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spk01: Hello and welcome to today's Terran Orbital 3Q 2022 earnings call. My name is Elliot and I'll be coordinating your call today. If you would like to register a question during the presentation, you may do so by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand over to our host, Jonathan Seidman, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development. The floor is yours, please go ahead.
spk04: Thank you, Elliot. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Taron Orbital's third quarter 2022 earnings call. With me this morning from Taron Orbital are Mark Bell, co-founder, chairman, chief executive officer, and Gary Hobart, chief financial officer. Mark will provide a business update and highlights for the quarter, and then Gary will review the quarterly results. Taron Orbital's executive team will then be available to answer your questions. During today's call, we may make certain forward-looking statements. These statements are based on our current expectations and assumptions and, as a result, are subject to risk and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual events to differ materially from forward-looking statements made on this call. For more information about these risks and uncertainties, please refer to the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, each of which can be found on our website, www.terranorbital.com. Readers are cautioned not to put any undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and the company specifically disclaims any obligation to update the forward-looking statements that may be discussed during this call. Please also note that we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial information on today's call. You can find reconciliations of the non-GAAP financial measures with the most comparable GAAP measures in our earnings press release. With that, I will turn it over to Mark.
spk11: Thank you, John, and good morning. And thank you to everyone for joining our third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. I am thrilled to update you on our results and our latest operational highlights from the quarter, the macro environment for our solution, and the exciting $100 million investment and new strategic cooperation agreement with our partner Lockheed Martin. Then Guy will provide more detail on our financial results and strategic investment, and then we'll be happy to take your questions. For those of you joining for the first time, Terran Orbital is a global leader in satellite products, primarily serving the United States and allied aerospace and defense industries. Our pioneering work helped revolutionize the space industry by developing highly efficient, innovative, and cost-effective satellite solutions at a fraction of the cost and production time of the prior generations of satellites. For the third quarter, we are pleased to report a record $27.8 million in revenue, a 100% increase year over year, as we continue to execute on customer contracts. Our backlog was $198 million, and our pipeline consists of more than 140 identified opportunities, representing a value of approximately $15 billion of potential customer revenue as of September 30th. Our manufacturing execution continued to build efficiencies, and we remain on track to deliver all 10 SDA transport layer trans-zero satellites by the end of the year. SDA, or Space Development Agency, Terran Orbital has added over 140,000 square feet of manufacturing and office space at Irvine alone in the past 12 months, and we will continue to grow our headcount to over 440 skilled personnel as of September 30th. In addition, the further expansion of Terran Orbital's advanced manufacturing capabilities, which was originally planned to be located on Florida's Space Coast in partnership with Space Florida, has been accelerated and will now be in Irvine, California. As we look at the macro environment, demand continues to strengthen. Now more than ever, satellite solutions are critical to U.S. and allied defense, which depends on space-based assets for communication, missile tracking, and geospatial intelligence. As traditional large satellites have become vulnerable to the anti-satellite weapons of hostile powers, the U.S. has initiated the rapid transition to a resilient, distributed network that will consist of thousands of small satellites. These satellites, which are Taron Orville's particular area of expertise, can be quickly developed, deployed, and replaced to maintain the most advanced capabilities available. The geopolitical situation is dynamic. And just two weeks ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin escalated global tension by announcing that he considered U.S. satellites to be legitimate targets for Russian anti-satellite attacks. This threat highlights the urgency of the U.S. government's new satellite constellation initiative. Terran Orbital is proud to be working to deliver 52 satellites as part of the first two phases of the Space Development Agency transfer layer. In Congress, there continues to be broad bipartisan support for the National Defense Authorization Act. Both houses have advanced the bill, proposing significant increases in the 2023 defense budget and prioritizing research and development for space programs. Funds are earmarked for development of resilient space capabilities, including low Earth orbiting satellite systems, tactically responsive space programs, and the integration of commercial space capabilities. This brings me to our exciting announcement last week of an expanded partnership and collaboration with Lockheed Martin Corporation. We are thrilled to report that Lockheed Martin has invested $100 million in deterrent orbital in exchange for convertible notes and warrants, providing working capital, which enables us to dramatically ramp up our industrialized in-house production of cutting edge satellite solutions and accelerate our path towards profitability. Specifically, we