May 2025 Space Update

The space indus­try is expe­ri­enc­ing one of the most trans­for­ma­tive peri­ods I’ve wit­nessed in my years in tech­nol­o­gy and defense. As some­one who’s spent con­sid­er­able time ana­lyz­ing mar­ket dynam­ics and strate­gic oppor­tu­ni­ties, I can tell you that what we’re see­ing today isn’t just incre­men­tal progress — it’s a fun­da­men­tal reshap­ing of how we approach space oper­a­tions, nation­al secu­ri­ty, and com­mer­cial oppor­tu­ni­ties beyond Earth­’s atmosphere.

Over the past 30 days alone, we’ve seen game-chang­ing acqui­si­tions, crit­i­cal gov­ern­ment fund­ing bat­tles, and tech­no­log­i­cal break­throughs that would have seemed like sci­ence fic­tion just a decade ago. From SpaceX’s relent­less push toward Mars to the Space Force’s strug­gle for ade­quate fund­ing amid grow­ing threats, the land­scape is shift­ing rapid­ly. And here’s what mat­ters for those of us in the busi­ness: these changes are cre­at­ing unprece­dent­ed oppor­tu­ni­ties for com­pa­nies that can move fast and think strategically.

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Launch Activ­i­ty & Technology

SpaceX Star­ship Progress: SpaceX con­duct­ed its ninth Star­ship test flight, mark­ing the first reuse of a Super Heavy boost­er. While the vehi­cle reached space suc­cess­ful­ly, it expe­ri­enced pro­pel­lant leaks and atti­tude con­trol issues, result­ing in an uncon­trolled reen­try. The com­pa­ny is push­ing hard toward a Mars mis­sion in late 2026, real­lo­cat­ing resources from oth­er pro­grams, such as the Drag­on pro­gram, to accel­er­ate Star­ship development.

GPS Con­stel­la­tion Updates: The Space Force has ordered two addi­tion­al GPS 3F satel­lites from Lock­heed Mar­tin for $509.7 mil­lion, with deliv­ery sched­uled for 2031. Addi­tion­al­ly, GPS 3 SV08 was launched on an accel­er­at­ed time­line to address grow­ing con­cerns about elec­tron­ic interference.

Inter­na­tion­al Launch Developments:

• Chi­na launched its first aster­oid sam­ple return mis­sion, Tianwen‑2, tar­get­ing the aster­oid Kamoʻoalewa
• Chi­nese start­up Sepoch suc­cess­ful­ly test­ed its reusable rock­et with a 2.5km hop test
• South Kore­a’s Unastel­la per­formed the coun­try’s first pri­vate launch

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Major Acqui­si­tions & Investments

Rock­et Lab’s Strate­gic Move: Rock­et Lab acquired Geost for $275 mil­lion, gain­ing elec­tro-opti­cal and IR sen­sor pay­load capa­bil­i­ties. CEO Peter Beck posi­tioned this as a key step toward becom­ing a “dis­rup­tive, non­tra­di­tion­al prime” defense contractor.

Oth­er Notable Deals:

• Northrop Grum­man invest­ed $50 mil­lion in Fire­fly Aero­space for their new Eclipse launch vehicle
• MDA Space announced plans to acquire Israeli satel­lite chip­mak­er Satix­Fy for C$387M
• Aether­flux raised a $50M Series A for space-based solar power
• EnduroSat secured $49M to scale satel­lite pro­duc­tion to 60 units per month

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Gov­ern­ment & Pol­i­cy Developments

Space Force Chal­lenges: Gen. Chance Saltz­man con­tin­ues to advo­cate for increased fund­ing, high­light­ing that despite grow­ing threats from Rus­sia and Chi­na, the Space Force received $28.7 bil­lion for FY2025, $300 mil­lion less than the pre­vi­ous year. The ser­vice is also los­ing 14% of its civil­ian work­force due to fed­er­al reduc­tion efforts.

Intel­li­gence Coor­di­na­tion: The Space Force and the Nation­al Geospa­tial-Intel­li­gence Agency (NGA) signed an agree­ment to clar­i­fy roles in satel­lite-based intel­li­gence deliv­ery, address­ing long­stand­ing turf wars. The Tac­SRT pro­gram has emerged as a key tool for rapid access to com­mer­cial imagery.

Gold­en Dome Ini­tia­tive: The mis­sile defense pro­gram con­tin­ues to gen­er­ate con­tro­ver­sy, with both Chi­nese and North Kore­an offi­cials express­ing con­cerns about poten­tial impli­ca­tions for a space arms race.

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Com­mer­cial Sec­tor Highlights

Satel­lite Communications:

• Lithuan­ian start­up Astro­light closed €2.8M for laser com­mu­ni­ca­tions net­work development
• Viasat con­tin­ues strug­gling against Star­link com­pe­ti­tion, with its mar­ket cap down 78% over the past five years
• SpaceX report­ed­ly offered Apple a $5 bil­lion exclu­sive Star­link deal, which Apple declined

Earth Obser­va­tion & Intelligence:

• Grow­ing demand for space-based mar­itime sur­veil­lance to counter ille­gal fish­ing and spoofing
• New wild­fire detec­tion con­stel­la­tions from Muon Space and OroraTech
• Spire emerged from finan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties with new lead­er­ship and a gov­ern­ment focus

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Infra­struc­ture & Sustainability

Lunar Devel­op­ment: Sier­ra Space has secured a $3.6 mil­lion NASA con­tract to study inflat­able habi­tat tech­nol­o­gy for lunar bases, focus­ing on the chal­leng­ing lunar envi­ron­ment, includ­ing sharp regolith and grav­i­ty considerations.

Space Debris Con­cerns: The UN released “When the Sky Falls,” a guide for nations deal­ing with falling space debris, as reen­try events become more com­mon with 261 launch­es and 2,437 satel­lites reg­is­tered in 2024.

Launch Site Plan­ning: Space Flori­da is devel­op­ing a mas­ter plan for Cape Canaver­al to man­age pro­ject­ed growth, with a goal of 130 launch­es by 2025, address­ing infra­struc­ture limitations.

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Look­ing Ahead

Key trends emerg­ing include:

• Increased focus on resilient mil­i­tary space capabilities
• Grow­ing inter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly from China
• Shift toward com­mer­cial solu­tions for gov­ern­ment needs
• Ris­ing impor­tance of space sus­tain­abil­i­ty and debris management
• Con­tin­ued pres­sure on tra­di­tion­al satel­lite oper­a­tors from LEO constellations

The indus­try con­tin­ues to under­go rapid evo­lu­tion, marked by record invest­ment lev­els, tech­no­log­i­cal break­throughs, and expand­ing mil­i­tary appli­ca­tions. How­ev­er, bud­get con­straints and work­force chal­lenges per­sist as ongo­ing con­cerns for gov­ern­ment programs.

June 3, 2025

Posted in Thoughts.