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The lunar economy, once considered a distant dream, is rapidly becoming a tangible reality. As space exploration enters a new era, private companies are leading the charge in developing innovative technologies and business models to harness the Moon's potential.
It is anticipated that only the transportation sector of the lunar economy will grow from $9 billion over 2020~2025 to $19 billion over 2026~2030, $32 billion over 2031~2035 and $42 billion over 2036~2040(optimistic scenario) according to PwC’s research.
This growth is driven by various factors, including increased government and private sector investments, advancements in space technology, and the potential for resource utilization on the lunar surface.
At the forefront of this exciting frontier is Qosmosys, a Singapore-based company dedicated to the peaceful development of the lunar economy.
Qosmosys, founded in 2020, has quickly established itself as a key player in this burgeoning field. The company recently secured a record-breaking $100 million in seed funding, demonstrating strong investor confidence in its vision and capabilities. This substantial investment will accelerate the development of Qosmosys' lunar transportation vehicle, ZeusX, and other complementary technologies designed to serve a wide range of lunar applications.
“What’s the lunar economy? How did Qosmosys raise funding? How does this veteran CEO watch the aerospace market? How do they find the excellent talent to seek perfection in what they are building?”
Asia Tomorrow met François Dubrulle, the founder and CEO of Qosmosys via a video interview to hear how he sees the aerospace industry, how the lunar landing business is run, and how Qosmosys tries to pioneer the future of lunar exploration.
Qosmosys is a Singapore-based company dedicated to developing the lunar economy and infrastructure on the Moon. The lunar economy refers to potential economic activities involving transactions in a lunar environment, which means buying and selling products or services related to or based on the Moon.
Although this economy doesn't exist yet, there is significant potential for development on the Moon to serve scientific and business purposes. There are debates around whether human beings should settle on the Moon or not, as far as I am concerned, I have doubts about the interest for humans colonizing the Moon.
From my point of view, it can be beneficial to some individual’s dream but for most people, Mars won’t have any interest. Besides, science remains prudent for having space travelers more than 6 months, especially when they can’t see Earth from where they are. On the Moon, at least you can see our planet which may soothe psychological burdens by astronauts but nothing from the reality of this world invites us to get there for too long..
Qosmosys will develop necessary systems, including robotics, which will serve as the early infrastructure to welcome large missions carrying astronauts. Therefore our purpose is to develop systems to produce energy, provide localization and navigation, as well as maintaining communications with the Earth.
As pioneers in this particular domain, we aim to build this hardware and software architecture as an anticipation of a soaring need over the next two decades. That requires to remain extremely consistent and patient.
Zeus X is a large/heavy spacecraft design that consists of a stack of two modules. One is the Moon lander called QML which is the upper part of Zeus X and serves as a Moon lander and the other is the service module called QSM which would orbit the Moon and beyond.
When Zeus X enters the Moon orbit, those two modules are deemed to be detached from each other so they can fulfill their respective mission. In that regard, both ensure the delivery of all payloads, scientific and commercial, ensuring a progressive deployment of equipments which will be part of the Moon infrastructure.
No. Our company develops and owns engineering concepts and subcontract the actual development at legacy companies. Our experience teaches us that building up engineering teams from the ground up is too complex and uncertain, bringing too much risks along the way.
Therefore we have partnerships with the legacy companies who have an impeccable track records as well as highly-trained experts to execute an engineering part of the works which demands years of experience. For example, Airbus has accepted to manufacture our ZeusX and Framatome, famously worldwide for there innovations in radioisotope materials, is one of the companies designated to produce energy.
People might think the aerospace industry is especially challenging, and it is. That said, it's like any other industry, driven by specific engineering and organizational rules.
As a serial entrepreneur in the aerospace industry for almost 35 years, I believe the true challenge lies in assembling the right people. My goal is to find experts with enough experience to compile a wealth of knowledge on establishing solid technical, social, and organizational frameworks. So, it's not necessarily an industry that's dramatically different from biotech or semiconductors—it's just governed by different rules.
Of course, the aerospace industry is unique in that it involves manufacturing objects destined for an extremely remote area: space. This means that once an object leaves Earth and enters space, it usually can't be easily repaired or maintained, as we don’t send people just to fix a faulty system. I would say this presents a different kind of risk compared to other industries.
The aerospace industry was initially driven by governments due to the significant financial investment required and the complexities involved in building rockets to launch objects into space, which often resulted in failures. However, since then, the private aerospace industry has grown rapidly, albeit still a considerable time ago.
Two great examples of private space with Telesat Canada(1969), a Canadian telecommunication by satellite company with a purpose to help the country withstand rigorous and stormy winters and Indosat(1967) as an Indonesian company who made telecommunication by satellite as the best option to cover the multitude of islands making the country..
