Voyager Technologies, Inc. (VOYG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you for joining us today. My name is John Godyn. I'm Citi's aerospace and defense analyst. For those of you that don't know me, we are very excited to have the CEO of Voyager here. Dylan, thank you for joining us.

My pleasure. Good to be with you, John.

We've been kicking it off typically with a very general question. And for some of the companies that maybe a little bit less known in the audience, just asking for an overview of the business, a bit of a background, the idea behind Voyager, the mission. Maybe you could just sort of get us up to speed.

Yes, sure. So we founded Voyager about 6.5 years ago. The thesis that we had was the aerospace and defense industry, the middle market had really been hollowed out. And what was existing at that time was the large aerospace primes, highly capable, could operate at scale, but maybe not particularly innovative or flexible or adaptable in their business model. And then you had a lot of upstarts, high technology, high innovation that weren't scaling particularly well, maybe didn't have the capital structures required to compete, couldn't assemble enough capability maybe to compete for programs of record. And so we thought there was a real opportunity to create an operating platform. We admired companies like Danaher, like HEICO, TransDigm and others that had created operating platforms that were really about value capture. And so we thought if we could create a company that was the best of both worlds, prime capable that denominated on innovation, flexible, adaptable business model that not only would customers gravitate towards a company like that, but the best employees in the industry would gravitate towards a platform like that as well. So fast forward to today, we went public last June. We're sitting on around $500 million of cash $200 million untapped credit facility, very, very high organic CAGR, supplemented by accretive M&A. And we sit right at the nexus of defense Tech and smart missile defense, which is a great place to be, and space tech, including the commercialization of low Earth orbit, the Lunar economy and elsewhere. So we're -- we think really well positioned in those growth areas. We've got a great platform, a great company with great people and a lot of capital to deploy accretively.

That's fantastic. There are a few things I want to follow up in there. But maybe if you could just kind of get us up to speed the first year or so post IPO, major developments and milestones.

Sure. So when we went public in June. Soon thereafter, we announced 2 acquisitions. One was in the propulsion technology arena, which we excel at, a company called ExoTerra, which is focused on ionic based propulsion technology, specifically Hall effect thrusters, which is very relevant for satellite positioning. We also made another acquisition in, I'll call it, propulsion technology called Estes, which is really in the energetics piece, which is not only relevant to propulsion, but it's also relevant to things like munitions, black powder. There's a lot of onshoring of that by the administration. So those 2 acquisitions are one part horizontal expansion across business lines we are currently in, but also a part vertical integration as well, which is bringing more capability in-house. We also did a convert soon after going public to put more capital on the balance sheet at very attractive cost of capital. And we're competing very favorably for the space station program. We anticipate that contract to be selected by NASA sometime this summer. We completed our critical design review with NASA in December. We're waiting to hear back on how we did there officially. But that program continues to -- we continue to execute against our milestones there as well.

That's great. Can we just talk about the growth strategy more broadly? Obviously, you mentioned some of the acquisitions. I want to hear about the acquisition philosophy, but also the organic growth strategy.

Yes, if you don't mind, I'm going to refer to a slide here, I'll fast forward. But because we laid this out, I think it's important to frame this up for folks, just back up here. So our growth strategy, the key thing I want to focus on is far left here, we're really leaning into the innovation piece. So think of Voyager as an innovation and technology platform, disrupting defense tech and space tech. So we have a very high innovation spend, about 18% of revenue. Thankfully, a lot of it is offset by customer-funded C-RAD as opposed to IRAD. But we're always leaning into what's next from a technological standpoint. We think that's how you win the game. Thankfully, this administration is also rewarding newer entrants as both the legacy companies. So that innovation has been particularly helpful. So that's a key part of our growth strategy. The second part is scaling up existing technologies. One example of that is this propulsion technology I referred to earlier. We have throttleable -- it's called TDACS throttleable divert attitude control system technology. This would go on things like next-generation interceptor, which is hypersonic inbound missiles from adversaries. It's a no fail mission. If you don't intercept the missile, you lose a city. So it's really, really important. And our technology makes the missile more accurate. Now that, that technology has been validated on next-generation interceptor, which is kind of the highest technical standard past critical design review, now we can scale up that technology to other programs of record, including things like THAAD, Standard Missile 3, Trident and even things like Golden Dome space-based interceptors. So scale-up is another key part of it. Accretive M&A, I mentioned that earlier. These are typically proprietarily sourced deals, principal to principal. We're typically not participating in an auction process. If a management team doesn't care where they end up and they're just looking to monetize, that wouldn't be a good fit for us. We've got great operational leverage in the business. So we're really focused on leveraging not only margin improvement, but taking the platform and growing into different customer sets. And then last but not least is the opportunity to build, develop and operate the next-generation space station. Of course, NASA there is inverting the model like they did with launch, which gave birth to SpaceX rather than own and operate rockets, they use SpaceX as their vendor, they're doing that on the space station side as well. So those are the different growth pillars that we have, and we're really excited about where the company is headed in all of those.

