Welcome to another story and another video in my One Company One Story series.

This time, Terran Orbital (LLAP).

Here comes the amateur legalese.

I began investing in companies and their stocks in the late 70s, but am Not a certified investment professional.

My style and history of investing is described in Dream. Invest. Live., a book I wrote by request – which came out as the Great Recession (the Second Great Depression) began. Don’t underestimate luck. Oops. https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0035XVXAA

My personal finance blog (a blog about my finances) is: https://trimbathcreative.net/

I am Not an investment professional. This is Not financial advice. 

Evidently, I’ve been tracking Terran Orbital‘s progress without knowing it. Terran Orbital is one of the pioneers of the new type of small satellites, including cubesats. What’s that got to do with me? For a few years, I worked alongside people who worked for decades on big satellites, which progressively were designed to be bigger, more sensitive, and more powerful. An additional perspective: the main launch I was involved in blew up. Rockets do that. Terran works on the smaller, more affordable satellites. They don’t design rockets, but they make sure their satellites fit the rocket.  

Small satellites are popular. Large organizations have needs for large satellites. Go ask NASA about the value of the James Webb Space Telescope. JWST’s sunshield is the size of a tennis court. Some of Terran’s satellites could fit in a car seat. Small may not be grand, but small tends to be cheaper, easier to fit onto a rocket, and doesn’t require monumental infrastructure. Plus, if the rocket goes boom or the satellite has a problem, replacing it is less of a hassle.

Evidently, Terran was there near, if not at, the start of the cubesat business. Or, at least, their key personnel were. The first cubesat was launched in 2003. The company was founded in 2013. Happy ten-year anniversary. 

Space continues to break into three main areas: military, civil, and commerce. All three are benefiting from more responsive solutions, and those satellites are benefiting from improved and shrinking technology. 

The industry has grown with the downscaling of the technology and the drop in launch prices as renewable rockets have proved feasible.

A new industry. They’re in early. What’s the worry? 

From my quick research, the company seems to be dealing with small company and startup company problems. It is easy to imagine financing and cash being difficult with such an irregular revenue stream. Throw in rapidly evolving technology. Small satellites can have a lower bar to entry, which also means greater competition. Getting the technology right is hard enough. Maintaining proper cash flow can be just as difficult as rocket science.

The inevitable look at the stock chart shows a fall from ~$10 in Spring 2022, to under $1 at the start of Autumn 2023. Disgruntled co-founders and investors are asking for a management reorganization, at least. They claim an estimated $3 per share intrinsic value. Simply getting back up to that level would be a four-fold increase in share price.

I’ll skip the rocket and space-related puns. I have a bias towards commercial space. I got a Masters in Aerospace and Ocean Engineering, and worked in Boeing’s Commercial Space group in the late 90s. It is a fascinating field with unique problems, but also with many familiar and mundane ones. Engineers can make the transition to managerial roles, but not all can. I’d need to do more research to assess whether that is one of the issues.

Issues can be temporary. As long as we don’t clutter the orbits too much, this can finally be the time for the industry to grow beyond a few massive organizational customers and bring in more customers who were underserved for a long time.

I don’t know what’s going to happen; but, I hope they survive and thrive. I’ll be watching.

The video: