Axiomatic Space
Axiom Space is working on two key commercial programs for NASA — developing a private space station in low Earth orbit and spacesuits that astronauts might one day wear on the moon — but it faces significant financial headwinds.
Forbes magazine report Axiom Space, founded in 2016 by billionaire Cam Ghaffarian and NASA executive Mike Suffredini, has struggled to raise funds to stay in business and make payroll payments dating back to at least early 2023. Additionally, the Houston-based company has fallen behind on payments to key suppliers, including Thales Alenia Space for the space station and SpaceX for crewed launches.
“The lack of new capital has exacerbated years of financial difficulties that have grown along with Axiom’s employee headcount, which reached nearly 1,000 earlier this year,” the magazine reported. “Sources familiar with the company’s operations told Forbes that co-founder and CEO Michael Suffredini, a 30-year veteran of NASA, ran Axiom, a resource-constrained startup, like a big government program. His directive to hire up to 800 employees by the end of 2022 led to mass hiring that was far removed from product development needs and often left new engineers with nothing to do.”
The report highlights much of what Ars has been hearing about Axiom’s financial difficulties in recent months: Dozens of employees have been laid off, and Thales officials have made no secret of their frustration at not being paid in full for the production of the Axiom space station’s pressure modules. CEO Suffredini’s departure was reportedly a personal decision, but it seems more likely that he left for performance reasons.
Space Station Trouble
All of this raises serious questions about whether Axiom will be able to deliver on its primary goal: building a successor to the International Space Station. Suffredini joined the venture with Ghaffarian after more than a decade as NASA’s space station program manager. When the company was founded in 2016, the plan was to launch the first space station module in 2020.
The timeline for the space station has since been pushed back multiple times. Axiom now plans to launch its first module to the International Space Station no later than late 2026, and the company’s ambitions have reportedly been scaled back. Instead of a four-module space station that would separate from the government-run space station by 2030, Axiom will likely move forward with building a smaller space station consisting of only two elements, which would reportedly have lower power and less commercial viability.
“The company’s business model has always relied on generating large amounts of power for microgravity research, semiconductor manufacturing, pharmaceutical manufacturing, and life in space,” a source told the publication. “The business model has had to change… and that continues to make it difficult for the company to avoid cash flow problems.”
Axiom is one of several companies, along with Blue Origin, Voyager Space, Vast Space and possibly SpaceX, working with NASA to come up with a commercial replacement for the International Space Station after it is decommissioned in 2030.
NASA plans to issue a “request for proposals” for the second round of commercial space station contracts in 2025, with contracts awarded the following year. Sources say NASA wants to award contracts to at least two companies for this second phase, but Ghaffarian told Forbes that he would like NASA to decide next year and award the contract to one company.
“There’s no market right now for more than one,” he said.
That may be true, though some of Axiom’s competitors would dispute it, but Ghaffarian’s desire to win the award next year and to do so alone underscores the apparent urgency of Axiom’s fundraising needs.
Dragon and space suit
The report also noted that Axiom has lost a lot of money on the three private astronaut missions it has sent to the International Space Station so far. Ghaffarian said those missions were conducted at a loss to build relationships with global space agencies. To some extent, this makes sense, as European, Middle Eastern and other space agencies are likely to be commercial space station customers over the next decade. But Axiom is not financially positioned to absorb such launches.
According to the publication, Axiom will pay SpaceX $670 million for four Crew Dragon missions, each of which involves launching and flying four astronauts to the station and back, and will last between one and two weeks. That equates to $167.5 million per launch, or $41.9 million per seat.
Axiom’s other major project is a $228 million development contract with NASA to develop spacesuits for the Artemis program, which would allow astronauts to travel outside the Starship lunar module on the moon’s surface, a project that Forbes reported has taken money away from the space station program.
Multiple sources told Ars that, from a financial and technical standpoint, the spacesuit program is progressing better than the space station program, and as of now, it’s probably the only element of Axiom’s business that NASA considers essential going forward.