I want to follow up on some of those growth pillars more specifically. But before I do, if you could just give us a sense of the industry structure as you see it, the competitive set and competitive dynamics. You're a disruptor, you mentioned that you're going, in some cases, head-to-head against primes. I'm just kind of curious how you see the landscape.

Two of the key things that we wanted to focus on when we founded the company was flexibility in the operating model. That manifests its way in 2 instances. One is dual-use technology, so space and defense. So we're always looking for technologies that play in both arenas. Our propulsion technology would be an example of that. But the other is flexibility in the operating model itself, either to be a prime or a subcontractor at our option. So for example, on the space station, where there's huge economic benefit to being the prime and the owner of the operator, we want to be the prime in that particular case. On, let's say, next-generation interceptor, where we have proprietary technology, and we're literally the only provider of this technology. We're happy to be within the supply chain, selling into a Lockheed or another prime contractor because we can get the margin and economic profile we're looking for without having to take a lot of customer pricing risk. So that ability to arbitrage, I think is differentiated as well. And that's a key way of how we think about it. I think in terms of how we're positioned in defense tech, I think we're seen as a disruptor, as you mentioned, an innovator. I think both the primes see us as helpful to their growth stories, right, because they are being asked to innovate and they look around their supply chain. And there is a range of innovation within their supply chain. I think they see us as innovators. One example of that would be Airbus, which is a partner on the space station. With the defense spending increase in Europe, Airbus is asked to innovate and bring new solutions to bear. And if you look at the European supply chain, there aren't a lot of innovators but we're seen as an innovation partner for them. So I think that's another example. And then on the space side, I think we're very well positioned there. We anticipate a lot more attention being paid to space this year, especially with the SpaceX IPO. Some space companies do well under scrutiny, like the closer you look, the more you like it and other space companies less so. And we think we are in the category that the more -- the deeper you go, the more interesting the story gets. And so I think we're going to be well positioned when people turn their attention to the space now and continuing into 2026.

Yes. That makes a lot of sense. And when I think of some of the growth opportunities you've highlighted, space station, Golden Dome, NGI and the general outlook for missiles and how to participate in those programs, I'd love to dig into each one and just kind of get your view. Maybe we can start by double-clicking on the space station, understanding how that's going. You mentioned you feel like you're hitting milestones. Maybe you can elaborate on that.

