Space Industry Cheat Sheet: Germany’s Bold $41B Bet, Maxar’s Identity Crisis, and China’s Growing Ambitions

Good morn­ing, every­one. Austin here with your week­ly space indus­try cheat sheet. From mas­sive defense invest­ments to cor­po­rate rebrand­ing and some explo­sive set­backs, the space sec­tor con­tin­ues to evolve at break­neck speed. Let’s dive into the sto­ries that caught my attention.

Germany Drops a Space Defense Bombshell

The biggest news this week came from Berlin, where Defense Min­is­ter Boris Pis­to­rius announced Ger­many will invest a stag­ger­ing €35 bil­lion ($41 bil­lion) in mil­i­tary space capa­bil­i­ties by 2030. That’s $8 bil­lion per year, folks – four times their annu­al civ­il space budget.

Com­pared to Poland, which has already made con­sid­er­able strides in its space spend­ing (please fol­low Pawel Fleish­er for updates on Poland and NATO’s indus­tri­al base), Ger­many is essen­tial­ly say­ing, “We’re not play­ing around any­more” when it comes to space-based defense. The invest­ment will focus on satel­lite con­stel­la­tions for ear­ly warn­ing, recon­nais­sance, and com­mu­ni­ca­tions, as well as a ded­i­cat­ed mil­i­tary satel­lite oper­a­tions center.

What real­ly inter­ests me is how this could reshape the Euro­pean space land­scape. Ger­man com­pa­nies like OHB are obvi­ous win­ners, but I’m close­ly watch­ing star­tups like Isar Aero­space and Rock­et Fac­to­ry Augs­burg. With Ari­ane­space’s lim­it­ed launch slots, Ger­many will need to devel­op domes­tic launch capa­bil­i­ties – and that presents an opportunity.

Maxar’s Identity Split: Meet Vantor and Lanteris

In a move that was frankly over­due, the two Maxar busi­ness­es final­ly gained dis­tinct iden­ti­ties. Maxar Intel­li­gence is now Van­tor, while Maxar Space Sys­tems becomes Lanteris. Hav­ing dealt with the con­fu­sion of “which Maxar are you talk­ing about?”, this rebrand makes per­fect sense.

Van­tor’s piv­ot from pure satel­lite imagery to a soft­ware and intel­li­gence solu­tions com­pa­ny reflects where the mar­ket’s head­ing. Their new Ten­sor­globe plat­form, fea­tur­ing auto­mat­ed col­lec­tion plan­ning and 3D mod­el­ing capa­bil­i­ties, demon­strates that they’re think­ing beyond just sell­ing pic­tures. Mean­while, Lanteris is rid­ing high with six World­View Legion satel­lites in orbit and a 50/50 split between com­mer­cial and gov­ern­ment business.

Golden Dome’s Trillion-Dollar Reality Check

Remem­ber when I men­tioned the Gold­en Dome mis­sile defense sys­tem might be expen­sive? Well, Todd Har­ri­son from AEI just put a num­ber on it: $3.6 tril­lion over 20 years. His “Defense Futures Sim­u­la­tor” sug­gests we’d need 250,000 space-based inter­cep­tors for glob­al cov­er­age against hyper­son­ic threats.

The Space Force is already mov­ing for­ward, seek­ing pro­pos­als for satel­lite anten­nas that can com­mu­ni­cate with SpaceX’s Star­link con­stel­la­tion for Gold­en Dome demon­stra­tions. They want com­pact, low-pow­er radios ready for orbit with­in 12 months. The inte­gra­tion with com­mer­cial sys­tems, such as Star­link, demon­strates how mil­i­tary space is evolv­ing beyond tra­di­tion­al pro­cure­ment models.

China’s Space Ambitions Heat Up

While we’re focused on West­ern devel­op­ments, Chi­na isn’t stand­ing still. Galac­tic Ener­gy just raised $336 mil­lion – Chi­na’s largest dis­closed launch start­up fund­ing round. They’re push­ing hard on their Pal­las reusable rock­ets, with Pallas‑2 tar­get­ing an aggres­sive 2026 debut, boast­ing a capac­i­ty of up to 58,000 kg.

More inter­est­ing is Chi­na’s appar­ent shift in space traf­fic coor­di­na­tion. At the Inter­na­tion­al Astro­nau­ti­cal Con­gress, NASA offi­cials con­firmed that Chi­na is now com­mu­ni­cat­ing about poten­tial col­li­sions. The Chi­na Nation­al Space Admin­is­tra­tion recent­ly warned NASA about a close approach and planned maneu­ver – a marked change from years of radio silence. Chi­nese oper­a­tors are even reach­ing out to OneWeb and SpaceX about conjunctions.

Firefly’s Setback and Industry Resilience

Not all news was pos­i­tive. Fire­fly Aero­space suf­fered a major set­back when its Alpha rock­et’s boost­er stage explod­ed dur­ing test­ing in Texas. This was sup­posed to be their return-to-flight vehi­cle after April’s upper stage fail­ure. While no one was hurt, it serves as a reminder that even with all our advances, rock­et sci­ence remains unforgiving.

But the indus­try’s resilience shines through. Blue Ori­gin is prepar­ing for its sec­ond New Glenn launch with con­fi­dence that they’ll recov­er the boost­er this time. SpaceX is push­ing toward its Octo­ber 13 Star­ship test with new heat shield exper­i­ments. Even Europe is think­ing big, with ESA and Avio start­ing work on a reusable upper stage – their own mini-Star­ship concept.

The Bigger Picture

What strikes me this week is how the space indus­try is simul­ta­ne­ous­ly glob­al­iz­ing and frag­ment­ing. Ger­many’s mas­sive invest­ment, Chi­na’s grow­ing capa­bil­i­ties, and the push for domes­tic launch capa­bil­i­ties world­wide demon­strate that nations want their own access to space. Yet we’re also see­ing unprece­dent­ed coop­er­a­tion – from Chi­na’s new­found open­ness in com­mu­ni­ca­tion to inter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships on com­mer­cial space stations.

