they've said the mission is always about getting to Mars. And and I think every year the the the their mission gets broader. And and and in a similar way, our our mission is doing the same in that you know it really was all about scalable sustainable space transportation and and we're still doing that but more and more we're discovering actually there's there's more and more terrestrial use cases for for what we're doing and so our there's there's a lot of parallels here and we're finding our our mission is kind of expanding and you know like like point-to-point transport could be a big deal.

I know SpaceX has kind of talked about that at some point as well but if you have truly rapidly reusable and reliable space planes that can travel via suborbit you know hundreds of thousands of kilometers like that's a pretty interesting market too. So yeah we'll we'll see who's the bigger company in 20 or 30 years time but SpaceX has got a it's got a fair leader on us so I'll just

What do you I mean in the what do you think of the the the the leaders leading these companies? So you got I guess Elon for SpaceX and Peter Beck for Rocket Lab and yeah what do what do you think? What do you think about them as as CEOs and leaders and how do you sort of I guess learn or or or not learn from them and their examples?

I I I think they all have some traits about them where you where you wonder is that a feature or a bug but that's that's not

Like what? Like what?

Yeah. Oh just just tons of stuff but I I think the the interesting bit to focus on is like what do they all have in common and that you're quite sure of is a feature and and one thing is that they're just hardcore about execution like it's it's you've got to ship the product the thing has got to work and they they don't compromise on that even one little bit and I'd like to think we're we're getting that right at Dawn as well. Certainly like if you look at any Rocket Lab product it just looks like it should work and nine times out of 10 it does as well. So there's there's some pretty solid theory in there I think.

One of the things you've always been very proud of and I think you mentioned it last year when we spoke as well is that you actually didn't raise a lot of money until now You I think you generated more sales than I guess before you raised the series B and then what you raised in in capital to grow. How do you think about this now in the context of you know, SpaceX going public raising 75 billion I think with this IPO and you know, probably also more capital being available available to things that you want to build.

Yeah. Yeah, I like with a series B, we'll almost have equity sale catch up to real sales. Like we'll still have more real revenue come into the business than than VC ever, which is still still pretty unique.

Very impressive.

Yeah, like I'm I'm we're super happy with that. And and the reason I actually would like to keep it that way if we could is because I think it it really does help keep the company grounded in solutions that matter. Like too much capital can very quickly let you stay on a bad idea for too long. Like I I I've seen that so many times where a company is pushing an idea and they're making great technological leaps forward and it it all looks really really good and they raise one round of 50 mil and then 100 mil and then 300 mil and then 600 mil and you're like, "Wow, this is a this company is absolutely on a tear and it's but there's been no commercial traction. There's been no actual technology demonstration and then all of a sudden it's like the investors just lose faith and they go, "Hold on, why are we spending all this money? Where's the traction?

Like all these LOIs for launch, does it actually mean anything?" And it all just comes crashing down or has to get bailed out. Like I I think Relativity Space was a really great example of this. They They raised well over a billion, developed all this cool technology of 3D printing whole rocket stages. Do they do any of that now? Nope. And it got more or less completely bought out by um a single party. Every All the existing investors involved in it got pretty much annihilated. I I don't want to be a be a company like that.

I think we already have shown we've shown that we have a real business, we have real customers, and and we can work on things that that exponentially develop over time like building real capabilities within the company that just get better and better every year like our manufacturing gets more and more efficient, our ability to do rapid design iteration, lots of small steps forward gets better every year. And like I think those sorts of muscles is what made SpaceX really really good, especially in the like 2010s to 2020s time frame. Like the the iteration cycle that they had on the Falcon program is just is just crazy how far that program progressed from like one key customer which was NASA for the like like CRS contracts at commercial resupply through to reusability and then getting that thing to 150 flights a year.

Like that's just an absolutely phenomenal exponential curve that that company drove for you you know, that that decade.

Yeah. So that one I mean yeah, so you so you you you just raised a round and we were I think like a couple of percent of that round and really excited to support you. How what was it like raising raising money and I think like as a New Zealand company specifically you don't have the same access necessarily to capital that you would in in California or Silicon Valley. And I think the the perception even as we were kind of helping you raise some of this money people were people were surprised. They didn't know that New Zealand had such a company or that you could achieve whatever you had like you know, what what was it like eight eight figures of revenue maybe getting close to nine figures of revenue, right? Without being on people's radars. Most major VC firms are not aware that you even exist.

What was that What was that process in New Zealand like and I guess do you think there's an advantage or disadvantage to being in New Zealand? Do you plan to eventually have more US presence? How do you think about that?

Like it's definitely a double-edged sword in that like I found the mental cost of operating is is much lower. The difficulty of getting stuff done especially in government and regulation and infrastructure and stuff. It's like that's all way way easier down here. So that's part of the out of the formula of why we're able to be so capital efficient. It's it's what worked so so well for for Rocket Lab as well. But yeah, the double-edged sword is like it is harder to get visibility in in the states. And there's there's some particular reasons that we haven't wanted to incorporate as a US company as well. Like particularly for for like ITAR reasons to be able to supply this technology more easily to Europe. So we we um you know, we've made some decisions to not incorporate in the US and that that again makes it harder to get visibility in the US.

So there's there's some structural tradeoffs that that we've made as a company, but I believe they'll play out well in the long term. In terms of like actually going to the US and and raising capital, I think once you actually once you get the the the conversation and you you start selling the company of like this is our vision, this is our mission, this is the traction that we've had so far, this is these are the financials. Like the the story somewhat speaks for itself. So massive opportunity there for for us to just get the name out more. I think once we do, more often than not people see the light. They see what we're doing down here and they see how this model follows in the footsteps of so many great companies.

Yeah, so then one last question for me on that. Like you mentioned the you you chose not to go and register the company in the US for ITAR reasons. Is part of that also that you feel like this technology should be accessible to other countries that are broadly aligned with Western values like Europe and that kind of given the US posture now around maybe pulling out of NATO or sort of being flip-flopping in the current administration, not supporting allies. Was that was that was there some political kind of considerations there that you personally as a CEO had to make or was it purely commercial reasons?

Yeah, it it it's less of like a moral like oh, I want to democratize this technology for the world because it is a highly controlled technology and and and for good reason. So, but ITAR has a particular set of rules that certainly leaves us, you know, it it certainly narrows our options or or creates a whole lot of extra paperwork every time you want to go supply this technology to, you know, even even the Netherlands or Germany. It's just a whole party involved. And considering we were doing so much of this development outside of the US anyway, all of the development outside of the US, it didn't really make sense to implicate ourselves in that way. It was sort of disproportionate hurdles for for payoff. So, yeah, that's that's just the decision we made.

Cool. Um I got to stop Mark here, otherwise we're going to be here for another 3 hours. But uh Stefan, thank you so much for joining us again and congratulations on the Series B. We're super excited to be part of it and uh yeah, hope to speak to you again soon and hear more about the progress.

Yeah, thanks very much. Super excited to have you guys part of the round as well. All right, catch you on the next one. Thank you.

Speak soon.

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