Yes, sure. And I've got a slide on that, too. So there was a Phase 1 competition a few years ago with NASA. Let's see, I think it's back here. So the Phase 1 competition, there were 3 winners to that competition, and then there was a fourth who was on a separate program. The winners for our Phase 1 was Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman and ourselves. And then Axiom was another winner on a separate contract. Subsequent to those Phase 1 awards, Northrop Grumman chose to join our team. So now think of it as a competition between Blue, Axiom and ourselves. We've completed 27 milestones on Phase 1. The most meaningful one recently was the critical design review. We're waiting to hear back from NASA on that. But once we're official with critical design review, that really is a culminating milestone because basically NASA is certifying your design at that point. We now have a full-scale mockup of Starlab Space Station on the floor of Building 9 at Houston Johnson Space Center, which is a big deal because that mockup is right next to the International Space Station training mockup, the lunar lander mockup. So I think the fact that we have a mockup on Building 9 is a good validation for how we're perceived on this program. Soon after winning Phase 1, we approached it as a global joint venture for a couple of reasons. One is we wanted to pick partners who had reliably built parts of the International Space Station today so that it would answer the question, how does this company that's 2 years old build a commercial space station. So we had an answer to that. We formed a global joint venture. We added Airbus representing Europe. Airbus, of course, built the Columbus module, which is the European module on the International Space Station. We added Mitsubishi, which built the Japanese elements on the International Space Station, and we added MDA, which built a robotic arm, the so-called Canadian robotic arm. And then we added other partners like Northrop, which I mentioned, Palantir and others. So we really have a great consortium. Voyager is the controlling shareholder. We own 2/3 of the JV. And then there will be a Phase 2 competition. We anticipate the RFP for NASA to come out in the next few weeks and then probably a selection sometime late summer. We anticipate NASA will pick 2 winners, 2 successors. And our project should be in orbit in 2029. It's launching on SpaceX Starship.

Got it. That's very helpful context. And maybe you can give us a sense of for the Space Station Starlab, what were you solving for? What was the objective?

Yes. So what we believe to be true was similar to launch where the space shuttle was sunsetted NASA said, we want to privatize Musk to orbit, and that gave birth to SpaceX and others. We thought the same thing was going to happen on the space station side, right? The space station is aging. It's really 1980s technology. And there's a lot of things you can do in microgravity with microgravity research that's really supply constrained on the ISS, right? We would do more science in space if we had more lab space and if we had more astronaut time. So we thought to ourselves, okay, how do we sort of make sure that we're a safe pair of hands for when that is privatized, we're selected. And we thought there were 2 really important elements. One was the services component and customer interaction. So we made a key acquisition called Nanoracks, largest commercial provider to the International Space Station today, and we are today, Voyager is. And then human-rated hardware. And there was a project to complete a commercial airlock, human-rated hardware attached to the International Space Station. We called that the Bishop airlock after the chess piece because we thought it was very strategic to our future growth. We completed that project, got it launched to the ISS on SpaceX, attached that to the ISS, commissioned it. And now we have the only, call it, sovereign real estate, nongovernment-owned real estate on the International Space Station. And because we had the customer and service piece and the human radar hardware piece, I think that was a big reason why we won. But we really were anticipating where the market was going. And I think it really is a classic win-win-win. It's good for the government because they're getting a better product. They're getting more innovation. They're getting something that's leaning into 2030s technology, not 1980s technology. It will save them money. Of course, it's good for us and our shareholders. And I think it's good for the industry because it creates an operating platform where a lot of this innovation can really happen.

Yes. That makes sense. And going back to our brief conversation about the competitive landscape, what advantages do you think you brought to the table on this? What capabilities do you think that you have that were a little different?

Yes, I think our design and approach is -- first of all, I think there was innovation around the joint venture and bringing global partners in. But we're also taking advantage. It's this old adage, why are railroad tracks the size they are, right? And the answer is it matches the wheel width of a chariot from Roman days, right? And it's the same question, why are the modules on the ISS 4 meters? And the answer is that's what fits in the rocket faring, right? Our module is about 7.7 meters we're taking advantage of the larger format heavy lift capability with SpaceX starship. So we're building with this new format. And in space, volume is everything, right? The other thing you want to do is you want to avoid building in space, like on-orbit assembly is incredibly complicated. So think about our space station, larger format, 100% of the research volume of the ISS in one launch. We can build it, test it, work at all the bugs on the ground and in a single launch, send it to space and it's working day 1 as opposed to 6 months after it's assembled. So I think the design is advantageous. The fact it's optimized for research capability. That's why we call it Starlab. The fact that we actually have created a research consortium around this. We have an initiative called VISTA of global -- leading global universities doing research in areas that are relevant to microgravity. I think with all those different things, we're really creating a pipeline. We're about 130% of commercial research capacity precommitted already. We announced another partnership just yesterday or another micro gravity partner. So we're seeing a lot of demand. And hopefully, at some point, we'll have multiple star labs in the future.

