2022: A Year of Acceleration

2022 was a milestone year for the space industry. There were many groundbreaking achievements, including the breathtaking images collected by the James Webb Space Telescope; the DART mission, which successfully tested capabilities in defending our planet against near-Earth objects; and closing out the year, the first of the Artemis missions launched and started humanity's return to the moon, and beyond.

These achievements benefit everyone on the planet and reinforce our commitment to our North Star at Slingshot Aerospace: accelerating space sustainability. Because without the foundations of safe space operations in place, humanity cannot continue to progress in our exploration of the final frontier.

2022 was our biggest year yet at Slingshot. As I reflect back on the year as it comes to a close, there is one word that continues to come to mind: Acceleration. 

Highlights include our acceleration in the following:

Capabilities - With our acquisitions of Numerica’s Space Division and Seradata, we are improving our customers’ abilities to monitor, simulate, and optimize their space flight operations. With the Slingshot Global Sensor Network and Seradata’s SpaceTrak, our customers have access to the most robust data available to make mission critical decisions, and ensure safe and successful space operations.

Team growth - We started the year with 40 employees and two offices in our home states of California and Texas. Now, as we close out 2022, we have more than 150 Slingshooters across 21 states and the United Kingdom, and have doubled our number of offices to four. We’ve been fortunate enough to attract the best and brightest from a wide variety of disciplines to accelerate our growth and expand our capabilities to better serve our customer’s needs and advance our space sustainability mission.

Funding - Despite the economic downturn, Slingshot has come out stronger than ever. We’ve successfully raised both an oversubscribed Series A1 round and an oversubscribed Series A2 round this year, totaling $65.45 million!

Product development  - With this increased talent and funding, we have accelerated the development and delivery of our product offerings to our customers. While working hand in hand with space operators representing more than 70% of commercial satellites in Low Earth Orbit, we decided to make the basic tier of our collision avoidance software, Slingshot Beacon available for free so that spacecraft operators can better coordinate, communicate, and deconflict spaceflight risk.

In addition, under the U.S. Space Force’s (USSF) Space Systems Command (SSC)’s Strategic Financing (STRATFI) program, our team has been hard at work deploying Slingshot Laboratory, our immersive, next-generation space simulation and training environment, in space education classrooms and space operations training centers across the Department of Defense to continually improve space operator readiness. We are also deeply integrated with the USSF Guardians across their operations as we build out our Digital Space Twin^TM platform to encompass the USSF missions and enhance their ability to analyze and respond to current and future threats.

Policy - I’ve been fortunate enough to be appointed to the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) and Vice President Harris’ National Space Counsel Users Advisory Group, providing an opportunity to strongly advocate for space sustainability and work with policy makers at the highest levels to ensure that space remains a peaceful portal of progress now and for generations to come.

Each of these achievements build off of one another, positioning us with the momentum to start 2023 not only accelerating, but also excelling. We cannot thank our customers enough for the trust they put in our Slingshooters every day as we work together to ensure a safer and more sustainable future. 

We look forward to sharing more about our plans for 2023, but in the meantime, we wish you and yours a happy, healthy, and safe holiday season.

Ad Astra!