The cor­po­rate land­scape is evolv­ing, too. Albe­do Space’s piv­ot from imagery to VLEO satel­lite bus­es shows how com­pa­nies are find­ing their nich­es. Their Clarity‑1 satel­lite is per­form­ing 12% bet­ter than expect­ed in very low Earth orbit, open­ing new pos­si­bil­i­ties for defense and com­mer­cial missions.

Look­ing ahead, sev­er­al trends are clear:

  • Defense spend­ing will dri­ve sig­nif­i­cant growth, espe­cial­ly in Europe
  • Com­mer­cial-mil­i­tary inte­gra­tion is accel­er­at­ing (see Star­link-Gold­en Dome)
  • The line between tra­di­tion­al aero­space and new space con­tin­ues to blur
  • Inter­na­tion­al coop­er­a­tion is improv­ing, even with strate­gic competitors

As we head into Q4 2025, watch for Chi­na’s Long March 10 tests, fur­ther devel­op­ments at the Gold­en Dome, and whether Ger­many’s invest­ment trig­gers sim­i­lar com­mit­ments from France, the UK, and oth­er coun­tries. The space econ­o­my is on track to reach the tril­lion-dol­lar mark by 2030, and events like this show why.

Stay tuned for next week’s update, and as always, keep look­ing up!

October 6, 2025  Leave a comment

Space Industry Cheat Sheet: Dream Chaser Pivots to Defense as China Flexes Orbital Muscles

Team, here with your week­ly space indus­try roundup. This past week brought about sig­nif­i­cant shifts in the com­mer­cial space land­scape, from Sier­ra Space’s sur­pris­ing piv­ot away from ISS mis­sions to Chi­na’s increas­ing­ly bold demon­stra­tions of space sur­veil­lance capa­bil­i­ties. Let’s dive into what’s been hap­pen­ing above our heads.

Dream Chaser Changes Course

In what I’d call the week’s biggest strate­gic shift, Sier­ra Space announced it’s no longer plan­ning to send its Dream Chas­er space­plane to the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion for car­go runs. Instead, they’re piv­ot­ing hard toward nation­al secu­ri­ty mis­sions. NASA and Sier­ra Space have mod­i­fied their Com­mer­cial Resup­ply Ser­vices 2 con­tract, orig­i­nal­ly signed in 2016, which includ­ed sev­en car­go mis­sions to the ISS.

Now, Dream Chas­er will con­duct a sin­gle test flight in late 2026, which will not dock with the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion. How­ev­er, NASA retains the option to order car­go mis­sions at a lat­er time. What’s par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing here is that Sier­ra Space has­n’t dis­closed any spe­cif­ic tech­ni­cal issues caus­ing the delays — the vehi­cle was orig­i­nal­ly sup­posed to fly last year. This piv­ot to defense appli­ca­tions sug­gests they see more lucra­tive oppor­tu­ni­ties in the mil­i­tary space sec­tor, which aligns with the broad­er indus­try trend we’ve been tracking.

The Space Surveillance Chess Match Heats Up

The space domain aware­ness game between the U.S. and Chi­na took some fas­ci­nat­ing turns this week. Chi­nese com­pa­ny Chang­guang Satel­lite Tech­nol­o­gy pub­lished images of Maxar’s World­view Legion 2 satel­lite, tak­en by their Jilin‑1 space­craft from a dis­tance of 40–55 kilo­me­ters. This appears to be a direct response to Maxar’s pub­li­ca­tion of images of Chi­na’s Shi­jian-26 exper­i­men­tal satel­lite in July.

But it did­n’t stop there. Chi­na’s Shiyan-12 (02) inspec­tor satel­lite maneu­vered with­in 60 kilo­me­ters of a U.S. Space-Based Infrared Sys­tem (SBIRS) mis­sile warn­ing satel­lite ear­li­er this month, posi­tion­ing itself for opti­mal imag­ing. These tit-for-tat demon­stra­tions show­case both nations’ grow­ing capa­bil­i­ties in what I refer to as “orbital recon­nais­sance.” Frankly, it’s a trend that’s only going to intensify.

Space Force Doubles Down on Speed and Flexibility

At the Air & Space Forces Asso­ci­a­tion con­fer­ence, Chief of Space Oper­a­tions Gen. Chance Saltz­man deliv­ered some hard truths about acqui­si­tion reform. His mes­sage was clear: the Space Force needs to pri­or­i­tize speed over per­fec­tion when acquir­ing new sys­tems. With Chi­na rapid­ly advanc­ing its space war­fare capa­bil­i­ties, includ­ing its push toward reusable launch vehi­cles, Saltz­man empha­sized the need to accept “imper­fect solu­tions that can help troops today rather than wait­ing for flaw­less systems.”

The Space Force also announced that its next-gen­er­a­tion space domain aware­ness satel­lites (the RG-XX pro­gram) will be equipped for on-orbit refueling—a first for an offi­cial acqui­si­tion pro­gram. By allow­ing its space domain aware­ness satel­lites to refu­el, it enables satel­lites to maneu­ver more freely with­out wor­ry­ing about fuel con­straints (think of this as a refu­el­ing tanker refu­el­ing a fight­er jet while on a mis­sion). The Space Force is tar­get­ing an RFP by the end of the year, with mul­ti­ple ven­dors expect­ed to compete.

Commercial Space Momentum Continues

The invest­ment cycle remains hot, with sev­er­al sig­nif­i­cant developments:

Plan­et Labs con­tin­ues to prove that space busi­ness­es can gen­er­ate cash flow, post­ing their sec­ond straight quar­ter of pos­i­tive free cash flow. Their stock is up 205% year-to-date, dri­ven by a 20% year-over-year rev­enue increase and a mas­sive 245% surge in back­log to $736 mil­lion. The geopo­lit­i­cal uncer­tain­ty is clear­ly dri­ving demand for Earth obser­va­tion capabilities.

Star­lab Space took a major step for­ward, select­ing Vivace Corp. to man­u­fac­ture the pri­ma­ry struc­ture of its com­mer­cial space sta­tion at NASA’s Michoud Assem­bly Facil­i­ty in New Orleans. With an 8‑meter diam­e­ter (just shy of SLS’s core stage), Star­lab is bet­ting big — lit­er­al­ly — on pro­vid­ing 40% of the ISS’s pres­sur­ized vol­ume when it launch­es in 2029.