Yes. And it sounds like you also took this sort of very collaborative approach, right, as opposed to maybe sometimes with other companies, we hear a lot about vertical integration, particularly with space. Can you talk about that a bit?

Yes. I think vertical integration, SpaceX has mastered that. And -- but SpaceX is kind of end of one, right? I think the risk with that is, especially with the space station is you don't want unproven technology. Because the space station, it's not like a rocket where your first one can fail, your second one can fail, your third one can fail. Space station has to work the very first time because you're putting humans on it. So our design is around TRL 8 and 9 technology, right? That's why we picked Airbus and MDA. These are partners who have created technology that's already in space. And our innovation is really around the form factor, single launch to orbit and the customer model. That's where our innovation is. I think if you're trying to build your own life support system as an example, and it's like fail fast, MVP, Silicon Valley, I'm not sure that's the right approach for something where it's human rated and failure means people die. I don't think that in my humble opinion, I don't think that's the right approach.

Yes. And then the international dynamic, too, right, the international JV, how important was it to have international collaborators?

I think it's really important because if you look at the ISS today, of course, Russia is a party to it. So take them out for a second. It's the Europeans, it's the Japanese and it's the Canadians and the Americans, of course. It's very politically difficult for the Europeans to spend a bunch of money supporting an American company. But if Airbus is a part of the consortium, it's much easier for ESA to support a European-based company that's employing Europeans. So I think it helps capture not only funding, but it helps capture the customer in these different geographies. I think that's one thing. And then the second thing is I think it's really important that these space stations represents -- it's an expression in many respects of soft power, right? And there is another space station in orbit, it's Chinese. And if you look at -- there's roughly 75 space agencies in the world. I think there are 10 or 15 that are clearly Western. There are 10 or 15 that are clearly Chinese, and there's a big middle that are trying to figure out where to place their bets. And I think it's really important that we welcome a lot of the new international partners to the Western platform.

Yes. No, that makes a tremendous amount of sense. If we could switch gears and talk about Golden Dome and NGI bit. These are topics that were very topical at the conference for obvious reasons. A lot of the companies that we cover have exposure, they expect award activity. Maybe you can just help frame Golden Dome and what it means for Voyager.

Yes. So Golden Dome, think of this as layers of the onion, if you will, different protective layers. Next-generation interceptor, which we're on is a really important layer because that's hypersonic missile interception. But above the hypersonic, you have space-based interceptors, which is a key focus of the administration. And then you have other layers beneath that, all the way down to marine -- submarine based interception and drone interception and things like that. The good thing is our technology, which are really 2 groups of technology. One is our propulsion tech, but the other is our optical navigation and control technology. Both those technologies are relevant to almost all the layers of Golden Dome. So that's one thing. Second thing is we anticipate a higher defense budget. And in that defense budget, a lot of that is likely to be allocated to what I would say, innovative players, people who are leaning into the technology and innovation piece. And then just the final point is I think there are indications from the administration and some of the tweets that have went out and things like this that they have a certain view about the old guard and they have a certain view about the new guard. And I think you see this even with Hegseth's roadshow, the companies he's visiting and the sort of language that he's using. I think they're very keen on the new guard, the new innovators, the new disruptors. And I think that's very well -- we're very well positioned in that respect.

Yes. And we don't have all the details on Golden Dome, but what role do you hope to play as the details are reviewed?

Yes. So I would say our technology is relevant on propulsion and optical navigation and control. So I would anticipate in a world where they're picking different winners and different teams that our technology would make anyone's proposal more competitive. So I would anticipate us having multiple paths to glory on Golden Dome.

So it sounds like you have a lot of confidence that you're going to be involved?

I have a lot of confidence in our technology and what the administration is indicating that they want and how those two fit together.

