TAMPA, Fla. — Rivada Space Networks CEO Declan Ganley said Sept. 17 the sale of satellite supplier Terran Orbital to Lockheed Martin is a “real confidence builder” for the operator’s investors, while remaining guarded about financing the multi-billion-dollar constellation.
“I welcome that greatly because there’s a big balance sheet now behind Terran Orbital,” Ganley said during World Satellite Business Week in Paris.
The Boca Raton, Florida-based manufacturer was teetering on breaching the terms of its debt before Lockheed, already a Terran Orbital customer and minority investor, announced plans last month to acquire it.
Lockheed expects to complete the acquisition before the end of this year.
Ganley said plans are on track to start its SpaceX launch campaign next year to meet a mid-2026 regulatory deadline for deploying 300 satellites, or half the constellation, which Terran Orbital is building under a $2.4 billion contract.
According to Ganley, Rivada has amassed more than $13 billion worth of pricing agreements from potential customers for its Outernet network, which involves up to 600 interlinked low Earth orbit broadband satellites. Rivada plans to announce its first finalized contract with a customer in the coming months.
He said sovereign wealth funds continue to support the constellation financially but provided no further details, including updates on talks previously outlined with export credit agencies hungry for deals.
A few days before announcing the sale to Lockheed, Terran Orbital removed Outernet from the backlog of revenues in its accounts amid uncertainty around how Rivada would pay for 300 satellites.
That left Rivada with a backlog of $312.7 million, with most future revenues associated with Lockheed.
“Recent uncertainty about Rivada’s ability to pay significantly deteriorated the Company’s cash forecast,” Terran Orbital said in a Sept. 9 regulatory filing, helping to push it into Lockheed’s arms.
“Through late 2023 and early 2024, the Company did not consider that milestone payments from Rivada were critical to liquidity, as other projects were anticipated to become operational in 2024,” Terran Orbital said in the filing.
“However, delays and cancelations in those projects led to increased reliance on anticipated milestone payments throughout 2024 from Rivada to help fund interim cash requirements. In addition, the Board considered the potentially negative impact that the recently reported backlog decline may have on its financial stability and its capital raising, customer engagement and vendor management activities.”
Terran Orbital said it explored other near-term financing opportunities after Lockheed withdrew an initial and higher offer to take over the company but was unsuccessful.
More to come
Ganley told the conference that challenging macroeconomic conditions had not affected Rivada’s fundraising efforts.
“The cadence of us being cold approached by … mid-sized institutional investors has greatly increased,” he said.
According to Ganley, Rivada is also experiencing customer demand about five times its planned satellite capacity.
He pointed to geopolitical tensions and the vulnerabilities of terrestrial telecoms infrastructure as helping to drive demand for a communications network that can bypass ground relay stations.
“The Outernet is a separate and distinct thing from the internet,” he added, “and the world needs that because we need something that can survive state or non-state actors trying to take out the infrastructure that our whole economies depend on.”