Fire­fly Aero­space earned an extra $10 mil­lion from NASA for deliv­er­ing addi­tion­al data from their Blue Ghost lunar mis­sion, includ­ing the first HD images of a solar eclipse from the lunar sur­face. They col­lect­ed near­ly 120 giga­bytes of data and sur­vived tem­per­a­ture swings from 230°F to ‑275°F dur­ing a solar eclipse.

Launch Updates and Technical Achievements

SpaceX main­tained its relent­less launch cadence, com­plet­ing three launch­es in just 41 hours — includ­ing a NASA sci­ence mis­sion car­ry­ing IMAP, the Car­ruthers Geo­coro­na Obser­va­to­ry, and NOAA’s Space Weath­er Fol­low On L1 mis­sion to the Earth-Sun L1 Lagrange point.

Blue Ori­gin remains the sole bid­der for NASA’s VIPER lunar rover deliv­ery, secur­ing a $190 mil­lion task order to land it at the Moon’s south pole in late 2027. The lack of com­pe­ti­tion here is note­wor­thy, sug­gest­ing that either tech­ni­cal chal­lenges or busi­ness case con­cerns are deter­ring oth­er providers from enter­ing the market.

Looking Ahead

The Artemis 2 mis­sion could launch as ear­ly as Feb­ru­ary 5, 2026, with the crew nam­ing their Ori­on space­craft “Integri­ty.” NASA’s mak­ing sol­id progress on prelaunch prepa­ra­tions, although the Aero­space Safe­ty Advi­so­ry Pan­el warned that SpaceX’s Star­ship lunar lan­der for Artemis 3 could be “years late” based on their recent vis­it to Starbase.

Ger­many announced a mas­sive 35 bil­lion euro ($41 B) invest­ment in mil­i­tary space sys­tems through 2030, cit­ing threats from Chi­na and Rus­sia. Ger­many’s invest­ment rep­re­sents one of the largest nation­al space defense invest­ments we’ve seen from a U.S. ally.

The Bottom Line

This week rein­forced sev­er­al key themes I’ve been track­ing: the mil­i­ta­riza­tion of com­mer­cial space capa­bil­i­ties, the inten­si­fy­ing com­pe­ti­tion between the U.S. and Chi­na in space domain aware­ness, and the con­tin­ued mat­u­ra­tion of the com­mer­cial space econ­o­my. Sier­ra Space’s piv­ot to defense, com­bined with the Space Force’s push for speed and flex­i­bil­i­ty, shows how nation­al secu­ri­ty con­cerns are reshap­ing the industry.

The space sur­veil­lance demon­stra­tions between the U.S. and Chi­na are par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cern­ing from a sta­bil­i­ty per­spec­tive. As both nations devel­op increas­ing­ly sophis­ti­cat­ed inspec­tion and imag­ing capa­bil­i­ties, we’re enter­ing an era where every satel­lite is poten­tial­ly under obser­va­tion. Chi­na treats its com­mer­cial base as part of its defense indus­tri­al base, while the U.S. still views it as a part­ner. The U.S. must return to a day when both are one and the same to give mil­i­tary plan­ners more options.

Mean­while, the com­mer­cial sec­tor con­tin­ues to mature, with com­pa­nies like Plan­et Labs prov­ing that sus­tain­able space busi­ness­es are pos­si­ble, even if they take 15 years to achieve prof­itabil­i­ty. The hot invest­ment cycle shows no signs of cool­ing, espe­cial­ly for com­pa­nies address­ing defense and intel­li­gence needs.

As we head into Octo­ber, keep an eye on the Space Force’s RG-XX pro­gram RFP and any respons­es to Ger­many’s mas­sive space defense invest­ment. The inter­sec­tion of com­mer­cial inno­va­tion and nation­al secu­ri­ty require­ments will con­tin­ue dri­ving the indus­try forward.

Stay tuned for next week’s update, and as always, keep look­ing up!

September 29, 2025  Leave a comment

Space Industry Weekly Wrap: Golden Dome’s Trillion-Dollar Reality Check, Space Force Modernization, and Commercial Momentum

Hey every­one, Austin here with your week­ly space indus­try roundup. This week brought some sober­ing cost pro­jec­tions for the Gold­en Dome mis­sile defense sys­tem, sig­nif­i­cant progress in Space Force mod­ern­iza­tion efforts, and con­tin­ued momen­tum in the com­mer­cial space sec­tor. Let’s dive into what caught my attention.

Golden Dome: From Billions to Trillions

The biggest sto­ry this week has to be the new cost analy­sis of Pres­i­dent Trump’s Gold­en Dome mis­sile defense shield. When the White House announced $175 bil­lion over three years back in May, I had my doubts it would be enough. Well, Todd Har­ri­son from the Amer­i­can Enter­prise Insti­tute just con­firmed those sus­pi­cions in a big way.

Har­rison’s analy­sis presents six pos­si­ble archi­tec­tures for Gold­en Dome, with costs rang­ing from $252 bil­lion to a jaw-drop­ping $3.6 tril­lion through 2045. To put that in per­spec­tive, the most expen­sive option would cost near­ly dou­ble the entire F‑35 pro­gram — cur­rent­ly the most expen­sive weapons sys­tem in history.

The chal­lenge is that Trump set an incred­i­bly ambi­tious goal: “for­ev­er end­ing the mis­sile threat to the Amer­i­can home­land” with “very close to 100 per­cent” effec­tive­ness. To achieve that lev­el of pro­tec­tion, ana­lysts fore­cast that it would require:

  • 85,400 space-based interceptors
  • 14,510 air-launched interceptors
  • 46,904 sur­face-launched interceptors
  • Hun­dreds of new sen­sors across all domains
  • Over 20,000 addi­tion­al mil­i­tary personnel

Even the “bud­get” option at $252 bil­lion would­n’t include space-based inter­cep­tors — a key require­ment explic­it­ly stat­ed in Trump’s exec­u­tive order. The mid­dle-ground option with lim­it­ed space-based inter­cep­tors capa­ble of defend­ing against five bal­lis­tic mis­siles would still cost $471 bil­lion over 20 years.