Yes. That makes a lot of sense. One of the things I've heard from a number of companies at the conference is Golden Dome is in part, very important because of the opportunities that may follow beyond Golden Dome, right? It's one of the largest kind of space projects in defense that we've seen and certainly a catalyst for additional innovation and potentially follow-on business over many years. Can you talk about the long tail to winning Golden Dome and what that might mean?

Yes. Well, I think the new high ground in defense tech is space, right? And so we've seen this. It used to be having the best Navy in the world one a day, and then, of course, it was the Air Force. We're now reaching a point as a civilization where if you don't have space-based assets or space-based capabilities, you're at a competitive disadvantage. So everything is moving to space. That's why we have a space force. The U.S. formed a space force, not in a vacuum. They did that in response to positions our adversaries have taken. So I think space will increasingly be an important, if not the most important part of offense and defense as it relates to national security. So in a world where that's the case, I think it's really, really, really important that you have capabilities in low Earth orbit, geosynchronous orbit, lunar and then something that's maybe not on a lot of people's radar screens are Lagrangian points, which for those of you who don't know, those are stable orbits that are further out. There are 5 of those L1, L2, L3, L4 and L5. The 2 most relevant are L1 and L2. L2 is where the James Webb telescope is. They're both about 1 million miles from earth looking back towards earth. But what's interesting about them is if you're in low earth orbit with the space station and you don't boost it, eventually, it will degrade and will burn up in the atmosphere or crash into the earth. Whereas the Lagrangian points, think of these as orbits that are being tugged equally by the moon, the earth and the sun. And so if you're a rafter, think of it as like a little bit of an Eddie. And you'll sit in that orbit for 1 million years, like literally, without any fuel. Well, so these are really important places to put infrastructure to all kinds of applications. I'll leave it there. But so we call it the 3Ls: LEO, lunar and Lagrangian.

Got it. And capabilities potentially in each of those.

Indeed. Yes, that's right.

Can we talk about another big theme, a megatrend, if you will, across defense is missile technology. I think there's one element of that, which is just production rates going up across tactical missiles and other things. Another layer to that is actual innovation, hypersonics. Maybe you can talk a little bit about how Voyager might benefit from those tailwinds?

Yes. So I think volumes for sure. I think now that Greenland has been settled, they can probably determine the final architecture on silos and where to put them and things like that. So I think volumes is one thing. The other thing is, I mentioned earlier, our propulsion technology is very relevant because it allows you to modulate solid-state propulsion. In a missile interception, the most important thing, it's actually easy in quotes to get close. It's very hard to hit a bullet with a bullet. So that last little bit is really, really, really technically difficult. And our propulsion technology allows you to do that flying course corrections at the very tail end, which increases the probability of impact dramatically. The fact that you can also turn the propulsion on and off allows for a larger glide path, which means you need less fuel as well. So our technology is very relevant to that. And then back to optical navigation and control, GPS looks down, not up. So when you're in space, if you want to orient yourself, you have to use different technologies, including star trackers and sunsetters, so that you can actually understand where you are in 3-dimensional space.

Yes. And it sounds like there's a lot of applications of what you're describing for space-based interceptors and being involved in that way.

For sure. Yes. No doubt about that.

Excellent. I appreciate it. Maybe we can just see if the audience has any questions for a second and then continue.

Great. please.

Thank you. Of course, getting outputs and loads back down to earth is an important part of that. So can you talk about your reentry capabilities and where you're taking them?

Yes. So we've signed a partnership Monday, I think, this week with ATMOS, which is a down mass provider based in Europe. So that's one answer to the question. There's another partnership that we're working on that will also be in this down mass category. So yes, it's definitely something we're working on. I think down mass is something that the industry has not focused enough on. So yes, it's definitely top of mind with us. And -- but ATMOS is our primary solution provider for that right now, and we'll probably add one more partner on that.

So on Starlab, can you talk about the business model, particularly on the commercial side, but also on the government side. ?How is that going to look different than the ISS with unlocking all of this micro gravity research?

