German rocket launch start-up Isar Aerospace believes it could one day overtake US giant SpaceX, driven by surging defence demand in the space sector, its chief executive said on Tuesday.
Speaking at an economic summit organised by the daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, chief executive Daniel Metzler said he would not rule out Isar being ahead of SpaceX within 18 years.
“When Elon Musk founded SpaceX in 2002, I was a small child playing with my Pokémon cards, and if I look now at where we will be in 18 years, I would not exclude the possibility that we will be more advanced than SpaceX,” he said.
Asked whether the company could one day be valued at €100 billion, Metzler suggested the figure could be even higher.
“I honestly think the number is much bigger, but then people would believe even more that I am completely crazy,” he joked.
He said the company’s outlook was supported in part by a sharp rise in military-related demand for space services, against the backdrop of Europe’s rearmament drive.
“Until about 18 months ago, roughly 85% of requests from our customers were commercial and 15% were for military use, and today it is exactly the opposite,” he said.
According to Metzler, the global space industry currently generates between €600 billion and €700 billion in annual revenue and is growing by around 15% a year.
He said the trend was also visible in the order book of the Munich-based start-up, which succeeded in putting a rocket into orbit from Norway in early September, a first for continental Europe.
“In 2028 alone, we can sell around 15 times more rockets than we think we can actually produce ourselves,” Metzler said. “As a result, for every rocket, we have to say no to 14 customers.”
He said the next crucial step for the company was to achieve industrial-scale serial production, which he described as the biggest bottleneck in the space industry at present.