What’s par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing from a busi­ness per­spec­tive is how launch costs fac­tor in. The Con­gres­sion­al Bud­get Office found that deploy­ing 1,000–2,000 space-based inter­cep­tors would be 30–40% cheap­er today than in 2004, thanks to com­pa­nies like SpaceX dri­ving down launch costs. How­ev­er, the over­whelm­ing expense remains in devel­op­ing and build­ing the inter­cep­tors them­selves, not launch­ing them.

Gen. Michael Guetlein has com­plet­ed a blue­print for Gold­en Dome, but the Pen­ta­gon is stay­ing tight-lipped about details. With Con­gress already com­mit­ting $25 bil­lion as a down pay­ment, we’re clear­ly just at the begin­ning of what will be a mul­ti-decade, mul­ti-tril­lion-dol­lar endeavor.

Space Force Accelerates Modernization

While Gold­en Dome dom­i­nates head­lines, the Space Force is mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant progress on mul­ti­ple mod­ern­iza­tion fronts that present oppor­tu­ni­ties for con­trac­tors and tech­nol­o­gy companies.

System Delta Reorganization on Track

Lt. Gen. Philip Gar­rant announced that Space Sys­tems Com­mand expects to com­plete its reor­ga­ni­za­tion into “sys­tem deltas” by the end of Octo­ber. This restruc­tur­ing pairs acqui­si­tion offi­cers direct­ly with oper­a­tional com­man­ders to ensure new capa­bil­i­ties meet warfight­er needs quick­ly. Five deltas are already oper­a­tional, with three more launch­ing soon:

  • Space com­bat pow­er acquisition
  • Assured access to space
  • Posi­tion­ing, nav­i­ga­tion, and timing

This reor­ga­ni­za­tion rep­re­sents a fun­da­men­tal shift in how the Space Force approach­es acqui­si­tion, cre­at­ing more direct path­ways for com­pa­nies to under­stand and meet oper­a­tional requirements.

Satellite Control Network Gets Commercial Boost

The aging Satel­lite Con­trol Net­work (SCN) is get­ting a much-need­ed capac­i­ty boost through part­ner­ships with com­mer­cial providers. Col. Patrick Lit­tle revealed that the Fed­er­al Aug­men­ta­tion Ser­vice, lever­ag­ing NOAA anten­nas, will go oper­a­tional with­in the next month or two.

More sig­nif­i­cant­ly, the Joint Anten­na Mar­ket­place (JAM) pro­gram award­ed pro­to­type con­tracts to Boecore ($8.1 mil­lion) and Sphinx Defense ($9.5 mil­lion) to cre­ate cloud-based sys­tems con­nect­ing mil­i­tary satel­lite con­trol cen­ters with com­mer­cial ground sta­tion providers. This cre­ates a “dial for capac­i­ty” that the Space Force can adjust based on oper­a­tional needs.

The busi­ness mod­el is still being refined, but the con­cept involves users pay­ing into the sys­tem whether they use SCN anten­nas or com­mer­cial alter­na­tives. This rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant oppor­tu­ni­ty for ground sta­tion oper­a­tors like Ama­zon Web Ser­vices and Kongs­berg Satel­lite Services.

Space Domain Awareness Overhaul

Gen. Chance Saltz­man deliv­ered a stark assess­ment at the AMOS con­fer­ence: cur­rent space sur­veil­lance sys­tems are “dan­ger­ous­ly out­dat­ed” and “strug­gling to keep pace” with the expo­nen­tial growth in space objects. He called for a com­pre­hen­sive over­haul rather than incre­men­tal improve­ments, empha­siz­ing that it can’t be accept­able to take hours to detect on-orbit activ­i­ty and weeks to char­ac­ter­ize events fully.

This push for enhanced space domain aware­ness capa­bil­i­ties opens doors for com­pa­nies devel­op­ing advanced sen­sors, AI-pow­ered track­ing sys­tems, and data fusion technologies.

Commercial Sector Momentum Continues

Despite some com­pa­nies falling short of launch pro­jec­tions, the com­mer­cial space sec­tor showed con­tin­ued strength this week.

Launch Vehicle Updates

Astra is tar­get­ing sum­mer 2026 for its Rock­et 4 debut, with CEO Chris Kemp high­light­ing suc­cess­ful tests of their new 42,000-pound thrust engine. At $5 mil­lion for 750 kg to LEO, they’re posi­tion­ing them­selves as a SpaceX alter­na­tive in a capac­i­ty-con­strained market.

Rock­et Lab announced a new $750 mil­lion stock offer­ing to sup­port Neu­tron devel­op­ment and space­craft man­u­fac­tur­ing. How­ev­er, the mar­ket respond­ed with a 10% drop in share price.

Inter­na­tion­al devel­op­ments includ­ed Avio’s board approv­ing a €400 mil­lion cap­i­tal raise to expand man­u­fac­tur­ing capac­i­ty. In com­par­i­son, Chi­na’s iSpace secured $98 mil­lion for its Hyperbola‑3 medi­um-lift launcher.

Satellite and Services Developments

The week brought sev­er­al notable devel­op­ments in satel­lite services:

  • Space Nor­way and Sur­rey Satel­lite Tech­nol­o­gy part­nered on a C‑band SAR satel­lite for mar­itime sur­veil­lance, with the first launch planned for 2027
  • Defense and secu­ri­ty appli­ca­tions now account for near­ly half of com­mer­cial Earth obser­va­tion rev­enue ($6 bil­lion in 2024), with pro­jec­tions reach­ing $17 bil­lion by 2034
  • Hyper­spec­tral imag­ing com­pa­nies are work­ing to edu­cate cus­tomers about appli­ca­tions rang­ing from green­house gas mon­i­tor­ing to weapons detection

Supply Chain and Infrastructure

Northrop Grum­man’s upgrad­ed Cygnus XL suc­cess­ful­ly reached the ISS, car­ry­ing a record 11,000 pounds of car­go, despite propul­sion issues caus­ing a one-day delay. The com­pa­ny has pur­chased a fourth Fal­con 9 launch to bridge the gap until their new Antares 330 rock­et debuts in late 2026.

