Breakdown of Q1 2025 Space Activities

The first quar­ter of 2025 has proven to be a water­shed moment in the space indus­try, marked by ground­break­ing achieve­ments and sober­ing set­backs. From SpaceX’s his­toric first polar crewed mis­sion to the evolv­ing land­scape of satel­lite com­mu­ni­ca­tions, the indus­try con­tin­ues its rapid trans­for­ma­tion. While estab­lished play­ers push the bound­aries of what’s possible—evidenced by 69 glob­al launch attempts in Q1 alone—newcomers like Isar Aero­space and tra­di­tion­al pow­er­hous­es like Blue Ori­gin remind us that the path to space remains chal­leng­ing. The peri­od has been par­tic­u­lar­ly notable for the shift­ing dynam­ics in satel­lite com­mu­ni­ca­tions. SpaceX’s Star­link con­stel­la­tion of 7,000+ satel­lites has forced tra­di­tion­al oper­a­tors to reimag­ine their busi­ness mod­els while nations from Chi­na to the Euro­pean Union race to estab­lish their space-based inter­net capa­bil­i­ties. As we wit­ness this accel­er­a­tion of space activ­i­ties, it’s becom­ing clear that the indus­try is not just evolving—it’s under­go­ing a fun­da­men­tal restruc­tur­ing that will define the next decade of space explo­ration and commercialization.

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1. Launch Activ­i­ties:

• A total of 69 glob­al launch attempts
• SpaceX dom­i­nat­ed with 38 launch­es (36 Fal­con, 2 Starship) 
  • 25 Star­link missions
  • 5 com­mer­cial launches
  • 4 gov­ern­ment satellites
  • 1 crew launch
  • 1 rideshare mission
• Notable set­backs:
  • Star­ship Flights 7 & 8 fail­ures (Jan­u­ary and March)
  • Fal­con 9 boost­er tip-over inci­dent (March 2)
• Blue Orig­in’s New Glenn suc­cess­ful maid­en flight (despite boost­er land­ing failure)
• Rock­et Lab: Record 5 Elec­tron launch­es from New Zealand
• Europe: Suc­cess­ful Ari­ane 6 com­mer­cial mission
• Isar Aero­space’s Spec­trum rock­et failed on its maid­en flight

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2. Satel­lite Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Indus­try:

• Major dis­rup­tion from Star­link (7,000+ satel­lites) and upcom­ing Kuiper
• Indus­try shift toward 5G integration
• EU is devel­op­ing an $11.1B IRIS² constellation
• Chi­na launched satel­lites for the Guowang and Thou­sand Sails constellations
• Aus­tralia can­celed a $5B mil­i­tary satel­lite program

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3. Notable Mis­sions:

• First-ever polar crewed mis­sion (Fram2) by SpaceX
• Chi­nese Yao­gan con­stel­la­tion reorganization
• Space Force prepar­ing Tetra‑5 and Tetra‑6 satel­lite refu­el­ing experiments
• NASA astro­nauts com­plet­ed an extend­ed 9‑month ISS mission

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4. Com­mer­cial Space Devel­op­ments:

• Air­bus pur­chased 100 Astroscale dock­ing plates
• Gravitics won a $60M Space Force con­tract for Orbital Carrier
• Increased focus on space debris mit­i­ga­tion and satel­lite servicing
• Growth in com­mer­cial space ser­vices for mil­i­tary applications

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5. Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ments:

• Viet­nam-approved Star­link ser­vices (lim­it­ed to 600,000 subscribers)
• Euro­pean space launch capa­bil­i­ty show­ing signs of recovery
• China’s advanc­ing domes­tic satel­lite inter­net capabilities
• Kore­an Aero­space Asso­ci­a­tion fac­ing tal­ent acqui­si­tion challenges

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6. NASA Astro­naut Return

• Astro­nauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore returned after a 9‑month ISS stay
• The mis­sion was extend­ed from the planned 1 week due to Star­lin­er space­craft issues

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7. Space Force Activ­i­ties Q1 2025

• Received $40 mil­lion for com­mer­cial sur­veil­lance, recon­nais­sance, and track­ing services
• Addi­tion­al fund­ing spread across bud­get lines for com­mer­cial services
• Accel­er­at­ing efforts for small­er, dis­trib­uted satel­lites from non-tra­di­tion­al contractors

CASR Pro­gram:

• Launched Com­mer­cial Aug­men­ta­tion Space Reserve program
• The first four com­pa­nies signed agree­ments on March 1
• Com­pa­nies’ iden­ti­ties are kept con­fi­den­tial for security
• Ini­tial three-month pilot focus­ing on space domain awareness
• The pro­gram includes “surge” options for cri­sis scenarios

Satel­lite Refu­el­ing Ini­tia­tive:

• Prepar­ing Tetra‑5 and Tetra‑6 experiments
• Part­ner­ing with Astroscale, Northrop Grum­man, and Orbit Fab
• Tetra‑5 sched­uled for 2026 launch
• Tetra‑6 planned for 2027
• Aimed at assess­ing in-space logis­tics indus­try viability

Tech­nol­o­gy Demon­stra­tions:

• Sier­ra Space demon­strat­ed Resilient GPS (R‑GPS) technology
• Sup­port­ing com­mer­cial space inte­gra­tion into mil­i­tary networks
• Focus on enhanc­ing space resilience against poten­tial adversaries

Com­mer­cial Inte­gra­tion:

• Work­ing through COMSO (Com­mer­cial Space Office) to bridge com­mer­cial and mil­i­tary needs
• The Front Door pro­gram has attract­ed over 800 vendors
• Empha­sis on hybrid space archi­tec­tures blend­ing gov­ern­ment and pri­vate-sec­tor capabilities

April 5, 2025

Posted in Thoughts.