The US military is raising the stakes – and expanding the field – in the high-profile competition for Space Force mission contracts.

The Space Force plans to purchase more rocket launches from companies in the coming years than previously expected, giving more companies a chance to secure billions in potential contracts.

“This is a huge deal,” Doug Pentecost, deputy program executive officer at the US Space Force’s Space Systems Command, told reporters during a briefing this week.

Earlier this year, the Space Force began the process of purchasing five years’ worth of launches, under a lucrative program known as National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase III.

The United States sees increasing momentum to improve its military capabilities in space, spurring the need to nearly triple the number of third-stage launches it has purchased in second-stage in 2020.

“It just amazes me,” said Pentecost. “We only estimated 36 missions for Phase 2. For Phase 3, we estimate 90 missions.”

In February, the Space Force outlined a “mutual fund” strategy to purchase launches from the companies. NSSL divided Stage 3 into two groups. Track 1 is the new approach, with lower requirements and a more flexible bidding process that allows companies to compete as rockets debut over the coming years. Path 2 represents the current approach, in which the Space Force plans to select a select number of companies for missions that meet the most demanding requirements.

Pentecost said the Space Force hosted an industry day in February to review details of the program and 22 companies attended. Since then, Space Force has made a number of tweaks to Phase 3. It has added more missions, introduced a price cap, expanded Path 2, and established an annual schedule of missions.

The government weighs bids according to a company’s “gross estimated price” to launch. This is broken down into “launch service,” which means the cost of building and launching a missile, and “launch service support,” which covers special requirements the military might have for a launch. The maximum launch service subsidy amount is $100 million per year, per company.

“We’ve implemented some cost constraints so we don’t get inflated. We don’t want to [a situation where] Everyone gets a mission—you get a mission, you get a mission, you get a mission—because there’s no real competition after that,” Pentecostals said.

“We believe all of our partners in the industry want to be the first man, so we think that will provide competitive pricing to keep our costs down,” he added.

While track 1 is expected to attract the most bids and award 30 missions, track 2 is the big show.

With Lane 2, the Space Force awards the most valuable contracts to launch national security satellites at the highest stakes.

“These are billion dollars [satellite] “The payload going into unique orbits,” said Pentecost.

Not only has Lynn 2 seen an increase in the number of missions available for grabs — it’s currently estimated at 58 launches, up from 39 in February — but Space Force also made the decision to expand the slots available for final prizes to three companies, rather than limiting them to two.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX and United Launch Alliance, the joint venture of Boeing And Lockheed MartinThey were supposed to be the main contenders for Lane 2, but now there’s an open door for another company like Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.

Space Force will allocate 60% and 40% of the 51 missions to the two largest bidders, respectively, and the remaining seven launches will go to the third-place bidder.

Regardless of where a company ranks, it must demonstrate that it can meet all of Track 2’s requirements, which include having launch sites on both the East Coast and West Coast, and the ability to reach nine high-accuracy “reference” orbits, many of which are much farther from Earth than the LEO requirements of Track 1.

Asked by CNBC how many companies are developing missiles that can meet these requirements by the launch deadline, a Space Force spokesperson declined to specify, saying the Army is “tracking several” that are “expanding their launch capabilities into most of these orbits.”

“Hopefully, not only will ULA, SpaceX, and Blue Origin compete for that, there are others who have interest in the past.” Chad Mellon, chief of procurement and integration at Space Systems Command, said during the briefing.

Space Force presents an annual festival for the month of October. 1 Deadline for assignment of tasks to companies that have won a contract.

Pentecost clarified that the first missions will end in October 2025, but the aforementioned contracts do not guarantee assignments, which protects the Space Force from delays that companies may experience in developing and flying missiles.

“You could have won the contract already, and you had this great plan about how you were going to fly [fiscal year] 2027. But since you haven’t flown yet, and I have a satellite that needs to fly in a couple of years, we’re not going to give you that task—we’re going to pass it on to the other person,” Pentecostal said.

Space Force aims to finish its solicitation for bidders by September and then submit all proposals by December, with contracts awarded in October 2024.

The main driver for this push, Space Force officials said, is “capacity assurance,” since there are “a lot of other companies” trying to buy satellite launches and the Space Force needs to close their orders.

