ConceptSpecialist space insurance brokerage & strategic investments

Risk Infrastructure for the Space Economy

From the factory floor to orbit, Orbital Assurance helps understand, mitigate, and transfer the risks behind the commercial space economy.

Insurance Brokerage·Strategic Investments
CLEAN ROOM01TESTING02TRANSPORT03LAUNCH SITE04LAUNCH05DEPLOYMENT06ORBIT07DEBRIS FIELD08

Space risk begins long before space — accumulated value sits in clean rooms, test chambers, and transport containers years before ignition.

Explore the risk lifecycle
§ 01The Space Risk Lifecycle
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
Stage 01 / 09

Manufacturing

Representative exposures
  • 01Component failure
  • 02Supplier failure
  • 03Workmanship defects
  • 04Property damage
  • 05Equipment failure
  • 06Cyber risk
  • 07Employee risk
  • 08Supply-chain interruption

Insurance should understand the entire mission, not just the launch.

Orbital Assurance approaches risk as a continuous system.

Factory
Testing
Transport
Launch
Orbit

The risk changes.

The financial exposure remains.

§ 02Orbital Risk Lab

Orbital Risk Lab

Explore how mission architecture changes financial risk. Five open models, built on transparent assumptions.

Tool 01

Satellite Risk Calculator

Mission-level illustrative model
Asset value (per spacecraft)$100M
$1M$10M$100M$1B
Mission duration5 yr
Orbit
Altitude550 km
30080014002000
Number of spacecraft1
1101001k10k
Flight heritageModerate heritage
RedundancyStandard
Testing depthStandard qualification
Debris protectionStandard shielding
Early-life failure contribution 3.68% · annualised in-orbit hazard 0.582%/yr · modelled probability of catastrophic loss 6.45% per spacecraft.
Asset value exposed
$100M
Estimated expected loss
$6.5M
Risk score
39 / 100
Indicative risk cost
8.7%
of asset value, mission-long

Illustrative risk model — educational use only. Not an insurance quote, premium indication, or actuarial estimate.

Tool 02

What happens when something small hits something fast?

Debris diameter1 cm
1 mm5 mm1 cm3 cm5 cm10 cm
Impact velocity10.0 km/s
51015
Fragment mass
1.41 g
Kinetic energy
70.7 kJ
TNT equivalent
17 g
Regime
Subsystem-level damage
SPACECRAFT PANEL — WHIPPLE + STRUCTURE1 cm @ 10.0 km/sDAMAGE SCALE: RELATIVE
Potential consequences

Energy sufficient to penetrate typical Whipple shielding margins and damage internal components. Partial loss of capability is plausible.

Illustrative risk model — educational use only. Not an insurance quote, premium indication, or actuarial estimate.

Tool 03

What is risk reduction worth?

Spacecraft value$100M
Mission duration7 yr
Baseline probability of catastrophic loss2.0%
Risk reduction from mitigation technology50%
Cost of mitigation technology$400K
Before mitigation — expected loss$2.0M
After mitigation — expected loss$1.0M
Economic value of risk reduction
$1.0M
Net expected risk benefit
$600K
Over a 7-year mission

This is the arithmetic behind shielding, collision avoidance, better testing, redundancy, monitoring, qualification, and independent verification. When a technology moves the probability more than it costs, it creates value for the operator, the underwriter, and the capital behind the mission.

Illustrative risk model — educational use only. Not an insurance quote, premium indication, or actuarial estimate.

Tool 04

How much capital is at risk before launch?

Build a hypothetical spacecraft program and watch the pre-ignition exposure accumulate.

Spacecraft manufacturing cost$85.0M
Inventory$8.0M
Supplier deposits$6.0M
Engineering labor$24.0M
Testing equipment & campaigns$18.0M
Integration costs$12.0M
Transportation$3.0M
Ground support equipment$9.0M
Launch deposit$15.0M
Launch-site processing & fueling$5.0M
Total capital exposed before launch
$185M
Manufacturing$123M · 66%
Testing$30.0M · 16%
Transportation$3.0M · 2%
Launch-site processing$5.0M · 3%
Launch deposits$15.0M · 8%
Supporting infrastructure$9.0M · 5%

The majority of the capital behind a mission may already be exposed before ignition.

