Wavestar Markets · Class IV RFQ-forward
Hosted-payload slots, cleared.
- 2030 addressable spend
- $4B
- Clearing take
- 2%
- Avg cleared slot
- 12 kg · $820k
- Settlement
- T+launch · staged escrow
What you trade
One slot × one bus × one mission-life month.
- 01
Unit of trade
1 slot × 1 bus × 1 mission-life month. Each slot carries a payload-mass envelope, volume envelope, power budget, thermal envelope, TX/RX data rate, pointing class, and orbit class. - 02
RFQ, not CLOB
Bespoke per-payload fit makes central limit order books impossible. The market runs RFQ — buyer describes the payload, multiple bus operators respond, best-terms wins. - 03
Staged escrow
30% on contract signing, 40% on integration milestone (environmental test pass), 30% on on-orbit handover. Each tranche releases on a signed milestone attestation. - 04
Handover attestation
Successful handover = first commissioned downlink signed by both bus operator and payload operator. The double-signed attestation closes the forward contract. - 05
Pointing class
Coarse (best-effort), standard (< 1° RMS), precision (< 100 arc-sec RMS), and specialist (< 10 arc-sec). Pointing class drives the largest price differential in the slot descriptor. - 06
Orbit class
SSO 500–700 km, LEO 420–550 km, MEO, GTO, GEO. Operators aggregate multi-slot manifests across named buses; the orbit class constrains which buses can match.
Contract specification
Slot (SLOT) · Rulebook exhibit 4.8.3.
SLOT · RFQ-forward contract
- Ticker
- SLOT · [bus] · [orbit-window]
- Unit of trade
- 1 bus slot · mass × power × pointing × duration
- Slot descriptors
- Mass · Volume · Power · Thermal · Data rate · Pointing · Orbit
Seven descriptors define a slot. Two slots that match on all seven are interchangeable in the RFQ book.
- Tick size
- $1,000 per slot
- Minimum block
- 1 slot
- Delivery window
- Named launch window ±30 days; named on-orbit handover ±14 days
- Delivery attestation
- Bus commissioning attestation + first commissioned downlink + payload operator signature
- Settlement
- Forward · T+launch · staged · USDC primary
- Initial margin
- 25%
Posted at contract signing. Reflects multi-year integration lead time.
- Variation margin band
- 8%
Monthly mark on cleared forward curve per orbit-class.
- Integration milestone
- Environmental test + interface verification + regulatory clearance
Signed by bus operator and independent integration auditor before the 40% tranche releases.
- Cancellation schedule
- Bus-side: 15% up to T-18mo; 30% T-18–12mo; 50% T-12–6mo; 100% T-6mo onward
Payload-side cancellation schedule mirrored with additional recovery terms. Full grid in the rulebook.
Bus operators
The cleared-bus roster.
- LOF
Loft Orbital
YAM-series buses running multi-tenant missions at SSO and LEO. Published rate card; Loft is the largest single listing source at market open. - APX
Apex Space
Aries, Nova, and Comet bus variants targeting precision-pointing Earth-observation and communications payloads. Strong precision-class slot inventory. - MUN
Muon Space
Halo buses sized for weather and climate payloads; high-thermal-envelope slots are a Muon specialism on the RFQ book. - SPR
Spire Global
LEMUR buses for low-bandwidth, coarse-pointing payloads. Volume driver on small-slot inventory. - OEM
OEM manifest participants
Traditional primes — Maxar, Airbus, Thales — list specialised large-mass slots once v2 rulebook extensions for > 50 kg payloads ratify. - BRK
Brokered slot aggregators
A new category. Brokers who pre-buy slot inventory across buses and resell into the RFQ book at standardised descriptors. Paid via mark-up rebate.
Market dynamics
RFQ with discovery price benchmarks.
- Reference price · 10kg · SSO
- $580k / slot
- Reference price · 10kg · GTO
- $1.8M / slot
- Active listings
- 0
- Avg RFQ-to-match
- 8 days
Rolling 30-day midpoint on standard-pointing SSO 500km 10kg slot class.
Precision-pointing GTO slots command 3x SSO pricing on cleared RFQ.
Design-partner month-18 target across four bus operators.
Target cleared-market response time. Bilateral today is typically 60–120 days.
Counterparties
Bus operators, payload integrators, brokers, regulators.
- Bus operator obligations
- Slot certification · integration schedule · handover attestation
Bus operators evidence vehicle authorisation and launch-manifest status at listing time.
- Payload operator obligations
- Acceptance spec · regulatory clearances · insurance
Payload operator holds FCC/ITU authorisations on their own frequency use; Wavestar checks against the registry.
- Integration audit
- Independent environmental-test verifier panel
Approved auditor signs the integration-milestone attestation that releases the 40% tranche.
- FAA / FCC / ITU
- Launch, authorisation, and coordination clearances reconciled before launch
Wavestar does not transfer authorisations; it mirrors filing state into the cleared contract record.
- Insurance
- Launch + first-year on-orbit · external carrier
Slot sellers carry standard hosted-payload insurance; buyer can elect to co-insure via panel.
Loft Orbital, Apex Space, Muon Space, Spire all publish rate cards. No shared marketplace; every deal is bespoke. The 1995 OTC bond market for buses.
Listings open · M4
List a slot. Match a payload. Clear on commissioning.
Design-partner bus operators list zero-fee through first ten cleared slots. Payload integrators receive one cleared-forward template that works across all four bus operators. Brokered listings launch in Q1 2027.