What OneWeb’s failure tells us about space resiliency in the age of COVID-19

Enlarge / Soyuz ascends from the Spaceport in French Guiana in February, 2019, carrying the first six satellites for OneWeb. (credit: Arianespace)

Last week, one of the leading companies attempting to build a satellite mega-constellation, OneWeb, filed for bankruptcy and laid off all of its employees. This was the largest failure in the aerospace industry of late, but it's hardly the only one, as other prominent companies such as LeoSat and Bigelow Aerospace lay off staff and potentially shutter operations.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated financial pressures on the space industry, where many small and medium-sized businesses already live on the edge, needing regular infusions of private capital or government contracts to remain afloat. To get a sense of what OneWeb's failure means for this industry, Ars spoke with Chuck Beames, executive chairman of York Space Systems and chairman of the SmallSat Alliance (of which OneWeb was a member).

Beames also previously managed more than $1 billion in assets during his time at Vulcan Aerospace, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's fund to support space ventures. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

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