Looking Ahead

Sev­er­al trends are emerg­ing that will shape oppor­tu­ni­ties in the com­ing months:

  1. Gold­en Dome pro­cure­ment will begin ramp­ing up, cre­at­ing mas­sive oppor­tu­ni­ties for sen­sor man­u­fac­tur­ers, inter­cep­tor devel­op­ers, and sys­tems integrators
  2. Ground sta­tion ser­vices will see increased demand as the Space Force imple­ments its com­mer­cial aug­men­ta­tion strategy
  3. Space domain aware­ness tech­nolo­gies will be a pri­or­i­ty invest­ment area
  4. Inter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships are expand­ing, as evi­denced by the first U.S.-UK coor­di­nat­ed satel­lite maneuvers

The space indus­try con­tin­ues its trans­for­ma­tion from a gov­ern­ment-dom­i­nat­ed sec­tor to a dynam­ic com­mer­cial mar­ket­place. While chal­lenges remain — from meet­ing launch cadence pro­jec­tions to defin­ing sus­tain­able busi­ness mod­els — the fun­da­men­tal growth tra­jec­to­ry remains strong.

For those of us in the busi­ness of iden­ti­fy­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties, this week rein­forced that we’re still in the ear­ly stages of a mul­ti-decade expan­sion of space capa­bil­i­ties. Whether it’s tril­lion-dol­lar defense pro­grams or com­mer­cial con­stel­la­tions, the demand for inno­v­a­tive solu­tions con­tin­ues to out­pace supply.

September 23, 2025  Leave a comment

Space Industry Weekly: Congressional Pushback, MDA’s $151B SHIELD Contract, and Launch Milestones

The space indus­try wit­nessed sig­nif­i­cant devel­op­ments this week, from Capi­tol Hill bat­tles over NASA’s flag­ship rock­et to the Mis­sile Defense Agen­cy’s mas­sive new con­tract­ing vehi­cle and esca­lat­ing geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions affect­ing space oper­a­tions. Here’s what busi­ness lead­ers need to know about the week’s most impact­ful events.

MDA Releases Massive $151 Billion SHIELD Contract

The week’s most sig­nif­i­cant devel­op­ment for defense con­trac­tors came with the Mis­sile Defense Agen­cy’s release of the Scal­able Home­land Inno­v­a­tive Enter­prise Lay­ered Defense (SHIELD) con­tract vehi­cle. This stag­ger­ing 10-year, $151 bil­lion Indef­i­nite Delivery/Indefinite Quan­ti­ty (IDIQ) oppor­tu­ni­ty rep­re­sents one of the largest defense con­tracts in history.

SHIELD serves as the sec­ond major con­tract­ing vehi­cle sup­port­ing Pres­i­dent Trump’s Gold­en Dome ini­tia­tive to build a lay­ered mis­sile defense sys­tem for the con­ti­nen­tal Unit­ed States. The con­tract encom­pass­es 19+ domain areas, includ­ing pro­to­typ­ing, weapon design, cyber­se­cu­ri­ty, sys­tems engi­neer­ing, and data min­ing. Notably, com­pa­nies need expe­ri­ence in only two of these areas to qual­i­fy as IDIQ hold­ers, sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er­ing bar­ri­ers to entry com­pared to tra­di­tion­al defense contracts.

The tim­ing is critical—the final Request for Pro­pos­al hit the streets before Octo­ber 1, fol­low­ing indus­try feed­back on the draft solic­i­ta­tion. This RFP rep­re­sents a fun­da­men­tal shift in how DoD approach­es acqui­si­tion, mov­ing away from tra­di­tion­al, lengthy pro­cure­ment cycles toward more agile, flex­i­ble arrange­ments that can rapid­ly issue orders across mul­ti­ple domains.

Regard­less of whether you rep­re­sent an FSI, OEM, or VAR, SHIELD presents unprece­dent­ed oppor­tu­ni­ties in cyber­se­cu­ri­ty, sys­tems engi­neer­ing, and data analytics—core com­pe­ten­cies that align per­fect­ly with the con­trac­t’s scope. The low­ered entry bar­ri­ers could enable mid-tier con­trac­tors to com­pete along­side tra­di­tion­al defense primes, poten­tial­ly reshap­ing the mis­sile defense indus­tri­al base.

Congressional Battle Over Space Launch System Intensifies

Con­gress deliv­ered a sharp rebuke to the Trump admin­is­tra­tion’s plans to ter­mi­nate NASA’s Space Launch Sys­tem (SLS) rock­et after the Artemis III mis­sion. Texas Repub­li­can Sen­a­tor Ted Cruz emerged as the pro­gram’s unlike­ly new cham­pi­on, craft­ing a pro­vi­sion that secured $6.7 bil­lion in fund­ing for two addi­tion­al SLS missions—Artemis IV and Artemis V—while also con­tin­u­ing con­struc­tion of the Lunar Gate­way space station.

This devel­op­ment rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant shift in space pol­i­cy dynam­ics. The orig­i­nal archi­tects of the SLS program—former sen­a­tors Bill Nel­son, Kay Bai­ley Hutchi­son, and Richard Shelby—have all left office. Yet, Cruz has stepped into the breach with renewed vig­or. His moti­va­tion appears clear: beat­ing Chi­na back to the Moon and main­tain­ing Amer­i­can lunar pres­ence, which he views as achiev­able only through con­tin­ued SLS operations.

The con­gres­sion­al push­back rais­es fun­da­men­tal ques­tions about the future of Amer­i­can space explo­ration strat­e­gy. It cre­ates poten­tial oppor­tu­ni­ties for con­trac­tors sup­port­ing both tra­di­tion­al gov­ern­ment pro­grams and emerg­ing com­mer­cial alternatives.