Yes. It's a great question. So there's 2 categories of revenue at the most basic level with the commercial space station. One is astronaut tenancy, for lack of a better word. So actually astronauts spending time on the space station and either governments or private individuals paying -- think of it as a hotel, if you will. The second is research space. And a lot of these commercial agreements we've been announcing is really around commercial capacity to do research and experiments on the International Space Station. So think of those as the 2 main revenue generators. And then separate from that, more exotic ways to generate revenue could be things like data processing, data collection, right, because you have a large high-power platform that's in low earth Orbit. That could be interesting, co-owning IP. So imagine a world where you're partnered with a biopharma company developing a drug and maybe we co-invest alongside one of those companies and maybe we co-own the IP. That could be an opportunity. Little known fact to most people, the cancer drug, KEYTRUDA, which is a lung cancer drug was developed in part on the International Space Station. And then there's even more exotic models like printing organic tissue in microgravity, organelles, I think they actually printed a meniscus on the International Space Station. So that's another revenue stream, growing perfect crystals. One of the things about perfect crystal in structures, you can grow them in microgravity and think of those as seeds so that if you down mass it, you can actually grow under the weight of gravity, a larger perfect crystal if you have a perfect crystal to start with. So there's all kinds of exotic revenue streams above and beyond just the tenancy and the research and co-owning the IP. What I think will happen eventually is Starlab will be built, it will fly. It will be full. We'll have hopefully multiple star labs. But I think eventually, the industry will have special purpose space stations one for space manufacturing, one for optical fiber and one for biopharma. I think that's ultimately where the industry goes. And yes, so we're excited about it. And again, I think it answers the question too, which a lot of you might be asked as well by people that are not focused on the industry like we are is why does space matter, right? And a lot of these things answer that because we go to space to benefit earth and a lot of these applications have direct applicability to making life on earth better.

Can we talk about this vision for multiple star labs? Yes, I think it's powerful. It's a big idea, but there's quite a few steps to get there. Maybe you can just sort of help us plug into that vision.

Yes. Well, I think, first of all, a lot of the NRE with any project will be retired on unit 1. So if we build a second, the cost is probably 60% of the first. And if we build a third, it's probably 35% of the first. So you get huge economic benefit. One of the big costs in space stations is resupply. And so if you cluster these if they're nearby, you can actually do your resupply and resupply multiple stations during the same trip. So that reduces the overall cost of resupply per unit. So I think that's really exciting as well. Yes, so I think, look, the analogy I use is launch. SpaceX, when they were doing reusable rockets and building that, I remember having conversations with people in the industry, and they said, well, Dylan, look, it's great that they're doing this. But what is SpaceX going to do? Because they're going to launch in January and February. And then the other 10 months of the year, they're not going to have anything to launch because everything is going to be launched to orbit. It's like what are they going to do with the other 10 months of the year? And I'm like, no, no, that's not the way it works. The fact that we have this capability, you're going to have a lot more demand, and we're going to have much more constellations. And instead of sending 400 satellites up a year, we're going to send 4,000 satellites up a year. Of course, now we're sending 20,000 satellites a year, and Elon's talking about 1 million satellites, which seems like a lot. So it's a situation where supply is not addressing demand, supply is creating demand. It's very similar with space stations. The reason more microgravity research doesn't happen, the reason more space flights don't happen, the reason we're not manufacturing in space is because it's supply constrained. And even if you can get the supply, it's 2 years to do a mission. You've got to go through the ISS National Laboratory System. You got to get manifested. You need to have astronaut time. There's a lot of friction. And oh by the way, if you pull off all of that, then you have to go co-own your IP with the government agency as well. So I think once you have a commercial model, it unlocks a lot of these opportunities.

Yes. If we could circle back to the acquisition strategy a bit. you mentioned a couple of deals that you've done sort of right out of the gate. Just plug us into the thought process there. And how do you think about collaboration versus M&A because you're also very collaborative in many things.

