Alright Uncle Bob, picture this. You’ve got a company, Spire Global, that decides the best way to show the world they’re serious about growth is by selling off the only part of their business that actually made money, the maritime division. Like someone selling the only working car in the garage so they can invest in building a spaceship out of plywood and ambition. But don’t worry, they spun this as a “transformative milestone.” Debt-free, baby. No income stream? Eh, just details.

Now that they’ve cut off the steady revenue arm, Spire’s new strategy is to fully embrace the art of speculative optimism. They’re now all-in on space services, which is a fancy way of saying they rent out their satellites to anyone who wants to collect obscure data or run niche analytics from orbit. Weather data, aircraft path tracking, random radio signals picked up from space, if you can dream it, they’ll tell you how their constellation can help. And when I say “constellation,” I don’t mean stars. I mean their tiny satellites zipping around Earth collecting bits of information that hopefully, someone will find useful enough to pay for.

They’ve started talking about a new sensor, called a hyperspectral microwave sounder that can supposedly see through clouds and give detailed atmospheric data. Very useful for forecasting and very impressive to throw around in investor decks. It’s not really in space yet, but they’ve done flight tests, and if all goes well, the thing might launch in 2026. So no, it’s not making money yet. But you better believe they’re banking on it like it’s already a line item in next year’s Christmas budget.

Now let’s talk about that big, juicy contract they just signed. It’s an eight-figure deal, which sounds huge until they casually mention that revenue recognition won’t happen until 12 to 18 months from now. Because apparently, you don’t actually get to count the money until the satellite is up and running and doing its thing. So really, it’s a promise wrapped in red tape. They’ll get dribs and drabs of payments along the way to help keep the lights on, but don’t expect a windfall anytime soon.

Their aviation side of things is also getting some action. They’ve launched a tool that shows where planes might’ve flown through bad weather, turbulence, or volcanic ash. They claim it’s going to be a hit with insurers and aircraft lessors. It probably will be, assuming those groups actually want to know how often their jets get beat up by the skies. In the meantime, Spire is also pitching to governments worldwide, showing off their shiny new capability to pick up publicly broadcast voice transmissions from orbit, run it through AI, and spit out a summary. That’s right, Uncle Bob, we’re talking about eavesdropping on boat radio traffic from space and turning it into digestible intelligence for defense agencies. And apparently that’s the kind of innovation NATO’s space strategy wants more of.

They’ve got a government hook, that’s for sure. They’re counting on deals from NASA, ESA, NOAA, and NATO to make the revenue line go up again. They even mentioned being pleasantly surprised by all the inbound interest they’re getting, especially in their radio-frequency geolocation offerings. Which, if we’re being honest, feels a little like saying the garage is getting a lot of foot traffic after putting out a flyer that says “free stuff inside.”

Financially, things are still rough. They’re reporting around $18 to $19 million in revenue for Q2, down from over $25 million last year. But it’s okay because they’ve still got over $117 million in cash, and they swear they’ll have more than $100 million left by the end of the year. What they don’t say quite as loudly is that they’re burning about $17 million in the second half to get there.

Oh, and their 10-Q is late because they still haven’t found a new independent auditor. That’s right. The company dealing in sensitive government contracts and high-precision orbital data is out here flipping through the Yellow Pages trying to find someone to check their books.

All of this to say, Spire isn’t so much running a space company as they are curating a collection of space-adjacent PowerPoint slides. They’ve got buzzwords. They’ve got acronyms. They’ve got sensors that almost work and contracts that almost pay. What they don’t have yet is a consistent, dependable stream of revenue to justify the market chatter.

But they’re hopeful. So hopeful.

And as long as hope is still legal tender in this economy, Spire’s got at least one foot off the launch pad.