Momentus Inc. Q2 FY2023 earnings call

• Momentus made solid progress toward being a market leader in satellite buses and in-space transportation/support services. Q2 was the first million-dollar revenue quarter with $1.7 million earnings.
• Operates two Vigoride orbital service vehicles in low-Earth orbit, having successfully demonstrated core technology over three missions with a year of in-space flying time.
• Launched three orbital service vehicles from May 2022 to April 2023, deployed 15 customer satellites, and provided hosted payload services. The Vigoride 5 mission is ongoing with the spacecraft in good health, and Vigoride 6 deployed multiple customer satellites and had a CubeSat deployment issue due to human error but with corrective actions taken.
• Announced M-1000 satellite bus based on Vigoride, tailored for government and commercial customers with high power, flexible configuration, and low cost. Received a small business innovation research contract from SDA, submitted a bid for Tranche 2 Transport Layer Alpha program, and signed a contract with FOSSA Systems for hosted payload services starting in 2024.
• Continues to drive innovation, such as the Tape Spring Solar Array on Vigoride 6 and plans for Rendezvous and Proximity Operations on Vigoride 7 for in-orbit services and reusable capability.

In the second quarter, Momentus achieved its first million-dollar revenue quarter with $1.7 million in earnings for the quarter. The Vigoride 6 mission's commercial deployments contributed to the $1.7 million revenue in Q2. The M-1000 satellite bus is a new product offering positioned for the growing satellite bus market. Revenue contribution from Vigoride missions and the new satellite bus are key aspects of segment performance.

• Anticipates Vigoride 7 will generate more revenue than Vigoride 6.
• Optimizing launch schedule to meet anticipated demand, reserving space on SpaceX launch vehicles.
• Expecting to begin introducing new features for Vigoride and M-1000 bus in 2024, like high-speed mission data link and precision pointing option.

• Going concern determination: Analysis concluded the company is unable to meet obligations for the next 12 months with current cash balance, as projected equity financing is not generally viewed as probable.
• Dependence on future contract wins and ability to raise additional capital to support operations.

Q: Just kind of looking into the dynamic of the going concern issue versus revenue versus the burn rate, I am sure that is an equation you sit there solving every afternoon. If I am sort of following it, it looks like you booked all the revenue that was available from the Vigoride 5 and Vigoride 6 missions having deployed all the satellites. It looks to me like the next revenue opportunity would be the November mission. Is that fair?

A: We have not totally finished recognizing revenue on V5, but we have completed revenue associated with V6. We do have some residual revenue to be recognized relating to the support of the Caltech mission, which we are currently still hosting. Our next, and as you know, that next revenue event would be the Transporter 9 mission around the October timeframe.

Q: And just following up on that mission, is all the capacity booked for that launch? And how many deployments would full capacity represent?

A: In November, we will launch at least three satellites mentioned and potentially one additional one that we are working with a customer on. The three satellites would be from SatRev in Poland, also one called JINJUSat-1 from CONTEC in South Korea, and a third one from Lunasonde, which is a U.S.-based company. And then, as I said, there is the potential for a fourth satellite, but that has not yet been confirmed.

Q: Would you feel comfortable giving us any kind of a figure to work with or just lower as far as you wanted to go regarding reducing the burn rate?

A: I'd say lower is probably about as far as we want to go. I think if you wanted to think about the subsequent quarter, definitely lower than our past quarter, right? We did that 30% reduction in headcount. And through the financials, you can get a sense that it wouldn't be a full 30% across the board with respect to cash on the quarter, but you can view it as we're pushing on it fairly hard to be able to get as much runaway as we can out of that.