The company's plan runs through 2029. By August 2021, Usov intends to raise $6.5 million for a demonstration module of an automatic rendezvous system. In 2023, the 'space tug' is to dock with a satellite in low orbit, in 2025 to carry out its first commercial mission, and by 2029 the company wants to have four such vehicles. That is about $120 million, while the market for such services is estimated at over $3 billion a year.
Geostationary communications and broadcasting satellites hang over a single point on the equator and serve for years, but after their work is done they are rarely moved to a safe orbit. That is precisely why servicing such vehicles is considered a sought-after service. Kurs Orbital intends to earn not from launching rockets but from working with satellites already in orbit, and this is a fundamental difference from most Ukrainian and European space startups of recent years.
A Bet on Service, Not Rockets
Usov explains the choice of niche by the market's imbalance. In his logic, all the launch vehicles currently being developed may be completed, but there will be few payloads for them. As Dumskaya reported, citing Forbes, he said:
“If all these rockets are completed, most of these startups will have nothing to deliver to orbit.”
Under the Dumskaya article, readers commented mostly with skepticism, yet the project itself looks like a logical continuation of its creator's biography. Usov was born in Odesa in 1983, studied at the Odesa National Maritime Academy, and for several years has been involved in startups at the intersection of technology and education.
Track Record: From Textbooks to Ceramics
His first company was Gutenbergz, which he founded with partners in 2011. It made interactive books and electronic textbooks. The next project was Kwambio, which in 2013–2014 began printing ceramic items on a 3D printer. In 2014 the team won the IDCEE competition and entered the TechStars accelerator in Boston. In 2017 the company received $500,000 from the funds Empire State Capital Partners and Impulse VC. As AIN, TSN and Antikor wrote, the second fund is linked to Roman Abramovich. Dumskaya itself called Kwambio 'not yet taken off,' and in 2020 AIN reported salary arrears at that company.
In parallel, there were tenders held by the Mykolaiv Regional State Administration for access to textbooks. The dealer for Gutenbergz was the company Electronik Solutions, which received 12.9 million hryvnias. According to 368.media and Antikor, the total in question was 15–24 million hryvnias for access to textbooks that, through the Ministry of Education, were supposed to be free. In June 2019 the State Bureau of Investigation opened proceedings over these procurements, and in November of that year a court seized Gutenbergz's accounts. None of the publications on which this story is based names Usov as a suspect, and there is no verdict in the case.
The Agency and His Departure from It
The competition for the post of head of the SSAU began after Pavlo Dehtyarenko was dismissed on November 3, 2019. On December 27, 2019, the Cabinet of Ministers declared Usov the winner, and on January 24, 2020, appointed him for five years with a six-month probation period. In February he was introduced to the agency's staff. In December 2019, before his appointment, his home and office were searched, as TSN wrote.
In spring and summer 2020, Usov gave interviews to Ukrainian publications. In May he told about the Antares rocket and about the Alcantara agreement worth $250 million. In June he said in an interview with TSN that the agency 'was, is, and may cease to be.' In July more than a hundred MPs demanded his dismissal, as Antikor wrote. On November 12, 2020, Ukraine joined the Artemis Accords, and on November 16 the Cabinet of Ministers dismissed Usov under Article 87 of the law on civil service. Mykhailo Lev became acting head.
On December 15, 2020, Usov filed a lawsuit in the Kyiv District Administrative Court against the Cabinet of Ministers and the SSAU. On December 21 the proceedings were opened, and a preparatory hearing was scheduled for January 18, 2021. The outcome of the lawsuit is not yet known. In January 2021, Deputy Prime Minister Oleh Urusky appointed Volodymyr Taftai, a finalist in the 2019 competition, as head of the agency, and announced a $1 billion program.
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