VinSpace, a Vietnamese space startup that did not exist a year ago, has signed a contract with SpaceX to send its first home-built satellites into orbit in 2027. That a property-and-retail empire is now dabbling in orbital hardware says a good deal about how Vietnam’s space ambitions are being paid for. The country is not starting from nothing, having put telecommunications satellites into orbit back in 2008 and 2012, though the pace has quickened sharply of late. Emerging economies have increasingly come to lean on SpaceX for cheap, reliable access to orbit, because building a domestic rocket programme is ruinously expensive and the alternatives remain few. Whether VinSpace’s debut satellites amount to a genuine technological leap or a well-funded proof of concept will not be clear until they are actually circling the Earth in 2027.