plan to use these funds to acquire additional satellite assembly space, increase module production capabilities, and expand our advanced manufacturing abilities. Through a new strategic cooperation agreement, which now will run through 2035, we will also pursue new opportunities at Lockheed Martin, leveraging our increased manufacturing capacity and capabilities. The investment and expanded partnership are game-changing developments for our customers and business. With surging market demand for Terran Orbital satellite solutions, we now have sufficient capital to meet the needs of our customers who demand flight-proven satellites delivered at accelerated timelines and in greater quantities. Our investments in advanced manufacturing, vertical integration, and expanded capacity are occurring at an optimal time to expand Terran Orbital's leadership in this growing market. Our expanded partnership with Lockheed Martin is anchored by a shared vision of the potential of our small satellites to improve costs, capabilities, and resiliency of critical national security missions. We are humbled and honored by the trust Lockheed Martin, our nation's largest defense contractor, and a leader in space technologies, is demonstrating with this strategic investment. As we look beyond the third quarter, we expect to deliver the 10th SDA Transport Layer Tron Zero satellites to Lockheed Martin in the fourth quarter and to begin delivering Tronch One satellites in 2023. I commend our team who is working tirelessly to deliver the first 10 Tron Zero satellites on schedule. We anticipate our competitiveness for future awards to this critical defense constellation will be enhanced by our expected on-time delivery this year. Regarding Predisar, last week we announced a shift in direction. Terran Orbital no longer plans to pursue an investment in its own constellation. That said, Terran Orbital's specialized star and satellite technologies remain in high demand, and today we are engaged in discussions with potential partners. Under discussion are options which may provide radar and radio frequency solutions to commercial and U.S. government customers by building star and satellites and payloads as a product as opposed to a constellation. TerraNova remains committed to our U.S. government customers and is in discussion with them to determine the best way forward on existing Predasar contracts. This strategic shift to Predasar will require much less capital investment while still allowing us to continue to explore options to deliver unique radar and RF capabilities. We also plan to expand product and service offerings to address growing and unmet needs in adjacent markets to the company's core offerings, including advanced satellite payloads, Subassemblies and component offerings, mission operations, and other defense-related products. We will continue to pursue vertical integration, automation, and full in-house industrialization production in our facilities, enabling us to decrease our reliance on outside suppliers and enhance turnover paths toward profitability. Finally, we are more excited than ever about the growth opportunity before us, our competitiveness within the industry, and with our partner, Lockheed Martin, the resources at our disposal to execute on our game plan. In sum, our results for the quarter demonstrate our strong progress, and I could not be more proud of our team. With that, I now turn it over to Gary Hobart for an overview of our financials for the quarter. Gary?
spk09: Thank you, Mark, and good morning, everyone. I'm happy to report that we continue to execute on programs and build momentum in the third quarter, delivering an all-time record revenue of $27.8 million, a 171% increase over the $10.3 million in the same period last year. Adjusted growth profit for the quarter was $3.2 million. That's up versus $2.1 million in the same period in the prior year, as well as $2.1 million in the second quarter of this year. EAC adjustments during the third quarter reduced adjusted gross profit by an estimated $2 million, which we believe considers all relevant and known information, such as supply chains and related production challenges, through September 30th of this year. Adjusted EBITDA was a $13.9 million loss for the quarter, compared with an $8.7 million loss in the same period in the prior year, and a $14.8 million loss in the second quarter of 2022. The decrease in adjusted EBITDA year over year was... due to the increase in selling, general, and administrative expenses related to salaries and wages, research and development, facility expenses, and other operating costs as a result of our growth initiatives, partially offset by the increase in adjusted gross profit. Finally, as announced last week, on October 31st, we received a $100 million investment from Lockheed Martin Corporation in exchange for $100 million in convertible notes due to 2027, plus 17.3 million warrants for terrible stock, where both the conversion price of the debt and the strike price on the warrants is $2.898, which is a 15% premium to market. Pro forma at September 30th, and on a mass converted basis for Lockheed's investment in the company, Lockheed's ownership of the company increases from 9.4% to 33.9%. As for liquidity, as of September 30th, we had $35.8 million of cash on hand. and $202 million in gross debt obligations. Proforma, on September 30th, received $100 million investment proceeds from Lockheed, less than estimated $3.3 million in transaction expenses. Our Proforma cash was $132.5 million. We believe the company is well positioned to meet its near-term capital needs, including further expansion in Irvine. We are now focused on continuing to deliver our products on time with high mission assurance. With sufficient capital resources on hand, and an increase in production capacity, we are well positioned to continue to convert contract awards and continue to gradually improve our profitability. I will now turn back over to Mark.