SpaceX Achieves Critical Starship Milestones

SpaceX con­tin­ued demon­strat­ing progress on its Star­ship pro­gram, with encour­ag­ing results from recent heat shield test­ing. The vehi­cle’s dis­tinc­tive orange tint after its Indi­an Ocean land­ing ini­tial­ly raised con­cerns. Still, Elon Musk clar­i­fied that the col­oration came from oxi­dized metal­lic test tiles and exposed insu­la­tion from delib­er­ate­ly removed tiles. Cru­cial­ly, the heat shield tiles remained large­ly attached—a sig­nif­i­cant advance­ment toward rapid reusability.

The com­pa­ny also received Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion approval to more than dou­ble Fal­con 9 launch­es from Space Launch Com­plex-40, increas­ing the annu­al lim­it from 50 to 120 mis­sions. This approval sup­ports SpaceX’s ambi­tious goal of 170 Fal­con 9 launch­es in 2025, main­tain­ing their dom­i­nant posi­tion in the com­mer­cial launch market.

How­ev­er, SpaceX faces logis­ti­cal chal­lenges in scal­ing Star­ship oper­a­tions. Each launch requires over 200 tanker trucks to deliv­er nec­es­sary propellants—an inef­fi­cient process the com­pa­ny plans to address through on-site cryo­genic flu­id pro­duc­tion facilities.

Defense and National Security Developments

Beyond SHIELD, the Depart­ment of Defense imple­ment­ed the final Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty Matu­ri­ty Mod­el Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion (CMMC) rule, requir­ing defense con­trac­tors to demon­strate prop­er safe­guard­ing of Fed­er­al Con­tract Infor­ma­tion and Con­trolled Unclas­si­fied Infor­ma­tion. This devel­op­ment sig­nif­i­cant­ly impacts space indus­try con­trac­tors, who must now achieve CMMC cer­ti­fi­ca­tion to main­tain DoD contracts.

NASA announced plans for a trio of solar obser­va­tion space­craft to launch on Sep­tem­ber 23 aboard a Fal­con 9 rock­et. The missions—IMAP, Car­ruthers Geo­coro­na Obser­va­to­ry, and SWFO-L1—will study solar wind and space weath­er effects, pro­vid­ing crit­i­cal data for pro­tect­ing satel­lites and astro­nauts from space weath­er impacts.

International Launch Activities and Competitive Dynamics

Israel suc­cess­ful­ly launched the Ofek 19 syn­thet­ic aper­ture radar satel­lite using its Shav­it 2 rock­et, demon­strat­ing con­tin­ued indige­nous space capa­bil­i­ties despite region­al secu­ri­ty chal­lenges. Cana­di­an launch com­pa­ny Reac­tion Dynam­ics made a strate­gic $1.2 mil­lion invest­ment in Mar­itime Launch Ser­vices, secur­ing access to Space­port Nova Sco­tia for its Aurora‑8 rocket.

Chi­nese com­mer­cial rock­et com­pa­ny Orien­space secured $27–124 mil­lion in Series B+ financ­ing to advance its Gravity‑2 medi­um-lift vehi­cle, capa­ble of deliv­er­ing 20 met­ric tons to low-Earth orbit. This rep­re­sents Chi­na’s con­tin­ued push into com­mer­cial launch mar­kets and pos­es increas­ing com­pe­ti­tion to West­ern providers.

Industry Infrastructure and Investment Trends

Rock­et Lab unveiled its Neu­tron launch com­plex at Vir­gini­a’s Wal­lops Island, designed to com­pete with SpaceX’s Fal­con 9 in the medi­um-lift mar­ket. How­ev­er, founder Peter Beck acknowl­edged the com­pa­ny’s aggres­sive 2025 launch time­line remains challenging.

French rock­et builder Maia­Space com­plet­ed exten­sive pro­pel­lant tank test­ing for its Maia rock­et, rep­re­sent­ing Euro­pean efforts to devel­op com­pet­i­tive com­mer­cial launch capa­bil­i­ties with the first flight tar­get­ed for 2027.

Strategic Implications for Defense Contractors

The SHIELD con­tract release fun­da­men­tal­ly alters the mis­sile defense land­scape, offer­ing unprece­dent­ed access to a $151 bil­lion mar­ket while sup­port­ing crit­i­cal nation­al secu­ri­ty objec­tives. The con­trac­t’s structure—requiring exper­tise in only two of 19+ areas—creates oppor­tu­ni­ties for spe­cial­ized firms to com­pete along­side tra­di­tion­al primes.

For com­pa­nies, the tim­ing aligns per­fect­ly with grow­ing demand for cyber­se­cu­ri­ty, sys­tems engi­neer­ing, and data ana­lyt­ics capa­bil­i­ties across the defense sec­tor. The Gold­en Dome ini­tia­tive’s empha­sis on speed and scale favors agile con­trac­tors who can rapid­ly deliv­er inno­v­a­tive solutions.

Con­gres­sion­al resis­tance to admin­is­tra­tion space pol­i­cy changes sug­gests con­tin­ued polit­i­cal volatil­i­ty around major pro­grams, cre­at­ing both risks and oppor­tu­ni­ties for con­trac­tors sup­port­ing mul­ti­ple pro­gram port­fo­lios. The inter­na­tion­al launch sec­tor’s con­tin­ued diver­si­fi­ca­tion high­lights the need for Amer­i­can com­pa­nies to main­tain tech­no­log­i­cal and com­pet­i­tive advantages.

Looking Ahead

The com­ing weeks will bring addi­tion­al clar­i­ty on SHIELD con­tract awards, con­gres­sion­al space fund­ing pri­or­i­ties, and inter­na­tion­al com­pet­i­tive devel­op­ments. The con­ver­gence of mas­sive defense spend­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties with evolv­ing space capa­bil­i­ties cre­ates a dynam­ic envi­ron­ment requir­ing strate­gic agili­ty and care­ful atten­tion to both domes­tic pol­i­cy changes and glob­al com­pet­i­tive trends.

For defense con­trac­tors and space indus­try exec­u­tives, suc­cess will require under­stand­ing how these inter­con­nect­ed developments—from SHIELD­’s unprece­dent­ed scale to inter­na­tion­al launch competition—reshape the strate­gic land­scape and cre­ate new path­ways for growth and innovation.

