Astroscale Holdings named two contracts in its October business briefing: a £15mn order from the UK Ministry of Defence and a €13.2mn French deorbit demonstration. The company puts them at ¥3.12bn and ¥2.36bn at its stated exchange rates of ¥205 to the pound and ¥180 to the euro, and says ¥5.4bn of orders have been confirmed since August. Both were announced in September, not on October 16. Earlier Tokyo Brief coverage
Who signed with whom
The UK order is the company's first direct contract with the Ministry of Defence, and Astroscale is prime contractor. It was announced on 30 September. The briefing gives no contract period or service description.
The French mission was announced on 11 September. Astroscale's French subsidiary is a subcontractor to Exotrail, which is its direct counterparty; the end customer is the space agency CNES. The mission will approach, dock with and deorbit a Eutelsat OneWeb satellite, using a docking plate Astroscale designed. The contract runs to 2030.
What is still a goal
The briefing also describes a partnership with Hemeria on a small geostationary satellite for French defence use. The briefing describes it as a partnership and gives no value.
Orders in the first quarter of the current fiscal year were ¥224mn, against an operating loss of ¥2.75bn. Astroscale says reaching operating profit needs repeat orders and a shift from cost-recovery revenue recognition to progress-based recognition, which would let it book margin during a contract. Both are targets the company says may change.
Separately, Astroscale will join the TOPIX index on 30 October, one of 12 Growth-market companies added. The company says it hopes this widens its investor base.