“We wanted to make sure that we basically hedged against the scarcity of launches that could happen because if there is absolutely too much demand and everyone is [buying]”The prices can be very high,” Mellon said.

But despite that fear, Pentecost said that 2026 “looks like the sweet spot” when a number of the companies’ rockets will be developed and ready to fly. And the companies that stay on the right track will have the upper hand in the third phase of the NSSL.

“If you fly before then, or if your schedule shows you will fly before then, you will have significant strengths, which will put you in a better position to win the best provider or second best in this competition,” said Pentecost.

Manufacturer of spacecraft engines and builder of small rockets Astra It intends to conduct a reverse stock split of 1 to 15, the company disclosed in a securities filing on Monday.

The request said Astra was also seeking to raise up to $65 million through an “on-the-market” placement of ordinary shares.

Astra shares were little changed in after-hours trading, closing at 40 cents a share. The company went public in July 2021 through a SPAC deal, at a valuation of nearly $2 billion, before the stock began to crash after launch failures and development setbacks.

The reverse stock split is expected to take place on or before October 2, Astra’s filing said, after its board of directors approved the plan on July 6. The company previously scheduled a reverse split as part of its plan to avoid delisting by the Nasdaq.

A reverse split does not affect the fundamentals of the company, as it does not dilute the value of the stock nor change the valuation of the company, but it will raise the share price through the combination of shares. A reverse split can be seen as a sign that a company is in distress and is trying to “artificially” increase its share price, or it can be seen as a way for a viable company with crumbling shares to continue its operations on a public stock exchange. Functionally, the reverse split, often done as 1 for 10, means that a stock worth, say, $3 will become $30 a share.

Boeing is further delaying the first crewed launch of its Starliner spacecraft after discovering additional problems with the capsule, the company said along with NASA on Thursday.

The Starliner crew flight test was last scheduled for July 21 and was supposed to carry a pair of NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. Boeing discovered two new problems with the Starliner: one affecting the safety of its parachute systems and another involving a specific tape that was found to be flammable.

“We have decided to suspend preparations for the CFT mission to correct these issues,” Boeing vice president and Starliner manager Mark Nappi said during a news conference.

Nappi noted that the discussion about delaying the launch went to “the highest levels of Boeing,” with CEO Dave Calhoun involved.

The delay is the latest in a series of disruptions to the Starliner’s first crewed flight. The July schedule was itself a delay from the previous April target. A new flight target is expected, NASA and Boeing said Thursday.

The company is developing its Starliner spacecraft under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, having won nearly $5 billion in contracts to build the capsule. Boeing’s program competes with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which is poised to complete all six of its originally contracted NASA missions before Boeing takes off for the first time.

Boeing was once considered an equal with SpaceX in the race to launch NASA astronauts, but has fallen behind due to development setbacks.

As a result of these delays and the fixed-cost nature of its contract with NASA, Boeing has accumulated $833 million in losses over two years on the Starliner program.

Nappi on Thursday stressed that Boeing is “still committed” to completing work on the capsule and flying it for NASA.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is set to join the Federal Aviation Administration as a defendant to face a lawsuit brought by environmental groups in the wake of the company’s first test flight on Starship, the world’s largest rocket, which ended in a mid-flight explosion last month.

In a motion filed Friday in court, SpaceX asked federal judge Carl Nichols to allow the company to join the Federal Aviation Administration as a defendant against environmental and cultural heritage nonprofit groups that sued the aviation regulator earlier this month.

The plaintiffs “do not oppose” the company’s involvement in the filings. “It’s a standard applicant to be expected to intervene in a case where his or her statement is contested,” said Jared Margolis, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity and chief counsel for the plaintiffs.

The groups suing the FAA have alleged that the agency should have conducted a more in-depth environmental study on the potential impacts of SpaceX activity before allowing the company to launch the world’s largest rocket, the Starship, from its Starbase facility, a spaceport on the Gulf Coast. near Brownsville, Texas.

The groups also claimed that the “mitigation measures” the agency is asking SpaceX have not been enough to avoid “significant negative impacts” for endangered species, their habitats and tribes in the region whose land and wildlife are sacred.