September 15, 2025  Leave a comment

Pentagon Shakes Up Leadership While Army Modernizes Electronic Warfare Capabilities

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Defense Indus­try Week­ly Roundup

Team, it’s been anoth­er event­ful week in the DoD, with major lead­er­ship changes at the Pen­ta­gon, sig­nif­i­cant mod­ern­iza­tion efforts in elec­tron­ic war­fare, and some con­cern­ing devel­op­ments in weapons test­ing over­sight. Let’s dive into what’s been happening.

Pentagon Leadership Overhaul Continues

The biggest sto­ry this week involves Defense Sec­re­tary Pete Hegseth’s con­tin­ued restruc­tur­ing at the Pen­ta­gon. Late Fri­day, we learned that Lt. Gen. Jef­frey Kruse was removed from his posi­tion as direc­tor of the Defense Intel­li­gence Agency (DIA), cit­ing “loss of confidence.”

What makes this par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing is the tim­ing — it comes after a leaked DIA report con­tra­dict­ed the admin­is­tra­tion’s claims about the effec­tive­ness of June’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facil­i­ties. While the White House main­tained the strikes “com­plete­ly oblit­er­at­ed” Iran’s nuclear capa­bil­i­ties, the DIA assess­ment sug­gest­ed the dam­age was far more lim­it­ed, set­ting back their pro­gram by “maybe a few months, tops.”

Hegseth did­n’t stop there. He also dis­missed Vice Adm. Nan­cy Lacore, head of the Navy Reserve, and Rear Adm. Mil­ton Sands, who led Naval Spe­cial War­fare Com­mand. The rea­sons for these dis­missals remain unclear, but they’re part of a broad­er pat­tern of lead­er­ship changes that now includes the Chair­man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Chief of Naval Oper­a­tions, and sev­er­al oth­er senior positions.

Army’s Elec­tron­ic War­fare Evolution

On the mod­ern­iza­tion front, the Army is mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant moves in elec­tron­ic war­fare. At TECHNET AUGUSTA 2025, offi­cials unveiled plans for the Mod­u­lar Mis­sion Pay­load (MMP) — a new elec­tron­ic war­fare kit designed to be inter­op­er­a­ble across vir­tu­al­ly any plat­form in the service.

Col. Scott Shaf­fer, project man­ag­er for EW and cyber with­in PEO IEW&S, explained that the MMP rep­re­sents a shift away from ded­i­cat­ed EW vehi­cles. As one offi­cial put it, “We’re past that point of where you’re going to have a ded­i­cat­ed EW vehi­cle try­ing to move across a bat­tle­field, anten­nas look­ing like a porcupine.”

The Army is pri­or­i­tiz­ing com­mer­cial off-the-shelf (COTS) and gov­ern­ment off-the-shelf (GOTS) solu­tions, with Shaf­fer not­ing, “If we’re only hit­ting 60 per­cent of the require­ments, that’s okay because we’re at least get­ting some­thing out there and it can be field­ed very soon.”

This push comes as the Army estab­lish­es 18 new EW com­pa­nies across its divi­sions, sig­nif­i­cant­ly expand­ing its elec­tron­ic war­fare capa­bil­i­ties at a time when elec­tro­mag­net­ic spec­trum dom­i­nance is increas­ing­ly critical.

Weapons Testing Office Gutted

In a move that’s rais­ing seri­ous con­cerns among over­sight advo­cates, the Pen­tagon’s weapons test­ing office has dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduced its scope. The Direc­tor of Oper­a­tional Test and Eval­u­a­tion (DOT&E) cut the num­ber of pro­grams it over­sees from 251 to 152, with the work­force slashed from 94 employ­ees to just 46.

Most alarm­ing? The Army’s new XM7 rifle has been removed from over­sight — a deci­sion that crit­ics say eeri­ly par­al­lels the M16’s trou­bled his­to­ry. Greg Williams from the Project On Gov­ern­ment Over­sight (the orga­ni­za­tion tends to be left of cen­ter in its edi­to­r­i­al) warned that the XM7 “is a per­fect exam­ple of a weapon sys­tem that requires both devel­op­men­tal and oper­a­tional testing.”

Defense Sec­re­tary Hegseth defend­ed the cuts, claim­ing they’ll save $300 mil­lion annu­al­ly by elim­i­nat­ing “redun­dant, non-essen­tial, non-statu­to­ry func­tions.” But as Williams point­ed out, any short-term sav­ings could be dwarfed by the long-term costs of field­ing faulty weapons. The unasked ques­tion is, how do we increase the lethal­i­ty to the warfight­er while bal­anc­ing risk? 

Federal Acquisition Reform Accelerates

The FAR over­haul con­tin­ues at break­neck speed, with sig­nif­i­cant changes to Parts 8 and 12 that could reshape how the gov­ern­ment buys every­thing from IT ser­vices to con­struc­tion projects.

The biggest game-chang­er? Con­tract­ing offi­cers must now pri­or­i­tize Best-in-Class (BIC) con­tracts as their first source of sup­ply. If they want to use any­thing else, they need writ­ten jus­ti­fi­ca­tion approved by senior lead­er­ship. This change effec­tive­ly gives com­pa­nies on gov­ern­men­twide acqui­si­tion con­tracts a mas­sive com­pet­i­tive advantage.

Part 12 brings equal­ly sig­nif­i­cant changes, rais­ing the sim­pli­fied acqui­si­tion thresh­old for com­mer­cial items to $7.5 mil­lion — up from the pre­vi­ous $250,000 in prac­tice. The gov­ern­ment also elim­i­nat­ed a third of the claus­es pre­vi­ous­ly required for com­mer­cial con­tracts, stream­lin­ing the process considerably.

