In recent years, the startup Axiom Space has established itself as a privileged partner of NASA. It has notably inherited two very important commercial partnerships: designing next-generation suits that should be worn on the Moon by astronauts of the Artemis program, and developing a private space station in low Earth orbit.
But before getting there, the company will have to start by ensuring its own survival. Because if we are to believe a survey by Forbesit is currently suffering from extremely severe financial problems which will undoubtedly force it to radically change its business model.
A boss with eyes bigger than his stomach
The situation is not entirely new; according to Jeremy Bogaisky, the author of the investigation Forbesthe first warning signs date back almost two years. Since the beginning of 2023, the startup has been seriously lacking in liquidity. She has great difficulty in paying her current expenses and paying her employees their salaries, particularly because she has allegedly agreed to carry out several missions with very significant net losses in order to ” building a relationship with global space agencies “But goodwill is no substitute for hard cash, and Axiom is learning this the hard way.
According to anonymous sources familiar with the matter, part of the blame falls on co-founder and former CEO Michael Suffredini. Suffredini is a seasoned aerospace veteran who spent more than 30 years at NASA, including about 20 before the Budget Control Act which significantly limited the budgets of federal agencies in 2011. He was therefore accustomed to an environment where funds fell almost from the sky, which obviously does not mix well with the imperatives of a young startup. Disconnected from reality, he operated Axiom ” as a large government program, rather than the resource-constrained startup it really was » — with the results we know today.
These revelations give new meaning to Suffredini’s departure. He had left his post as CEO on August 9, citing ” personal reasons “, but in light of this investigation, it seems rather that the board of directors ousted him because of his calamitous management, while offering him an elegant exit door.
Debts to industry bigwigs
It remains to be seen whether his departure will give the company a fresh start. Over the past two years, Axiom has reportedly missed several large payments to prestigious suppliers – and those suppliers will eventually get their money back, even if it means putting the startup out of business.
This particularly concerns SpaceXthe main service provider for the Ax-1 to Ax-4 missions. As a reminder, this is a series of four missions that consist of sending private astronauts to the ISS for around fifteen days using SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launchers and Crew Dragon capsules.
But while the first three missions have already taken place, Elon Musk’s company is still waiting for its money. According to Forbes, the startup owes SpaceX $670 million — and it’s hard to imagine how it could regularize this situation in the current context.
Axiom has also drawn the ire of another industry heavyweight, namely Thales Alenia SpaceThe startup had asked the Franco-Italian titan to produce the pressurized modules of its future space station, but once again, it did not receive the full amount expected. TAS did not hold back from expressing its frustration very vigorously and publicly.
Moreover, Axiom’s worries go far beyond a lack of cash; it also appears to be suffering from a chronic lack of organization. As a reminder, its objective is to build a first module, the Axiom Orbital Segment, which must be grafted to the International Space Station initially. It will then have to become independent when the station retires, at the beginning of the next decade, to become an independent modular space station thanks to the addition of three additional segments.
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But this first module, which was expected in 2020, is still conspicuous by its absence; It will not join the ISS until 2026 at the earliest. And according to Forbes, the scope of the program has also been scaled back. Apparently, Axiom now wants to settle for a much more modest station with only two modules — and by extension, a significantly lower commercial potential that will not help it pay for SpaceX and Thales Alenia Space.
Artemis, the light at the end of the tunnel
The good news is that Axiom has one last string to its bow to help it out of this mess: developing a new generation of spacesuits for NASA. It’s a big responsibility, because these human-shaped spaceships are to be used by the Artemis astronauts when they land on the surface of our satellite for the first time since the Apollo era.
For now, Everything indicates that this program is proceeding as planned.. And fortunately, knowing that the American agency has allocated it an envelope of 228 million dollars.
In addition, Axiom has a fair amount of leeway in this matter. As a reminder, NASA had initially selected two companies to produce the two types of suits it needs. In addition to Axiom, which manages the lunar suits, the agency has also solicited Collins Aerospacea subsidiary of military titan Raytheon, which was supposed to be responsible for the spacewalk model. But it eventually backed out following a budget explosion and a mountain of technical problems, leaving Axiom in sole charge.
There’s no guarantee that the startup will take over Collins’ responsibilities, but the fact that it’s managing to stick to its roadmap for now is a blessing for NASA, given that the agency already has its hands full with less-than-reliable contractors (isn’t that right, Boeing?). Let’s hope it can use that to its advantage in the future.
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