SpaceX’s filing on Friday lays out the potential consequences for the company if environmentalists win the lawsuit, noting the implications for their business and finances — as well as saying there would be harm to the “great national interest” and potential scientific benefits of the Starship.

“If the court rules in favor of the plaintiffs, the FAA’s decision could be set aside, and the issuance of further licenses for the Starship/Super Heavy program could be significantly delayed, causing severe harm to SpaceX’s business,” the company wrote.

The lawsuit seeks the FAA to make an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) — a lengthy and sweeping action that will likely sideline SpaceX’s Starship operation in Texas for years.

The company too He wrote in the motion that “the FAA does not adequately represent SpaceX’s interests” in the lawsuit, given that it is a government agency. She noted that the FAA “has a direct and material economic interest in the outcome of this case that the government does not share.”

The FAA said in a statement to CNBC that it “does not comment on ongoing litigation cases.”

SpaceX’s chief financial officer, Brett Johnson, filed a declaration along with the motion detailing the company’s potential damages if it lost the lawsuit. In the statement, Johnson wrote that “SpaceX has invested more than $3 billion in development” of the Starbase facility and the Starship system since July 2014.

This year alone, the company expects to spend about $2 billion developing Starship, according to comments CEO Musk made after the first fully-stacked launch attempt last month.

Johnson also highlighted the batch of contracts that SpaceX is building for future spacecraft missions.

SpaceX currently has a major NASA contract worth up to $4.2 billion to use the rocket to land astronauts on the moon. In addition, the company has signed commercial contracts for clients—including three separate missions for wealthy individuals Jared Isaacman, Yusaku Maezawa, and Dennis Tito—for the Starship that Johnson writes is “worth hundreds of millions of dollars at this time.”

Starship is also critical to the future of Starlink’s satellite Internet business, which has more than 1.5 million customers. Johnson noted that “SpaceX has invested billions of dollars in Starlink” so far.

Musk has previously highlighted the interdependence between these two companies, with Johnson also stressing that SpaceX needs a flying Starship in order to launch the second generation, or “V2,” of Starlink satellites.

“Without Starship… not only would SpaceX be hurt financially by not being able to launch v2 satellites, but hundreds of thousands of people… would be waiting until the Starlink constellation was upgraded and could serve them,” Johnson wrote.

Finally, Johnson noted that losing the lawsuit would cause the company to “significantly reduce” investment in its Starbase facility, which could harm its interests, as well as local employees and communities.

Starship’s dramatic and explosive first launch saw the company achieve several milestones for a nearly 400-foot rocket, which flew for more than three minutes. But it also lost multiple engines during launch, caused massive damage to terrestrial infrastructure and ultimately failed to reach space after the rocket began to fall apart and was deliberately destroyed in the air.

SpaceX is working to clear up damage to the launch site, which dug a hole in the ground and smashed debris into the tower, nearby tanks, and other ground equipment. The launch also created a plume of dust and sand, with particles reported as far as six miles from the launch pad.

The test flight also ignited a 3.5-acre fire on state park land.

Phil Metzger, a planetary scientist at the University of Central Florida School of Research, studies particle samples. He believes SpaceX dodged a bullet at launch, telling CNBC that the amount of “concrete flying” could destroy the rocket on the launch pad.

“It could have been a lot worse than it was. I think they made a mistake by taking a risk and firing [concrete] On the surface, try doing it this way once. But it was a 70% success rate. They removed the tower, tested the first stage, got a lot of good data, found a staging issue, and hopefully they’ll be able to fix that and get a better result on the next test,” Metzger said.

Metzger did not assess the environmental impacts of the launch pad debris, and rocket blasts, on the endangered species that live in and migrate through the area. The Texas regional office of the US Fish and Wildlife Service and independent researchers are among those studying the environmental effects of the spacecraft’s test flight and explosion.

The SpaceX move has also provided the reason why Starship is ultimately useful to scientific endeavors. The company wrote that the missile’s unprecedented capabilities “will allow scientists to focus on previously impossible science tasks and pursue the fastest, easiest way to move their missions from idea to execution.”

