Oman signs deal with companies to build and launch its first probe beyond Earth orbit

Capitalism in space: The Sultanate of Oman has finalized an agreement to have the Polish company SatRevolution build its first probe to go beyond Earth orbit and have Virgin Orbit launch it.

The target beyond Earth and the missions specific goals has not yet been determined, though the goal is to launch it before the end of ’24.

This agreement is in a addition to an earlier agreement by the same entities to build and launch Oman’s first satellite, set to launch from an airport runway in Cornwall, Great Britain, sometime later this year.

What this agreement tells us that there is money to be made building spacecraft and launching them. Oman wants to have its own space program, like its neighbor the United Arab Emirates (UAE), but like the UAE it does not have the aerospace industry to make that possible. The solution? Hire the skillsets of private companies, in this case from the U.S. and Poland.