Dear Reader,
Early this morning my team and I gathered by phone as we always do to review the day ahead and stay on top of the business here at Brownstone Research. But this day was special.
I shared my computer screen with the team, and we were able to watch the live launch of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover on top of an Atlas V rocket at 7:50 a.m. ET.
Perseverance’s Launch
Source: NASA
The weather couldn’t have been better, and it was a picture-perfect launch. Perseverance is now officially on its way to Mars. As you’ll read below, this is an extraordinary moment, as there are now three different missions en route to Mars, from three different countries, all at the same time.
Is it a coincidence? Not at all.
All three launches were scheduled to take advantage of a rare window that only happens every two years. It’s the moment when Mars and Earth are closest together.
This allows spacecraft to get to Mars more efficiently – with less fuel and in a shorter time period. That said, Perseverance and the other two spacecraft still have a 309-million-mile journey ahead of them.
All of the spacecraft will arrive in February, which will be action-packed in terms of space exploration. We have a lot to look forward to.
Let’s hope for three successful missions.
Continuing our discussion of space, China just launched its first mission to Mars a few days ago using a Long March-5 rocket. Its goal is to put a rover on the surface of the Red Planet. If successful, China will be just the third country (behind the U.S. and Russia) to land on Mars.
China’s Rover Launch
Source: Zuma Press
It will take China’s spacecraft about seven months to get to Mars. The rover should touch down on the surface in February of next year.
And that means China’s rover will likely land just a few days before NASA’s Perseverance rover.
We talked about Perseverance earlier this month. That launch just happened this morning, as I mentioned above. The rover is scheduled to land on Mars on February 18, 2021. Its mission is to look for life and water on or beneath the surface of Mars.
And guess who else is going to Mars?
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) launched its first mission to Mars a few days ago. This is the UAE’s first interplanetary mission ever. It launched its probe from a Japanese launch center using a Mitsubishi rocket.
And that means the UAE’s craft is going to put itself into orbit around Mars next February also. Its goal is simply to do climate and atmospheric research.
So we are going to have three different spacecraft arriving at Mars within days of one another. That’s certainly never happened before.
And that can only mean that the new space race is upon us. It’s game on.
As I have said before, we are witnessing the dawn of a golden age of space exploration right now. I’m excited about the pipeline of private space technology companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, Relativity Space, and Axiom Space that are innovating in an industry long left to legacy players.
These companies are turning the industry on its head and doing incredible things faster, better, and cheaper than we’ve ever seen before.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems recently raised $84 million in a Series A2 venture capital (VC) round. We talk about VC rounds frequently in these pages, but this one is especially noteworthy. Why?
This money will be used to develop and build a nuclear fusion reactor.
Not to be confused with nuclear fission – the kind of nuclear energy the world has used to produce baseload power – nuclear fusion is the technology that can help meet the world’s clean energy requirements. It can operate 24 hours a day under any conditions and produces little or no radioactive byproducts.
First conceived in 1920 by British astrophysicist Arthur Eddington, nuclear fusion is simply the energy that powers the Sun.
More specifically, nuclear fusion is the combination, at very high temperatures, of two separate nuclei to form a new nucleus. In that process, huge amounts of energy are released.
The Sun combines atoms of hydrogen to form helium atoms plus energy. That energy travels all the way to Earth to provide the light and heat that we need to survive. (For anybody who’d like a more detailed explanation of nuclear fusion, please download this free research report.)
Nuclear fusion offers limitless clean energy. And Commonwealth Fusion Systems plans to bring it to us by 2025.
I met some members of the Commonwealth Fusion Systems team not too long ago at a small, private conference. The company was spun out of MIT, and it is making amazing progress. It plans to pick a site for its first nuclear fusion reactor later this year.
From there, the team’s goal is to have the reactor producing “net energy production” by 2025. That term refers to the point when the reactor’s energy output exceeds the energy input needed to run the fusion reactor.
More output than input is why nuclear fusion can provide unlimited clean energy. When this happens, energy costs will plummet. And equally important, carbon emissions will do the same.
This Series A2 funding round will help Commonwealth Fusion complete the technical development of its reactor. I expect the company will raise more capital next year to finance the construction of the reactor itself.