“For example, with its large capacity, the Starship can put large telescopes and heavy science experiments into orbit, and carry cargo, people and even colonies on other moons and planets,” SpaceX wrote.

Read the company’s filing to establish itself as a defendant along with the FAA:

Correction: The spacecraft’s test flight caused a 3.5-acre fire on state park land. An earlier version misclassified Earth.

Virgo galaxy It is targeting as early as May 25 the launch of its next space flight, which marks its first flight in nearly two years since aviation founder Sir Richard Branson and the last planned step before commercial service begins.

Called Expedition 25, it marks the company’s fifth spaceflight to date, as it lifts off from Spaceport America in New Mexico. It’s the Final Evaluation flight, with six Virgin Galactic employees on board for a short trip to the edge of space.

The update comes after a longer-than-expected refurbishment of the company’s spacecraft: Two months after Branson’s flight, and after an FAA investigation into a mishap during his flight, the company halted operations for what was supposed to be “eight to” 10 months”—but it ended up taking nearly from 16 months instead.

Virgin Galactic shares rose as much as 5% in early trading Wednesday after the announcement, before giving up the gains to trade for little change on the day. The company reported first-quarter results earlier this month that revealed mounting losses as it funds the development and expansion of its spacecraft fleet.

In-house pilots Mike Masucci and CJ Sturko will fly the VSS Unity spacecraft, while Jamil Janjua and Nicola Bissell will fly the VMS Eve. In the cabin will be Senior Astronaut Beth Moses, as well as Astronaut Instructor Luke Mace, Chief Engineering Officer Christopher Hoy, and Director of Internal Communications Jamila Gilbert.

Virgin Galactic’s approach to space tourism is to fly up to about 40,000 feet, launch the spacecraft and fire its engine to go over 80 kilometers (or about 262,000 feet) — an altitude that the US recognizes as the frontier of space.

Known as suborbital, this type of spaceflight takes passengers a few minutes of weightlessness, unlike the longer, more difficult and more expensive orbital flights conducted by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. After flying his own craft in 2021, Branson told CNBC he hopes to fly with SpaceX.

Based on the results and data gathered from Unity 25, the company is aiming to carry out its first commercial mission in “late June.”

CNBC has learned that Kathy Lueders, NASA’s newest senior human spaceflight official, has joined Elon Musk’s SpaceX after retiring from the agency two weeks ago.

Lueders’ role will be general manager, working out of the company’s “Starbase” facility in Texas, and reporting directly to SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell, people familiar with the matter told CNBC.

It’s a major hire for SpaceX as the company aims to make the massive Starship rocket safe to carry people in the coming years. Lueders, a respected expert in the sector, is already familiar with the company’s human spaceflight work thus far.

SpaceX did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on Lueders’ hiring.

Lueders retired from NASA at the end of April, after 31 years with the agency. Before leading NASA’s human spaceflight program, she oversaw the culmination of the Commercial Crew Program as Director, including the first SpaceX missions to carry NASA astronauts.

Earlier this year and shortly before retiring, SpaceX completed the launch of its sixth operational crew for NASA – completing its initial contract for the agency. The company has taken additional awards for eight other manned missions.

Notably, Lueders is following in the footsteps of one of her recent predecessors at NASA, William Gerstenmaier, who joined SpaceX in 2020 after more than a decade as the agency’s chief human spaceflight officer. Gerstenmaier is now SpaceX’s Vice President of Construction and Flight Reliability.

Correction: The headlines and photo caption on this story have been updated to correct the spelling of Kathy Lueders’ name.

Elon Musk expects SpaceX to spend about $2 billion developing its Starship rocket this year as the company pushes to build on its first launch earlier this month.

“My expectations for the next flight will be to reach orbit,” Musk said, speaking during a Twitter Spaces discussion on Saturday.

While SpaceX does spin-offs about twice a year to give employees and other company shareholders a chance to sell shares, Musk said the company “does not anticipate the need to raise financing” to further bolster the Starship program and its others undertakings.

“As far as I know, we don’t need to raise additional funding for SpaceX,” Musk said.

As for the dramatic first launch of a Starship rocket on April 20,” the SpaceX CEO said, “The result was about as good as I expected and maybe slightly exceeded my expectations.”