spk11: Thank you, Gary, and thank you everyone on the call for your continued support of TerraNorbital. I now look forward to taking your questions, and I'll turn it over to the operator.
spk01: Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally. Our first question comes from Ron Epstein from Bank of America. Your line is open.
spk02: Hi, good morning. It's Elizabeth on for Ron.
spk11: Good morning.
spk02: Could you give us some sort of color behind how you're thinking about the economics around the SAR satellites now? What you think, how many you think could potentially be building, what the revenue associated with them would be, what the margin profile of it would be?
spk11: We have begun numerous conversations since announcing it. We've had some people inquiring before, but now we're responding to people about what pricing looks like, and we are having discussions right now about that. It's a little too premature to talk about the margin profile and stuff, but by the next call, we should have a much, much clearer picture.
spk02: Do you still think that the market size would be around sort of 100 satellites that you would be building? Or do you think, I mean, can we get any kind of color?
spk11: I mean, I think the market's probably far greater than 100 satellites. I mean, you know, the Ukraine conflict really put front and center the need for SAR imagery. As you know, Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe. And it's mostly, you know, it's either raining or it's nighttime. And where EO just doesn't work. and it showed the true shortage of SAR that's out there. We've had numerous allies of the U.S. inquire about SAR satellites. People now want to own their own constellations. It's really – it's a potential feeding frenzy. We are talking to Lockheed Martin about other solutions and other ways we can handle this, but we definitely see the market far beyond 96 satellites.
spk02: MS. Okay. Thank you very much.
spk01: Our next question comes from Austin Moller from Canaccord. Your line is open.
spk10: Hi, Mark and Gary. Good morning. Good morning, Austin. So question number one here, the Florida Gigafactory was expected to support 1,000 satellites a year. With the $100 million Lockheed investment and plans to keep expanding operations in Irvine, what do you project will be the throughput in California as you scale? I think previously you said the two Irvine facilities can put out around 250 satellites a year.
spk11: Correct. So when the new facility comes online next quarter, that will bring us up to 250. We plan on adding, we'll have announcements later on next year about some other facilities here in Irvine. that will be able to keep up with demand. It's not just the capacity, it's not just assembly space, but it's also module production space and automation as we continue to vertically integrate. So we're spending a lot of money on robotics, advanced engineering, in order to make the components easier and faster to make, and then we need more, and then adding additional space for the assembly of these satellites. So we'll easily get to the thousand number, but more importantly, It was 36 months from the time we would have broken ground in Florida to the time it would have been open, and we saw no path forward to breaking ground anytime soon. Where here in Irvine, we're adding space, we're adding facilities, and by taking over existing buildings, it's called an 18-month cycle to get them up and running. So we saved probably a year and a half to two years. Lockheed Martin and the rest of the market really is showing that, you know, they need capacity faster. It wasn't, you know, Safe Florida was great. We enjoyed working with them very much, but we determined that we just needed to move faster.
spk10: Okay, that makes sense. And just to follow up, I would assume we would put the SAR satellites within the satellite solutions bucket now as opposed to Earth observation solutions. And should we still think about for manufacturing EBITDA margins somewhere between like 25% and 35% long term?