And it won’t have any problem raising as much money as it needs.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems is backed by several big VC firms as well as two multinational energy conglomerates, Equinor and Eni. Plus, the company is backed by several divisions of the U.S. government and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund.
Commonwealth’s approach is a very practical and useful. It is designing a compact nuclear fusion reactor that can be used the world over for industrial settings as well as residential areas.
If we think about all the problems that come with other forms of energy – geopolitical tensions surrounding oil and environmental issues from coal – nuclear fusion technology solves these problems for good.
As we are only a few years away from what I predict will be the world’s first net energy-producing nuclear fusion reactor, I believe that venture funding in this space is set to rapidly increase. Fortunes are going to be made by the company, or companies, that develop nuclear fusion reactors.
I plan on making sure my subscribers are well-positioned when that happens.
3GPP is the industry body that develops standards for new wireless technology. These standards are typically developed over time based on technological developments and input from companies in the industry.
3GPP just put out “Release 16” – the latest standards for 5G wireless technology. This release contains the next batch of standards that will make 5G relevant not just for mobile phones but also for more industrial applications.
One of the big developments in Release 16 is standards for vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technology. This refers to vehicles that are connected to infrastructure and other vehicles or pedestrians on the road.
For example, self-driving cars will be able to connect in real time to sensors along the highway that will help them navigate safely.
They will also be able to communicate with other self-driving cars on the road so that they keep a proper distance between each other and, if necessary, signal any changes in traffic. And self-driving cars may even connect to smartphones so that they know where pedestrians are at all times.
Release 16 also talks about 5G for industrial uses. If we think about an industrial site, 5G will allow all construction equipment to be connected and monitored from a central location. This will enable some construction vehicles to perform their tasks autonomously with input from a human controller only when necessary.
And that’s not all. Release 16 also enables 5G to be used over the unlicensed spectrum. This paves the way for private 5G networks.
This will allow first responder networks to be set up to serve specific geographic areas. It will allow small municipalities to launch their own 5G networks. It will allow companies to set up their own private 5G networks. And there will be plenty of military applications for private 5G networks as well.
Finally, Release 16 addresses latency, reliability, and improved power consumption.
Specifically, these standards enable latency of less than 1 millisecond. That’s critical for certain applications that require real-time communication with absolutely no delays.
And Release 16 enables 99.999% reliability. That’s also important for critical time-sensitive applications.
With Release 16, 5G technology has the standards in place for just about any application suitable for 5G. Essentially, the final pieces are in place now for widespread deployments and applications leveraging 5G wireless technology.
And between now and 2030, we can expect Release 17 late next year and then Releases 18–20 after that. These releases will lead up to 6G. That’s right. By 2030, we’ll be talking about the migration from 5G to 6G wireless technology. And yes, it will be that much more advanced compared to 5G.
But for now, as investors, we’re going to keep our eye on the ball and focus on profiting from the best-positioned companies that stand to benefit from the 5G wireless boom.
Regards,
Jeff Brown
Editor, The Bleeding Edge
P.S. Don’t forget about my first-ever biotechnology master class taking place next Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET.
As we have been discussing in these pages, this is a break-out year for the biotech industry, and that is paving the way for the 2020s to be the decade of biotech.
Fortunes will be made on the world’s best biotechnology companies in the years ahead. We’ll see regular investors make life-changing gains in this space. We’ll see new biotech-focused VC funds and hedge funds spring up like wildflowers to capitalize on this trend.
And we are going to be there every step of the way.
That’s why I have decided to host a biotech master class on August 5 at 8 p.m. ET. I have never done anything like this before.
During the event, I’ll take you to the biotech capital of the world and show you what’s in store for this sector. I’ll also release the details of my No. 1 biotech stock to own today. Based on my analysis, this stock could 10X in the coming weeks after it releases news of a major breakthrough in the industry.
Oh, and the master class is 100% free. For investors who would like to join me, go right here to reserve your spot.
I hope to see you next week.
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The Bleeding Edge is the only free newsletter that delivers daily insights and information from the high-tech world as well as topics and trends relevant to investments.
The Bleeding Edge is the only free newsletter that delivers daily insights and information from the high-tech world as well as topics and trends relevant to investments.