SpaceX has multiple additional prototypes in various stages of assembly and aims to launch the next attempt to reach space with the soaring rocket within a few months.

“The purpose of these missions is simply information. We don’t have any payload or anything like that – just learning as much as possible,” Musk said.

He put the probability of reaching orbit with a Starship flight this year at “probably” 80 percent, but agreed that he thought there was a “100 percent chance of reaching orbit within 12 months.”

The Starship flight left the launch pad and achieved several milestones, but Musk gave more details about various problems the rocket suffered.

The rocket lifted off with only 30 of the 33 Raptor engines fired at the base of the Super Heavy booster. Musk said SpaceX “chose not to launch” three engines because they weren’t “strong enough to bring them to full thrust. The Starship slid sideways off the launch pad while climbing into the sky, which according to Musk, it was “due to engine damage”.

About 27 seconds into the flight, SpaceX “lost communication” with another engine, an incident that occurred “with some kind of energy event” that removed the heat shield around several other engines. “Things really hit the fan” about 85 seconds after launch, when SpaceX lost “thrust vector control” — or the ability to steer the rocket.

Musk also reported that it took about 40 seconds for the rocket’s AFTS (an autonomous flight termination system that destroys the vehicle if it flies off course) to engage, which SpaceX will have to correct before the next launch attempt.

The strongest part of the rocket’s performance was how well it held together, including going through a launch stage called “Max Q,” or the moment when atmospheric pressure is at its strongest on the rocket.

“The structural limits of the vehicle appear to be better than we expected, as we can tell from the vehicle actually doing somersaults toward the end and still staying intact,” Musk said.

Looking ahead, Musk said SpaceX has “made so many improvements” to future prototypes. The company must ensure that “we don’t lose thrust vector control” with the next launch.

Back on the ground, Musk said the booster created a “rock tornado” beneath the rocket as it took off. While SpaceX has not seen “evidence that the rock tornado actually damaged engines or heat shields in a material way,” Musk noted that the company “certainly did not expect” to destroy the launch pad’s concrete and create a crater in its wake.

“One of the more plausible explanations is that … we may have compressed the sand under the concrete to such an extent that the concrete would effectively bend and then crack,” Musk said.

A priority for the next flight will be firing the 33 Raptor engines “faster and faster off the pad,” Musk said. It took about five seconds for SpaceX to start the engines and launch the rocket, which Musk noted “is a really long time to blow up the pad.” The company aims to cut that time in half for the next attempt.

Aftermath photos show the brutal output of the Super Heavy booster’s engines. A report by the US Fish and Wildlife Service said the launch threw concrete and metal “thousands of feet” and created a cloud of dust and pulverized concrete that fell 6.5 miles from the launch site.

On Saturday, Musk said “the damage to the pad is actually pretty minor” and should “be fixed quickly.” He estimated that the necessary repairs mean SpaceX will “probably be ready to launch in six to eight weeks.” SpaceX will replace some of the fuel tanks near the launch pad. The 500-foot-tall tower “is in good shape,” with “no significant damage,” although it was hit by “some pretty big chunks of concrete.”

Musk believes the biggest obstacle to flying again is “probably retraining” the AFTS, which destroyed the rocket because it “took too long” to detonate.

SpaceX is moving forward with a plan to place steel plates, which will be cooled by a water system, under the launch tower for the next Starship rocket.

Environmental activists and researchers raised the alarm about the cloud of pulverized concrete and dust created by the launch. Musk claimed the debris was “not toxic at all,” but said “we don’t want to do that again.”

“To our knowledge, there has been no significant environmental damage that we know of,” Musk said.

not long ago, Virgin Orbit It was a rarity among American missile makers, and New York executives were celebrating the first public stock.

A true spectacle of the marketing pizza that helped Sir Richard Branson build his Virgin Empire, he displayed a mock-up of a rocket in the middle of Times Square.

The deal, facilitated by the so-called blank check company, gave Virgin Orbit a valuation of nearly $4 billion. But that December 2021 moment — when the craze surrounding public offerings centered around special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, was fading — I previewed the coming pains.