Thus, the private, capitalist sector in the space industry has always been present. However, the landscape has evolved significantly due to dramatic changes in the funding process and the programmatic rules of space programs.
Young American startups are now more aligned with the norms set by venture capitalists, following a particular and identifiable pathway: 'seed', 'Series A', 'Series B', and so on. This framework did not exist in the space industry thirty years ago. As a result, it represents a different approach to sharing created value and propelling innovation.
Take the example of PanAmSat(1984) founded by René Anselmo as a revolutionary manner to consider the development of space telecommunication. The company was developed from scratch, relying on traditional capitalist principles without the involvement of venture capitalists. I am confident that Panamsat would never have existed if Anselmo had relied on a VC normative system!
Having raised quite a big amount of money at once, we are still new to the market. Our competitors such as Intuitive Machine have been in the aerospace industry for 10~15 years. And they have raised more funds in aggregat. Qosmosys is only three years old.
Getting funded is always difficult. Especially because we don’t follow the typical startup funding norms that’s common these days. It means that we don’t look for the VCs or funding rounds as the business roadmap of Qosmosys is not aligning with this type of funding. Instead, we seek out rather traditional investors who understand long business cycles in traditional heavy industries. Qosmosys therefore prefers not to call itself a ‘startup’, actually.
Getting lots of fundings rarely happens in a lifetime and for the beginners, it can make you lazy so easily and don’t measure the real value of the things. So very often those fundings are wasted.
On the other hand, bootstrapping is harder but you pay attention to all the details. Of course it can make you exhausted and make you lose the momentum which will be lethal to your company. So what I want to tell them is that funding your company with revenues. Focus on the customers, not the investors.
Yes. Influenced by the ideological motivations behind rocket development in America, China, and the Soviet Union, Asian countries like Japan and Korea also began to show interest in lunar landings. This interest was spearheaded by space agencies such as the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) and the newly founded Korea AeroSpace Agency (KASA) in Korea and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in Japan.
Today, Asian countries are achieving scientific goals with their own rockets. For example, China recently sent a probe called The Chang'e-6 to the Moon then returned safe to Earth.
Of course, there are not as many aerospace startups in the Asian market compared to the Western market, but their numbers are gradually increasing and growing. They will undergo the same development process as those in the US and Europe, although there may be a delay of 5 to 10 years. To bolster this industry, government help and support are crucial. It should be strongly led and motivated by visionary leaders.
I was already living in Singapore when I set up the Qosmosys team. I founded Qosmosys here not because the aerospace industry was flourishing, but because Singapore is a friendly place for business and offers a peaceful environment.
Initially, I started the business with friends from Europe and Singapore. To manage the team effectively, it is incredibly important to understand each other's strengths and weaknesses. Fortunately, my employees are also my friends, who know me well enough to manage me effectively. Sometimes, I can be a very demanding and difficult boss, but as Qosmosys is a deep tech company, I acknowledge that my employees often have greater expertise in certain areas. To make the right decisions, I am happy to be guided by them.
We are based in Singapore and also have subsidiaries in France and the United States. Essentially, Qosmosys has two particular skill sets.
Firstly, we have a professional engineering team that can draw the big picture of the whole project concept. This is necessary to communicate with manufacturing partners about what to build, on the same level as the engineers at partner companies like Airbus.
Secondly, we have a business development and commercial team. They are very important for us as we are finding customers for the market of the lunar economy, which doesn't exist yet. So we have to think ahead about how we are going to develop on the Moon within the next few years, which means precisely defining the challenges and needs.
This is why I work with senior employees, as they know what to do. In this environment, I, as the leader, can only inspire and serve the employees, as they should be the ones driving the work.
The first core value at Qosmosys is excellence. We do not accept mediocrity, as it can be the source of problems. Of course, nothing can be perfect, but it is the value we strive for, especially in the aerospace industry.
The second core value is confrontation. We do not compromise when it comes to reality. There will be difficulties, but we cannot be in denial. Instead of avoiding problems, we face reality head-on.
We are always hiring! I look for employees who have both heart and mind. Heart represents passion, and mind represents expertise. It means I seek out employees who can communicate their passion and have the ability to excel.
We focus on talents who can design their own purpose within the company. Of course, it demands to deal with highly experienced individuals but it’s a better approach for us as we do not design an organization by drawing boxes and putting people into those boxes. Instead, we let them find their marks in the organization. I prefer business partners who argue with each other with some overlaps in their responsibilities to those who fight each other just to protect their own territories in the company.
My goal is to successfully land the ZeusX on the Moon! I hope I can witness the lunar economy being built within my lifetime. This will be my last project.
Written by May Jang
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