spk11: I'm going to answer the first part, and then Gary will answer the second part. But, yes, it should be. Going forward, it will be just there will be no segments. It will just be our business. But, Gary, do you want to address the margins?
spk09: Yeah, so I agree with the way you're looking at the margins as well, but where we're going to is 25% to try to get to 35% on satellite solutions for adjusted gross profit. Okay, great. Thanks for the details.
spk01: Our next question comes from Eric Rassouman from Stifel. Your line is open.
spk08: Yeah, thanks for taking the questions. Maybe just a clarification. On the Irvine, you said you'll be at capacity of 250 satellites in Q1, and then that's sort of the new run rate?
spk11: Well, okay, so it's a little bit of a misnomer when people talk about capacity. So we can do 250 satellites a year, assuming all 250 are – you're talking about 20 satellites a month that are spread out over the course of the year. Now, as we've learned from SDA Tri-Zero, that doesn't happen. All the assembly, because assembly is really the most space, takes up the most amount of space for doing the satellite, is all happening within, you know, eight weeks. So we are looking at, you know, larger amounts of space so we can do larger amounts of satellites if we get done, if it's happening like now. So instead of building 20 a month, we can eventually go to 50 a month and 100 a month all in one time. But that increases our overall throughout the year, which will potentially be much larger. It really depends on scheduling. But we're seeing people want, everybody wants it now. And so that's kind of how we're trying to redo it, our capacity planning on how we can accommodate people for that now desire.
spk08: Okay, so there's certain bottlenecks along the way, but that is sort of an annual run rate that you could hit depending on how you overcome some of those bottlenecks.
spk11: Yeah, we feel comfortable with it. It's just at this point, a lot of it is just a real estate game because we are seeing demand for literally thousands of satellites out there that people have RFIs out at this point. And so when we bid on work, we also look at our schedule to what we can accommodate. and uh but as we add more capacity both for component manufacturing and for testing because we're also bringing testing in-house across the board which is a big change for us and then assembly uh you know it will enable us to do a higher throughput at a faster rate okay uh great and then maybe just uh back on um you know the assumptions for the business overall um you know we're sort of in a
spk08: period where the model is, you know, a little bit of influx, but how should we be thinking about the long-term model, you know, in relation to, you know, beyond, you know, 2023, you know, maybe for the next couple of years? Are those assumptions, you know, that, you know, how should we be thinking about sort of the top-line revenue? You gave us some sort of guidance on the margins, but how should we be thinking about the satellite solutions formally and then layering in sort of the predecessor, if you will, you know, in terms of coming up with sort of an overall look at the business.
spk09: Yeah. So we're not providing quantitative guidance on that, but the way to think about it thematically is in two buckets. We're going to dramatically decrease our capital spend by moving away from investing in our own constellation. So that'll be one major update to the numbers you may have seen in the SPAC deck when we went through our de-SPAC process. I think the other major change will be with a singular focus on designing and building satellites in the Satellite Solutions Division. You're going to see that that focus enables us to focus all of our energy and capacity on delivering against orders. So I'd anticipate that relative to where we were looking before, a higher amount of unit count coming through and more revenue on that side of our business. In the coming quarters, as we have more clarity on our execution and our conversion pipeline into backlog, Mark and I will start giving more details on our guidance in that regard. But those two themes, I think, are going to be where we go going forward with this announcement about Predasar.
spk08: Okay, great. Thank you.
spk01: We now turn to Josh Sullivan from the Benchmark Company. Your line is open. Hey, good morning.
spk07: We've seen some significant financial interests in your markets. You had the York investment, Lockheed with you guys as well as others. Can you just talk about why maybe having a relationship with Lockheed as a prime is more advantageous than as a standalone?
