Will SpaceX buy Exolaunch?

[PM3]

The German company Exolaunch is a very successful supplier of smallsat deployment hardware. Exolaunch integrates payloads in their "Exopod" deployers for all SpaceX Transporter and Bandwagon missions. But also for rideshare missions e. g. of Arianespace.

https://exolaunch.com/

Exolaunch's development philosophy has some commonalities with SpaceX'. For a while now, I wonder if SpaceX might want to buy this company. SpaceX acqusitions are very rare, AFAIK so far they bought just three small companies, including Swarm Technologies.

What do you think? Will Exolaunch some time become part of SpaceX?

[Tywin]

Currently, ExoLaunch is considered the leading space tug company globally, yet D-Orbit and others present significant competition.


I believe there are more options for SpaceX to consider in the future, such as acquiring Impulse Space, owned by Tom Mueller, who is currently developing an impressive space tug named Helios.

[RedLineTrain]

Interesting question.  Despite all the merits of Exolaunch, the chances are nil.  Even Starlink coffee baristas and bilingual customer service representatives are behind the ITAR wall, so integrating Exolaunch into SpaceX would be impossible.

However, it is possible that they would make a minority/strategic investment.  They did this with Surrey Satellite.

[thespacecow]

What's the point of buying this company? Rideshare market is very small and not a focus of SpaceX, and this company doesn't have anything that SpaceX couldn't build themselves.

There're speculation that SpaceX may buy some companies that possess direct to cell spectrum, e.g. Omnispace, I think this is much more likely.