Now, Virgin Orbit is on the verge of bankruptcy. On Thursday, the company halted operations and laid off nearly all of its employees. On Friday, its shares traded at about 20 cents, bringing its market value to about $74 million.

When Virgin Orbit closed the SPAC deal, it had raised less than half of the projected roughly $500 million due to high shareholder redemptions, shortening its runway. With broader markets turning against riskier but unprofitable assets such as many of the new space stocks, Virgin Orbit’s shares have begun to steadily slide, limiting its ability to raise significant outside investment.

Branson, Virgin Orbit’s largest shareholder, was unwilling to fund the company further, CNBC previously reported. Instead, he began to hedge his 75% stake through a series of debt rounds. This flashy British billionaire debt gives first priority to Virgin Orbit’s assets in the now imminent case of bankruptcy.

While Virgin Orbit promoted a flexible and alternative approach to launching small satellites, the company was unable to reach the launch rate necessary to generate the revenue it desperately needed.

Virgin Orbit’s technical staff acquitted themselves well because of the company’s short existence, but were eventually undone by the financial mismanagement of its leaders. It’s an oft-told story in the history of the space industry: Exciting, or even innovative, technologies don’t necessarily equal big business.

It became one of the few US rocket companies to successfully reach orbit with a specially developed launch vehicle. It has launched six missions since 2020 — with four successes and two failures — through an ambitious and technically challenging process known as an “air launch,” with a system that uses a modified 747 aircraft to drop a mid-flight missile and send small satellites into space.

But Virgin Orbit dug in close to $1 billion, flying missions only twice a year while payroll expenses soared. The company’s leadership was aware of the deteriorating situation and lack of progress, and even considered changes last summer to make the business more agile. But no clear or dramatic plan came to fruition – leading to Thursday’s downfall.

This story brings together insights from CNBC’s discussions with company insiders and industry investors over the past several weeks, as well as from regulatory disclosures, to explain where things went wrong for Virgin Orbit. These people asked not to be identified in order to discuss internal or competitive matters.

A Virgin Orbit spokesperson declined to comment for this story.

Virgin Orbit is separated from space tourism company Branson, Virgo galaxy, in 2017, after a team within the latter’s sister company saw the potential of using an aircraft as a satellite launch pad. While “air-launching” satellites was not a new idea for Virgin Orbit, the company aimed to outpace the air-launched Pegasus rocket — developed by Orbital Sciences, now owned by Northrop Grumman — for a fraction of the cost per mission.

Virgin Orbit is headquartered in Long Beach, California, and has flown most of its missions from the Mojave Air and Space Port. The exception to this was its most recent launch, which launched from Spaceport Cornwall in the UK. Virgin Orbit has been working with other governments to provide fly-by-wire launches from airports around the world, signing agreements with Japan, Brazil, Australia and the island of Guam.

The stated flexibility and potential of Virgin Orbit’s approach has attracted a great deal of interest from leaders in the US national security community. After meetings with senior Pentagon officials in 2019, Branson declared Virgin Orbit “the only company in the world that can replace [satellites] within 24 hours” during a military conflict.

At the time, Air Force acquisition commander Will Roper said he was “very excited about the small launch” after meeting with Branson. He said the US military has “a lot of money to invest” in purchasing missile launches.

The company had hoped to launch its first mission as early as 2018, but that goal kept moving every six months or so. Ultimately, Virgin Orbit launched its first mission in May 2020, which failed shortly after the rocket was launched from the aircraft. It successfully entered orbit for the first time in January 2021.

Given the company’s burn rate of close to $50 million a quarter, Virgin Orbit was targeting profitability once it beat the launch rate, or cadence, of a dozen missions a year. When Virgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart announced to CNBC that the company was aiming for seven rocket launches in 2022, it was to build on that momentum.

At the same time, Virgin Orbit was already in deep financial trouble – with a total shortfall of $821 million at the end of 2021, due to continuous losses since its inception. While Virgin Orbit aimed to launch seven missions last year, that number has been steadily directed down quarter by quarter, and 2022 closed out with just two completed lunches — the same as the previous year.

Some people within the company who have criticized Virgin Orbit’s implementation have pointed to the backgrounds of several of its executives Boeingwhich has had its share of space-related hurdles over the years.

Virgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart spent 34 years at Boeing, where he was previously vice president of Government Space Systems. COO Tony Jenges joined Virgin Orbit from satellite broadband company OneWeb, but prior to that spent 14 years in Boeing’s satellite division. Chief Strategy Officer Jim Simpson also spent more than eight years in Boeing’s satellite division before joining Virgin Orbit.

No one has confirmed that the company fired the same number of rockets in one year with a crew of 500 as it did with a workforce of more than 750. Others complained of a lack of coordination between departments, with projects and spending running in silos to one another – leading to disruptions in schedules.

Two people mentioned the waste of ordering materials. For example: A company will buy enough expensive items with a limited shelf life to build a dozen or more missiles, but then only make two, which means it will have to shell out millions of dollars worth of raw materials.

When Virgin Orbit announced an employee furlough on March 15, people familiar with the situation said the company had about six rockets in various states of production at its Long Beach plant.

As the lack of a financial lifeline made the situation increasingly desperate, many Virgin Orbit employees expressed frustration with how Hart communicated the company’s position – and even more so with the lack of clarity after the furlough.

On the day of the initial halt to operations, people described company leadership frantically spinning while several employees stood by, waiting for word on what was going on. One person confirmed that the tumultuous and sudden vacation happened because the executives tried to keep the company alive for as long as possible. Several employees expressed disappointment that Hart held the all-encompassing meeting around March 15, spoke from his office rather than face-to-face, and did not answer any questions after the announcement of the cessation of operations.

That frustration continued after the break, as employees were confused by the lack of specific details investors were talking about for Virgin Orbit’s leadership. Thursday’s update on the deal’s failure came as no surprise to a workforce that has been largely forgotten. Many were already looking for new jobs.

The focus of Virgin Orbit’s strategy became obvious and essential soon after it went public.

Virgin Orbit aims to raise $483 million with the SPAC, but large recalls mean it has raised less than half of that, resulting in $228 million in total proceeds. The money it raised came from the minority SPAC shareholders who remained on hold, as well as private investment from Virgin Group, UAE sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, Boeing and AE Industrial Partners.

Unlike sister company Virgin Galactic, which built its cash reserves to more than $1 billion through equity and debt sales after going public in October 2019, Virgin Orbit has not built its cash coffers. One person stressed that this means that leadership has to step back and make changes to run the company in a more agile way, to rebuild momentum.

Then Virgin Orbit’s apparent strength in the national security sector began to falter. Although half of its missions are flown by Space Force satellites, the company lost out to rival Firefly Aerospace for a launch contract under the “Tactically Responsive Space” program. The mission was awarded in October, and it seemed right up the alley for Virgin Orbit, especially since the previous mission under this space force program flew on a similar air-launched Pegasus rocket.

With the financial situation worsening, a few bankers who spoke to CNBC wondered why the search for a deal had been delayed. According to one banker, Virgin Orbit could quickly raise $10 million to $15 million to fill the gap by the time it finds a larger buyer. Another investor estimated that Virgin Orbit has about $270 million in tangible net assets, which increases the likelihood of a wholesale deal despite its low market value.

The white knight appeared to appear last week in the form of Matthew Brown, who discussed an 11-hour deal with Virgin Orbit, pumping up to $200m into the company. But the talks collapsed within days. The company continued discussions with another unnamed investor last week.

But in Hart’s words Thursday, Virgin Orbit “has not been able to secure financing to provide a clear path for this company.”

And while the 675 employees laid off on Thursday likely have strong job prospects, Virgin Orbit now appears headed for bankruptcy.

Two aerospace companies received warnings on Friday, according to stock filings, as both projects had share prices of less than $1 a share.

Small satellite builder and data specialist Spire Global He received notice from the New York Stock Exchange, while the spacecraft delivery company received notice Paid Get a notification from NASDAQ.

Under compliance rules on the exchanges involved, companies have 180 days, or about six months, to get their share prices back above $1 a share.

Spire stock closed at 69 cents a share on Friday, after first falling below $1 a share on March 3. 7.

Momentus stock closed at 63 cents a share, down below $1 a share on February 3rd. 7.