spk11: Oh, sure. I mean, the Lockheed Martin relationship is spectacular across the board. Cause imagine, you know, we're, we're relatively, you know, we're still a startup for some aspects, even though we've been around for 10 years, but now we have access to over a hundred thousand, you know, engineers and scientists that sit at Lockheed Martin to assist us in whatever we want to do. So it's like having, it's like having a mentor that's on a, or a phone of friends that's always available 24 seven. And they have been absolutely spectacular. and helping us and encouraging us and giving us advice as to what we should do right, what we're doing wrong, and how we can move faster and do it better and cheaper and provide more value. And the infinite help they give us has just been invaluable in speeding our business plan along, plus the opportunities that fit within all throughout Lockheed Martin is spectacular for us. So there are tons of, as we get bigger and our capabilities get larger, the opportunities we have within Lockheed Martin also get larger. Because remember, they sub out a lot of work that they do there. And by them having a stake in us, you know, it really works very well to, it's very mutually beneficial.
spk07: And then as far as Predisar, you know, given you were set up to, eventually operate your own constellation, and that likely involves data analysis. Do you plan to still have a SAR data offering going forward?
spk11: Absolutely, but not as a constellation. We've had an immense amount of inbounds across the spectrum for people who want to buy SAR satellites. They wouldn't buy SAR satellites if we owned our SAR constellation. And the SAR constellation being very capital-intensive, We decided to be very smart, focus on our core business. It is working. And, you know, Lockheed Martin now is expanding the relationship with us. There's just much more opportunity for us. And, you know, we're trying to, our goal is to get to profitability as quickly as possible and with the lowest risk profile as quickly as possible. And this is how, this is the best way for us to get there. Thank you for the time.
spk01: Our next question comes from Greg Conrad from Jefferies. Your line is open.
spk00: Good morning. Good morning, sir. Hello. Maybe just to start where you left off on the last question. How are you thinking about breakeven profit level? And are there drivers outside of just volume? And with that, how are you thinking about just inflation and supply chain in the current environment?
spk09: Sure. Hi, Greg. So as we mentioned on prior calls, inflation matters to us, but it's less of an impact on us because in pricing our contracts, most of our contracts are really converting within 18 to 24 months. And so it has a more muted impact relative to defense funds that might have decades-long programs. In addition, we generally have inflation escalators in our contracts. And so that generally covers it. On the supply chain, it's not as much the pricing on the supply chain and the inflation there. It's really the impact of the overall, whether it's the COVID hangover, labor shortages, just where we are in industrial-based United States. The supply chain generally comes up in terms of yields on boards and things of that nature. So it'll be, I'm expecting products to come in this week, and I might have 85% of them coming in this week and in a delay of a week or two. And that just adds to schedule on the programs on both our module build and even around assembly. So that's what we've been seeing throughout the year. It hasn't been overly dramatic, but it has had an impact on moving things a little bit to the right on our scheduling. As far as just the path to profitability, the way to think about it is our SG&A is starting to stabilize. If you look at it as a percentage of our revenue, each quarter throughout this year has gone down. We expect that trend to continue. And as we start to hit the inflection point where our gross profit exceeds SG&A, obviously that's going to hit EBITDA positive. So we're on the path to do that. While we're not giving guidance specifically, we have in our covenants with our lenders a clause that requires us to be EBITDA positive on an LTM basis by June of 2024. So I think Marketplace could look to that as a reference point on our comfort and where we're steering the company as far as the path towards profitability.
spk00: And then maybe just to follow up on the bidding strategy, I mean, it seems like a lot of things are going in the right direction. You talked about capacity coming online next quarter. You have the Lockheed agreement, and it seems like the transport deliveries, you know, have been going well. Does something change now that maybe you do have incremental capacity and things that you maybe haven't been bidding on over the past year, you know, with the capacity you can kind of go at it? Just kind of thinking about outside the bid pipeline, just things that you're actively pursuing?
spk11: Yes, you're correct. There are things we did not bid on over the past year because of capacity, as we want to make sure that we can deliver what we're accepting. So by next year, we have a lot more capacity, which allows us to bid on more programs. But the last thing we wanted to do was bid and fail. Lockheed had taught us They've had 100% success rate delivering on every program they've ever gotten. And we want to make sure that we have the same thing, 100% success rate delivering on every program. And so now with the new space, with our ability to vertically integrate and bringing more and more of our components in-house, we reduced the delay we could have on supply chain. And this helps us for our long-term strategy of responsive space. which is deliver your satellites faster with more feature sets at a price that's reasonable for everybody.