We like partnerships a lot. We definitely see a world where partnerships augment our growth and our strategy. Acquisitions, I think, are really interesting. We don't typically participate in auctions, as I mentioned earlier. These are definitely cultivated deals where we've gotten to know the principles. They believe in what we're doing. They're excited about what we're doing. If they wanted to monetize at the highest dollar value, they would run a process, but that's not really what they're looking for. They're looking to be part of a larger mission to work on something that they're excited and proud about leaning into the future. So believe it or not, there are a lot of companies that fall into that category that don't want to sell to a financial sponsor. They don't want to go in alone. So we're cultivating those. We're trying to be very disciplined in terms of accretive M&A, but also very disciplined in terms of the areas that we're expanding into, whether it's propulsion or space station supply chain, things like that. I anticipate we'll continue to do a couple of deals a year, not because we have to, but because that's what we're seeing. We have a very robust pipeline. But I want to really emphasize, we have a very robust organic growth engine, and we think of M&A as supplementing that. I really want to emphasize that point.

Yes. Could you just elaborate a little bit on the pipeline aspect? You mentioned 1 to 2 a year, I sort of get that. What does the biz dev look like? And are there any scenarios where there's a deal that's a bit more transformational for any reason?

I wouldn't rule it out. I wouldn't -- we're not focused on kind of bet the farm merger type deals, but we return all phone calls. You don't say that. We're good fiduciaries. I would say the M&A pipeline is very robust. Our M&A team is led by one of our co-founders was former Goldman private equity. So we have a very competent internal M&A team. I think it's some of the best people in the industry, frankly. So that team is very, very good. And they're good at not only cultivating the pipeline, but I think analyzing the pipeline and moving deals forward that makes sense. So yes, we're very active in the market. I think we have roughly 50-plus companies in our M&A pipeline right now, but we have a pretty strict filter on that. So we're not just -- we're not doing deals just to do deals. We're pretty picky with the way we approach it.

Yes. No, that's helpful context. I think you're probably a little less sensitive to this question than other companies, but we have been asking a lot of the defense players that are at our conference about supply chain issues, particularly with rare earth metals, anything in the supply chain that where accessibility is difficult? Is there anything that you would flag as a concern or a consideration in the conversations that you have?

Yes, I would say, so it's not so much supply chain, it's manufacturing at rate, right? And I think we do a lot of radiation hard and electronics. We do optical comms. We do, I would say, integrated electronics that are meant to be robust on orbit. A lot of that stuff is pretty bespoke, and it's difficult to manufacture that rate. And so I think that's one thing that we're focused on. It's not so much a supply chain issue as it is. I think the new term that I've been hearing a lot is industrial capacity, which isn't necessarily a supply chain issue. It's more a manufacturing technology issue. So that is something we're focused on. We announced a big initiative to invest in a facility in Southern Colorado near Pueblo. And in part, we're doing that because we're really anticipating these larger volumes on missile defense, on energetics, and we want to make sure we have the manufacturing capability to not only satisfy the current demand, but larger demand in the future.

That's great. 1 We've got a couple of minutes left, and I've got sort of one last question really, which is just plug us into the next 10-year vision for the company. I mean there's so much going on. It's such a big idea. Just help us see the world the way that you see it.

Yes. I think it's really, really, really important that we win the 3Ls. So we want to be the leader in commercializing low earth orbit, full stop. So when you think about low earth orbit, we want Voyager to be the preeminent name, full stop. In lunar, I think we have a very important role to play. Elon and others are focused on data management, space manufacturing, energy generation. Where we want to play is in lunar habitat. So we announced a program partnership with Max Space around inflatable technology. So that's one area that we want to play. And then the third is these Lagrangian points, which have national security implications, but then also very much space, deep space implications as well. So we have this 3L strategy, but the near-term one that I really want to emphasize is within 10 years, we'll have multiple star labs on orbit in low earth orbit, and we will be the market leader in the commercialization of LEO. I think that's absolutely critical. And then on the defense tech side, I think if we're not seen as the preeminent prime on defense tech, especially as it relates to missile defense, I would be very disappointed.

Well, that's a big idea. That's a big vision. Dylan, thank you for joining us today. We really appreciate it, and thank you in the audience as well.

Thank you, John. Thank you.