🚀 Weekly Space Industry Update: Budget Battles, Satellite Shakeups, and Yes, Space Sneakers

Anoth­er week, anoth­er set of game-chang­ing devel­op­ments in the space indus­try. From the Space Force poten­tial­ly dou­bling its bud­get to NATO final­ly embrac­ing com­mer­cial space capa­bil­i­ties, the sec­tor con­tin­ues its rapid transformation.

Space Force Bud­get Gets Mas­sive Boost Through Cre­ative Accounting

The Space Force could be on the brink of a finan­cial wind­fall if Con­gress gives the nod. A poten­tial $40 bil­lion bud­get for 2026 is on the table — near­ly dou­ble the cur­rent bud­get. The Pen­ta­gon is employ­ing some cre­ative account­ing with what it’s call­ing ‘one bud­get, two bills,’ split­ting $26.1 bil­lion in tra­di­tion­al fund­ing with an addi­tion­al $13.8 bil­lion through a rec­on­cil­i­a­tion pack­age. This $40 bil­lion bud­get does­n’t even include the extra $25 bil­lion ear­marked for the Gold­en Dome. How­ev­er, here’s the catch: if this rec­on­cil­i­a­tion bill does­n’t pass, there will be no Plan B. It’s a high-stakes gam­ble, even by Wash­ing­ton standards.

SpaceX’s Starshield Pro­gram Shakes Up Mil­i­tary Satel­lite Industry

Speak­ing of the Space Force, they have just paused buy­ing new satel­lites for their Pro­lif­er­at­ed Warfight­er Space Archi­tec­ture. Why? They’re eye­ing SpaceX’s Starshield pro­gram, essen­tial­ly a mil­i­ta­rized ver­sion of Star­link. We’re talk­ing about swap­ping 140 planned satel­lites for 480 Starshield birds.

This move has tra­di­tion­al satel­lite man­u­fac­tur­ers on edge. The large Fed­er­al Ser­vice Inte­gra­tors have been ramp­ing up their pro­duc­tion lines in antic­i­pa­tion of steady gov­ern­ment con­tracts, and now SpaceX’s Starshield pro­gram could dis­rupt their plans. It’s a clas­sic case of dis­rup­tion, but when it involves your nation­al secu­ri­ty infra­struc­ture, the stakes are high­er than in an aver­age tech start­up battle.

NATO Final­ly Gets Seri­ous About Com­mer­cial Space

NATO just dropped its new Com­mer­cial Space Strat­e­gy, and it’s about time. The alliance is final­ly rec­og­niz­ing that it can no longer rely sole­ly on gov­ern­ment satel­lites. They’re cre­at­ing a “Front Door” for ven­dors (sound famil­iar? That’s straight from the U.S. Space Force play­book) and push­ing mem­bers to invest in dual-use capabilities.

The strat­e­gy encour­ages flex­i­ble con­tract­ing to work with small­er com­pa­nies and even floats the idea of a civ­il space reserve—think of it like call­ing up the Nation­al Guard, but for satel­lites. It is a smart move, con­sid­er­ing how space has become crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture for every­thing from GPS to mil­i­tary communications.

Pri­vate Space Com­pa­nies Mak­ing Big Moves

The com­mer­cial sec­tor is buzzing with excite­ment. Xona Space Sys­tems has raised a stag­ger­ing $92 mil­lion to devel­op its ‘unhack­able’ GPS alter­na­tive. Their Pul­sar con­stel­la­tion, which will orbit 40 times clos­er to Earth than tra­di­tion­al GPS satel­lites, promis­es sig­nals that are 100 times stronger and sig­nif­i­cant­ly hard­er to jam. With the increas­ing con­cern over GPS vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties, such as the recent case of Russ­ian jam­ming in Ukraine, this devel­op­ment could be a game-chang­er in the industry.

Mean­while, Lux Aeter­na emerged from stealth with $4 mil­lion to devel­op reusable satel­lite bus­es. Their plan? Launch a satel­lite, bring it back to Earth with a para­chute, refur­bish it, and launch it again. If they can pull it off, it could dra­mat­i­cal­ly cut costs for cer­tain missions.

And in the “only in 2025” cat­e­go­ry, OrbitsEdge is send­ing an AI shoe design­er to space. Yes, you read that right. They’re part­ner­ing with Syn­ti­lay to cre­ate the first sneak­ers designed in orbit. It’s part mar­ket­ing stunt, part tech­nol­o­gy demon­stra­tion for their space-based com­put­ing platform.

Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ments Heat Up

Chi­na is keep­ing pace with anoth­er suc­cess­ful space­walk at its Tian­gong sta­tion. Two astro­nauts spent over six hours installing debris shields and con­duct­ing inspec­tions. It’s rou­tine stuff, but every suc­cess­ful oper­a­tion adds to their grow­ing space capabilities.

Swe­den and the U.S. just signed a Tech­nol­o­gy Safe­guards Agree­ment, clear­ing the way for Fire­fly Aero­space to launch from Swedish soil as ear­ly as 2026. This agree­ment makes Swe­den the first Euro­pean coun­try to host U.S. com­mer­cial launches—a sig­nif­i­cant devel­op­ment for access to polar orbit.

Less pos­i­tive news from our neigh­bors to the south: Mex­i­co’s pres­i­dent is threat­en­ing to sue SpaceX over Star­ship debris that land­ed in Mex­i­can ter­ri­to­ry. SpaceX claims the debris is harm­less, but inter­na­tion­al rela­tions and rock­et parts don’t mix well.

Last Week’s Real­i­ty Checks

Not every­thing was smooth sail­ing. The Explo­ration Com­pa­ny’s reen­try cap­sule test was only “par­tial­ly suc­cess­ful” — space indus­try speak for “it crashed.” They lost com­mu­ni­ca­tion before the splash­down, like­ly los­ing the capsule.

Japan’s iSpace deter­mined the cause of its sec­ond lunar lan­der crash — a faulty laser rangefind­er that failed to func­tion until it was too late. They’re adding more sen­sors for their next attempt in 2027. Some­times, the best lessons come from failure.

Look­ing Ahead

The indus­try is at an inflec­tion point. We’re see­ing tra­di­tion­al defense con­trac­tors wor­ried about SpaceX’s dom­i­nance, new play­ers bring­ing inno­v­a­tive solu­tions to old prob­lems, and inter­na­tion­al coop­er­a­tion expand­ing even as ten­sions rise in oth­er areas.

The big ques­tion isn’t whether com­mer­cial space will trans­form nation­al secu­ri­ty — it’s how quick­ly it’ll hap­pen and who will be left stand­ing when the dust set­tles. With bud­gets grow­ing, tech­nol­o­gy advanc­ing, and new play­ers enter­ing the field every week, the next few years are poised to be an excit­ing time.

Keep your eyes on the skies, folks. The space indus­try isn’t just reach­ing for the stars any­more — it’s fun­da­men­tal­ly reshap­ing how we think about secu­ri­ty, com­merce, and even sneak­er design.

June 30, 2025

Posted in Space.