Momentus Receives Draft National Security Agreement
May 14, 2021
Momentus announced that it received a draft National Security Agreement (NSA) from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). The draft NSA specifies CFIUS’s proposed requirements to resolve its national security concerns about the foreign ownership and control of Momentus. Receiving the draft NSA is an important milestone toward overcoming a key issue that has delayed completion of Momentus’ proposed merger with Stable Road Acquisition Corp.
Momentus aims to be a
trusted partner to the U.S. government and has
taken swift action in response to government
concerns. The Company obtained the resignation
of its co-founder and former CEO and implemented
trust and voting arrangements to ensure that the
shares of its co-founders can only be voted by
U.S. citizens. The Company voluntarily filed for
CFIUS review to enable CFIUS and its member
agencies to scrutinize any and all records of
Momentus, and proactively proposed a U.S.
national security mitigation plan intended to
resolve the national security concerns that
CFIUS and its member agencies have raised.
"The receipt of the draft
NSA follows three months of extensive work by
the Momentus and SRAC teams," said Momentus
President Dr. Fred Kennedy. "The agreement will
build on the mitigation plan that we shared with
the Department of Defense and other CFIUS member
agencies back in February. Although there is no
assurance that the parties will reach agreement
on the final terms of the NSA, if and once
finalized, the NSA will document Momentus’
commitments to implement controls to ensure that
the national security concerns described by the
U.S. government as part of the CFIUS process are
resolved.”
Further interagency reviews
will still be required in order to obtain
required governmental approvals for Momentus’
planned missions. “We will work to finalize the
NSA as quickly as possible,” said Kennedy. “Once
finalized and executed, we hope the NSA will
allow the Federal Aviation Administration to
reconsider Momentus’ payload application so that
we may proceed with preparing for our inaugural
flight, which we hope to undertake later this
year. We’re eager to begin delivering on the
promise of our orbit-transfer and other in-space
infrastructure services, and we are committed to
working with the governing agencies who are
partners in this effort.”