Both companies have indicated the possibility of a reverse stock split to restore compliance.

Spire made its public market debut in August 2021, following the completion of the SPAC merger. The company’s annual subscription revenue was $100 million, it announced during its fourth-quarter results, and it’s continued to trim its losses as it aims to be free cash flow positive in about a year’s time.

Momentus also emerged in August 2021, following the merger of its SPAC. After a tumultuous change in leadership, the company has struggled to ramp up its spacecraft platform business. In the fourth quarter, it saw scant revenue, but it hopes to multitask this year.

The warnings come as fellow space company Astra seeks an extension from the Nasdaq to restore compliance after it received a delisting warning last year.

Virgin Orbit It is scrambling to secure a financing lifeline and avoid bankruptcy, which could come as early as this week without a deal, CNBC has learned.

The rocket builder halted operations last week and relegated most of the company, CNBC first reported, as it sought a new investment or potential purchase.

Virgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart and other senior leaders held daily conversations with interested parties over the weekend, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified in order to discuss internal matters.

During a comprehensive meeting last week, Hart told employees that the company hopes to provide an update on the situation as soon as Wednesday.

Meanwhile, top talent is already hitting the job market: many of Virgin Orbit’s 750 employees are looking for work opportunities elsewhere. This talent ranges from executives to chief engineers and their pioneers to program managers actively seeking and finding new jobs, according to a CNBC analysis.

While the door is still open to avoid bankruptcy, people close to the situation describe a sense of panic as the company struggles to close a deal. A potential buyer has rejected the proposed sale price of nearly $200 million, the person told CNBC — a price just below the company’s market value as of Friday’s close.

At the same time, one person said Virgin Orbit is preparing for a potential bankruptcy declaration as soon as this week. CNBC has learned that Virgin Orbit has hired two companies — Alvarez, Marsal and Ducera Partners — to draw up restructuring plans in the event of bankruptcy. Sky News first reported that the companies had been contracted.

A Virgin Orbit spokesperson declined to comment.

Shares of Virgin Orbit have continued to fall since it paused operations, with its stock falling to close at $0.52 a share Monday.

The company has developed a system for sending satellites into space using a modified 747, which drops a rocket from under the plane’s wing in mid-flight. Its last mission failed mid-flight, and its rocket failed to reach orbit.

The company was born out of Richard Branson Virgo galaxy in 2017 and the billionaire is its largest shareholder with an ownership percentage of 75%. The UAE’s sovereign wealth fund Mubadala owns the second-largest stake in Virgin Orbit, with an 18% stake.

But the company has struggled to maintain its cash coffers. It went public in December 2021 near the end of the SPAC craze and hasn’t been able to tap the markets to raise money in the same way as sister company Virgin Galactic, which has built its cash reserves to more than $1 billion through equity and debt sales.

Virgin Orbit aims to raise $483 million with the SPAC, but large recalls mean it has raised less than half of that, resulting in $228 million in total proceeds. The money I was able to collect came from Boeing and AE Industrial Partners, among others.

Virgin Orbit has been looking for a financial lifeline for several months now. Branson was unwilling to fund the company further, people familiar with the matter said, and instead shifted his strategy to a value salvage.

Since the fourth quarter, Virgin Orbit has raised $60 million in debt from the investment arm of the Virgin Branson Group – giving it first priority over Virgin Orbit’s assets. Around the same time, I hired Virgin Orbit Goldman Sachs And American bank To explore other financial opportunities, ranging from minority stake investment to outright sale.

People told CNBC that George Mattson, who sits on Virgin Orbit’s board, was heavily involved in the company’s sale. Mattson spent nearly two decades as a banker at Goldman Sachs, before he co-founded a SPAC called NextGen, which floated Virgin Orbit at $3.7 billion.

Virgin Orbit revealed in a filing on Monday that it has agreed to a severance plan for its senior executives, if they are terminated “following a change in control” of the company. The plan covers Hart, as well as Chief Strategy Officer Jim Simpson and Chief Operating Officer Tony Jenges, and includes a base compensation payout and annual bonuses. In the event of termination, Hart will receive cash compensation equal to 200% of his base salary, which is $511,008, according to FactSet.