spk00: Thank you.
spk01: We now turn to Max Crawford from B. Reilly. Your line is open.
spk06: Yeah, Mike Crawford. So, Mark, would you say Terran Orbital needs to win about $300 million of new contracts next year in order to hit that LTM positive EBITDA number in the summer of 24?
spk11: Yeah, I would feel confident on our pipeline and the stuff that we're bidding on that we will easily hit, you know, add an additional $300 million over the next 12 months. We feel very confident about that.
spk06: In that regard, there's a space development agency RFI out for tranche two of the transport layer for position navigating navigation and timing payload those that RFI just being coming up in a couple weeks. When do you think that actually turns into RFP and an award? We haven't decided yet if we're going to bid on that.
spk11: You know, there are other things coming down the pipe from the SDA. And, you know, we try to stick to our core competencies. We are building a payload group, SAR being our first payload. And we're going to be getting other payloads at the end of the day. But we have a lot of other opportunities floating around. And we obviously are in constant contact with the SDA. But I want to make sure whatever we're bidding on is the right fit for what we're doing and things that we're going to win.
spk06: Okay. And then just kind of regarding your past work, there's this capstone satellite approaching the moon that's had several corrections. Can you talk about your role in helping to recover operational ability of that satellite?
spk11: So capstone has, from our perspective, has been a huge success. We are very excited about it. We're the first small step going to the moon. And we are on, we are right now on target for to be around the moon and over the next week or so. And it's pretty exciting. We did have some issues with two outside vendors, a repulsion system that was brought on the outside and another piece of equipment provided from an outside vendor, which goes to our theorem of why we should build everything ourselves. Because everything we've built on it has worked perfectly so far. So we are very pleased. But we are excited. We are on track and on course. And you should see some big announcements in the next few weeks about it. So we're very pleased. So this is a program that we're actually a subcontractor for Advanced Space, which got the contract from NASA. But we actually built the bus, and we're actually the ones running the bus right now. So it's a very exciting program. And this is the beginning of what will be a permanent communications network for the moon which will be both for the moon base and for the moon station that NASA plans to be building.
spk06: Okay. With your – switching gears, with your high bay capacity coming online in a month or so in Irvine, then you look to expand these other module pods around, I guess, the nearby region in 23. What is the anticipated capital investment to do that expansion in California in 23?
spk11: Well, the highway that we're opening up to Q1 really isn't for modules. It's actually for satellite assembly. So there's not a tremendous capex that goes into the building for that. We just need the ability to have cranes to lift the satellites, as the satellites are very, very heavy. And so that's what the High Bay allows us to do is to hold them up in the air so we can then attach things like solar panels and payloads, things that we now do at Lockheed Martin's facilities, we'll be able to do in-house. And which I should point out is another advantage of the Lockheed arrangement as we do all of our High Bay work now at Lockheed Martin, whereas if we didn't have a partner like Lockheed, we couldn't do that.
spk06: Right. But the question is that you also intend to then expand further out in Irvine in 2023. So I'm asking what you expect the CapEx will be in 2023.
spk11: We get a lot of landlord TI. We haven't, you know, when we build a building, because the next building that we're going to be building really is just a big box. So think of it as a Walmart. It's got four walls, a ceiling, and it's just large, large open space. So the next building will be all four assemblies. And so we're basically going to set up production lines like an automotive company to get things out the door. So it's a lot of space. But there will be some CapEx. Gary, do you want to address the CapEx stuff on this?
spk09: Yeah. So we're not providing guidance on the CapEx for the additional airline space per se. But think of it in terms of... It's being spread out over kind of an 18-month development process as well as netting out landlord TIs. As we have more precision on the timing and the actual capacity expansion, whether it's one additional space or two additional equipment, we're going to highlight that and provide folks with guidance. But right now, coming out of the investment from Lockheed, we know we have the capital to pursue it. And now it's a matter of really just scoping it. So without that scope, it's hard for us, I think, to pin ourselves down on CapEx. What I can say about this year's CapEx is we have guided to 15 to 20 million. We're at about 15 million of CapEx year-to-date. We should finish the year within our guidance close to about 20 million. Next year, the CapEx will be lower than that on a recurring basis. We'll obviously be finishing up the existing expansion at Irvine. in the first quarter, as well as not pursuing the PREDISAR self-funding bill, if you will. But then that will be increased by the expansion we noted. And when we have more scope and timing on that, we can get the market more color on where that stands.