Illustrative risk model — educational use only. Not an insurance quote, premium indication, or actuarial estimate.

Tool 05

Mission Risk Stack

Construct a hypothetical mission and see where relative risk concentrates.

Satellite type
Orbit
Launch vehicle maturityMaturing
Spacecraft heritageModerate
Mission duration7 yr
Number of spacecraft1
Debris protectionStandard
Testing levelStandard
RedundancyStandard
Relative risk indicators
Manufacturing risk45
Testing risk35
Transportation risk25
Launch risk68
Commissioning risk27
Orbital environment risk65
Operational risk41

These are relative risk indicators derived from the selected mission characteristics — not actuarial probabilities, loss frequencies, or underwriting outputs.

Illustrative risk model — educational use only. Not an insurance quote, premium indication, or actuarial estimate.

§ 03The Economics of Space Risk

Probability × Severity = Expected Loss

The simplest equation in risk, and the one that governs whether a mission is insurable, at what cost, and on what terms.

Spacecraft value
$200M
×
Probability of catastrophic loss
1%
=
Expected loss
$2.0M
Move the probability
Spacecraft value
$200K
$1.0M
$2.0M
$4.0M
$10.0M
$20.0M

The job of risk mitigation is to move the probability.

  • Testing can move it.
  • Redundancy can move it.
  • Better information can move it.
  • Debris protection can move it.
  • Operational intelligence can move it.
  • Verification can move it.

Severity is largely fixed by the physics and the balance sheet. Probability is where engineering, data, and capital actually meet.

§ 04The Orbital Assurance Flywheel

A closed loop between underwriting and technology

INSURELEARNIDENTIFYINVESTMEASURECONTINUOUS

Insurance gives us a view into where risk exists. Investment gives us exposure to the technologies changing it.

§ 05Insurance Across the Entire Lifecycle

Risk types evolve. The exposure never disappears.

How categories of insurable risk shift as a spacecraft moves from the clean room to disposal.

Property
Technical
Liability
Business Interruption
Mission Loss
Third-Party
Manufacturing
Testing
Transportation
Launch-site processing
Launch
Commissioning
In-orbit
End-of-life
Primary exposure
Secondary exposure
Rarely material
Indicative structure only · placements vary by program and market

Orbital Assurance is a brokerage. Capacity is placed and structured with insurers, reinsurers, Lloyd's syndicates, specialty markets, and other providers of risk capital.

§ 06Public Data Lab

Space Risk Data

Open tools and datasets for people who need to reason about space risk quantitatively. Published as they are built — no fabricated data.

Debris Impact Simulator

COMING SOON

Understand MMOD impact energy across fragment sizes and closing velocities.

Risk Mitigation ROI

COMING SOON

Calculate the financial value of reducing loss probability.

Constellation Exposure Calculator

COMING SOON

Estimate total asset value exposed across a fleet.

Launch Concentration Calculator

COMING SOON

Understand how much capital is concentrated into a single launch event.

Launch Reliability Explorer

COMING SOON

Compare launch vehicle flight heritage and historical reliability.

Orbital Environment Explorer

COMING SOON

Understand debris concentration by orbital altitude.

Spacecraft Failure Database

COMING SOON

Explore publicly disclosed spacecraft failures and causes.

Space Insurance Loss Tracker

COMING SOON

Historical insured space losses.

Mission Cost Benchmark

COMING SOON

Compare approximate mission economics across spacecraft categories.

§ 09How we think about it

Understand the risk.
Insure the risk.
Invest in what reduces it.

The long-term opportunity is to build modern risk infrastructure for the commercial space economy — sitting at the intersection of engineering reality and risk capital.

  • 01Space risk begins on Earth.
  • 02A spacecraft accumulates enormous financial exposure before launch.
  • 03Launch is only one component of mission risk.
  • 04Orbital debris and other emerging risks require better measurement.
  • 05Better technology can reduce expected losses.
  • 06Better testing and verification can reduce uncertainty.
  • 07Insurance converts technical risk into financial risk.