spk06: Okay. Thank you. contracts that you're bidding on, these 140 programs that you're tracking, how many have you submitted bids for and what's your win rate been?
spk11: We pick and choose what we submit on. So the 140 programs we're tracking, It's not necessarily stuff that we are actually bidding on yet. It's programs that are waiting for funding. We're waiting for the customers to decide what they want to do. So, we kind of bring that down to a subset of what we look at, you know, things that we're actually bidding on and working on. And, you know, that gives us the total, our TAM for our bus business internally for what programs that we know about that we are tracking. Then as we start bidding on stuff, we pick and choose what we want to bid on. We work with the customers. You'll see announcements over the next few months on contracts that we've been on and won. Gary, do you want to comment on it?
spk09: I was just going to say, just to give you a sense that in that $15 billion pipeline, another way to look at it is in 140 different opportunities. There's about 4,000 satellites that's made up in that. the bidding process is not as linear as you might think. There's certainly proposals where absolute proposals are out, but one way to think about it is at least 1,000 of those 4,000 satellites we have active bids and proposals on, and the number is probably a little bit more than that, but that just gives you a sense of where we are in the process of converting pipeline into awards.
spk11: Yeah, I mean, we look at today as our capacity as a precious asset for us. You know, if we had more money, we'd have a lot more capacity today. So we are using that capacity to get either the highest value programs or the programs that we believe have the most opportunity down the road for us.
spk06: All right. Thank you very much. Thank you.
spk01: As a reminder, to ask any further questions, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad now. Our next question comes from Robert Spingarn from Milius Research. Your line is open.
spk10: Hey, guys. Hey there.
spk06: Morning.
spk10: So, Gary, I wanted to touch on this CapEx discussion and maybe twist it around to cash burn and how you expect the cash burn trend to go from here. And is there a minimum amount of cash that you want to keep on the balance sheet?
spk09: Sure. At this point, I always want to keep at least $20, $25 million of cash. After the pro forma to the Lockheed investment, we start the quarter with over $130 million of cash. So I think we're well positioned for the near term. When we think about our path to profitability and covering our needs with our existing capitalization, the way to think about it is that we're looking, generally speaking, at a path where we are anticipating and planning on revenue growth that could be anywhere from 100% to 200% year over year. Execution, converting pipeline into backlog are part of that and contingent on that. But at that type of growth pace and with the margin expansion that we also are expecting and the way we're bidding things, the path we're looking for is to get to about $300 million, maybe a little bit less of revenue to be able to be at a dot positive. And at that level, what I have to cover after that is CapEx, about $16 million a year of interest expense, and then I've got working capital that can be a plus or minus depending on where we are in the cycle for any one of the contracts. Generally speaking, new awards are fairly cash flow positive because on our SAP solution business as opposed to the Predisar business, for example, mostly awards will lead to upfront payments ahead of the spending of labor dollars and material costs. And so they tend to be working capital positive. So Mark and I are not providing guidance per se. One of the main reasons for that is really to have a little more precision on our execution and on our conversion of pipeline into backlog. But hopefully some of the data points and some of the reference points I've given you will enable you to model out where we're going.
spk10: Okay. And then for Mark, we talked a little bit about the pipeline and the order environment. You know, the bookings were a little light here in the third quarter, but I'm sure there's a volatility to that. Things come when they come. But were there some awards you targeted that maybe competitors took in the quarter?
spk11: No. Usually what happens is, you know, the government gets its budget on October 1st, and then we start to talk, and then we see a lot of award activity usually in Q1 of every year. So it's cyclical in terms of awards based on government budgets. So we have a lot of RFIs going out right now to a lot of people, which will turn into RFPs, which will turn into awards. But it's cyclical in the award cycle. We've noticed that towards the end of every budget year, it gets very, very quiet. And then it becomes October 1st, a mad dash.
spk10: Okay, and then just the last one, Mark. We've talked a bit about the transport layer, but on the tracking layer, there's some other companies involved there. Northrop and L3 come to mind for tranche one. And does your agreement with Lockheed permit you to support others in a similar vein? In other words, how do you feel about your opportunity on tracking layer tranche two, for example, and might you be able to support those other companies?
spk11: So our agreement with Lockheed Martin Does it not restrict us from working with anybody? That would be antitrust at worst. So we work with everybody. We work with all the primes. That being said, we intentionally did not bid on tracking one. Well, tracking two is not out yet, and we'll make the decision when it comes. There are certain things that, you know, we have a strategy to how we do this. We have a very good relationship with the STA. We also know we're not going to win everything. So we try to pick and choose what we know we will win. and we could fit into our schedule. And the fact that we're delivering SDA's transport layer trans-zero on time, and they are looking amazing, is a testament to the hard work of everybody here. And our capabilities are in high demand by a lot of people. So we obviously want diversity in customers as well. And so I think we're building a nice, diverse book of business for the future. And we'll announce a lot of the customer wins we won't announce because Customers don't allow us to announce wins, so you'll see the backlog burns down as we book the revenue, but then you'll see as we get new wins, the backlog will start to jump back up, and it'll continue to be a seesaw as we get new revenue going, as we get new contracts going forward, but we only go fine on automatic capacity, so try to be very careful for that.
spk10: Okay, and then just, you know, beyond the Tronch Zero deliveries, is there any other catalyst that we should be looking for in the early part of next year? Any other milestones that we would focus on?
spk11: I mean, increasing backlog by the end of Q1, I think will be a big milestone. We have a lot of stuff in the pipeline, a lot of stuff in the works. And we feel very confident that we have a lot of things that will be signed and closed. And then it's just up to the customer to announce. So we may not be able to announce who it is. We're doing more and more classified work as we get bigger. But we will be able to announce the numbers. And I think for you guys, that's the important part.
spk10: Great. Thanks so much.
spk01: We now turn to Alex Owen from Fuel Venture Capital. Your line is open.
spk05: Hi. First off, congratulations on another great quarter. It'd be great if you could touch on, you know, given the impressive pipeline and moving forward with the completion of the Florida facility, you know, you will have the ability to launch 4,000 satellites and, you know, the broader market in general is expected to have you know, anywhere between 40 and 50,000 launched over the next six to seven years. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on how well, you know, the sector can accommodate this type of growth with, you know, the availability of human capital or, you know, the skilled personnel, you know, and the ease of, you know, recruiting the proper talent in the market to, you know, fulfill this type of backlog.
spk11: Yeah, I mean, the U.S. government has said there's going to be about 50,000 satellites built over the next 10 years. Jay Raymond, the retired head of Space Force, before he retired, said he expects about 300 launches per year over the next few years at a minimum. So we look at, you know, and that's just in the U.S. world. Think about a global-centric view. That's a U.S.-centric view. We are, you know, at Irvine, as we're expanding here, We have access to an incredible talent pool. We are right near JPL and a lot of the other labs. You have Caltech up the road. We have a great labor pool here out in Orange County and also from LA County as well. So we're very comfortable with the amount of our ability to attract people. We're working on programs to retain people. And it is obviously a competitive environment. But you're seeing out there, there are some companies that are going to be winners and some companies that aren't. And we are very confident in our ability to continue to win. Lockheed Martin, you know, the investment was a validator to our business plan. And it showed, you know, Lockheed wouldn't have invested the money if they didn't expect us to keep winning. So we're very bullish on our future. And we feel pretty good about it. I don't know if that answers your question.
spk05: Yeah, no, definitely. Thank you.
spk01: This concludes our Q&A and today's conference call. We'd like to thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.
spk11: Thank you very much. Thank you everyone for joining us.
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