AI Tools Get Fast-Track Security Approval

FedRAMP announced it will pri­or­i­tize AI cloud ser­vices for secu­ri­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, respond­ing to a request from the Fed­er­al CIO Coun­cil. The new cri­te­ria focus on con­ver­sa­tion­al AI engines for rou­tine fed­er­al use, with pri­or­i­ty giv­en to tools that:

  • Have demand from at least five CFO Act agencies
  • Offer enter­prise-grade fea­tures like sin­gle sign-on and role-based access
  • Guar­an­tee data sep­a­ra­tion and protection
  • Are avail­able through GSA schedules
  • Can meet FedRAMP require­ments with­in two months

Inter­est­ing­ly, none of the cur­rent AI offer­ings — includ­ing Google’s Gem­i­ni, Ope­nAI’s Chat­G­PT, or Anthrop­ic’s Claude — meet all five cri­te­ria yet.

Looking Ahead

As we head into Sep­tem­ber, Con­gress returns from recess fac­ing a poten­tial gov­ern­ment shut­down on Sep­tem­ber 30th. The spend­ing bat­tle will dom­i­nate the agen­da, com­pli­cat­ed by the Trump admin­is­tra­tion’s efforts to claw back pre­vi­ous­ly approved funding.

The Army’s new Direc­torate for Strat­e­gy and Trans­for­ma­tion, led by Andrew Evans, aims for ini­tial oper­at­ing capa­bil­i­ty by mid-Octo­ber. This reor­ga­ni­za­tion insti­tu­tion­al­izes the trans­for­ma­tion efforts pre­vi­ous­ly han­dled by the ISR Task Force, includ­ing high-pro­file pro­grams like Athena-Sen­sor and HADES.

Mean­while, fed­er­al unions con­tin­ue fight­ing the admin­is­tra­tion’s col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing ter­mi­na­tions in court, with NASA, the Nation­al Weath­er Ser­vice, and oth­er agen­cies added to the list of enti­ties where unions are being elim­i­nat­ed for “nation­al secu­ri­ty” reasons.

The Bottom Line

This week’s devel­op­ments high­light the ten­sion between rapid mod­ern­iza­tion and prop­er over­sight. While the push for com­mer­cial solu­tions and stream­lined acqui­si­tion makes sense in today’s threat envi­ron­ment, the gut­ting of weapons test­ing capa­bil­i­ties rais­es legit­i­mate con­cerns about repeat­ing past mistakes.

The elec­tron­ic war­fare mod­ern­iza­tion efforts show promise, par­tic­u­lar­ly the move away from ded­i­cat­ed plat­forms toward mod­u­lar, adapt­able sys­tems. But suc­cess will depend on exe­cu­tion — and whether the Army can tru­ly deliv­er plug-and-play capa­bil­i­ties that work across diverse platforms.

As always, I’ll be watch­ing how these changes impact our defense indus­tri­al base and, most impor­tant­ly, our warfight­ers in the field. The push for effi­cien­cy is admirable, but not at the cost of effec­tive­ness or safety.

Stay tuned for next week’s update, where we’ll like­ly see more on the con­gres­sion­al spend­ing fight and hope­ful­ly some clar­i­ty on the Pen­tagon’s broad­er reor­ga­ni­za­tion plans.

Stay tuned for next week’s update. Until then, keep look­ing up!

September 4, 2025  Leave a comment

Space Industry Weekly: Starship Success, China’s Launch Ambitions, and the Golden Dome Initiative

Hey every­one, Austin here with your week­ly space indus­try roundup. What a week it’s been! From SpaceX final­ly break­ing their Star­ship los­ing streak to major devel­op­ments in mis­sile defense and some fas­ci­nat­ing moves in the com­mer­cial satel­lite sec­tor, there’s plen­ty to unpack. Let’s dive in.

Starship Finally Sticks the Landing

After what felt like an eter­ni­ty of explo­sive test cam­paigns and FAA inves­ti­ga­tions, SpaceX’s Star­ship Flight 10 deliv­ered exact­ly what the com­pa­ny need­ed. The mas­sive rock­et lift­ed off from Star­base on Tues­day evening and hit every sin­gle mile­stone – some­thing we haven’t seen in quite a while.

The Super Heavy boost­er per­formed a text­book boost-back burn and soft land­ing in the Gulf (though we lost one Rap­tor engine dur­ing ascent – 32 out of 33 isn’t bad). But here’s the real kick­er: Star­ship actu­al­ly deployed those dum­my Star­link satel­lites through its new slot-shaped pay­load door. After fail­ures on flights 7, 8, and 9, see­ing those mass sim­u­la­tors deploy was huge. The vehi­cle even per­formed an in-space Rap­tor relight and sur­vived reen­try for a pin­point splash­down in the Indi­an Ocean.

With over $500 mil­lion spent on the Star­ship pro­gram this year alone, this suc­cess could­n’t have come at a bet­ter time. Elon’s promis­ing a launch cadence of every 3–4 weeks in the future. If that holds, we could see six more flights before the end of the year.

The Golden Dome Initiative: America’s Next-Gen Missile Defense

I attend­ed some fas­ci­nat­ing brief­in­gs this week on the Mis­sile Defense Agen­cy’s Gold­en Dome ini­tia­tive – a com­pre­hen­sive over­haul of our mis­sile defense archi­tec­ture, man­dat­ed by the pres­i­dent and with a 3.5‑year dead­line. Gen­er­al Collins made it crys­tal clear: this isn’t about rogue mis­siles any­more. We’re talk­ing peer-to-peer defense against Chi­na, Rus­sia, Iran, and North Korea.

The archi­tec­ture breaks down into five lay­ers: Space, Upper, Under, Lim­it­ed Area Defense, and Domain Aware­ness. What caught my atten­tion was the empha­sis on space-based inter­cep­tors for boost, mid-course, and glide-phase inter­cepts. MDA and Space Force are stand­ing up a joint pro­gram office – that’s how seri­ous they are about the space component.

The num­bers are stag­ger­ing: the Shield IDIQ con­tract alone is worth $151 bil­lion over a 10-year peri­od. They’re push­ing for month­ly flight tests, AI-enabled fire con­trol, and data speeds that far exceed cur­rent fiber optic solu­tions. The mes­sage from MDA? “Go fast, think big.” They’re even will­ing to take more risks to meet the aggres­sive timeline.

China’s Launch Sector Heats Up

While we’re focused on reusabil­i­ty here in the States, Chi­na’s launch sec­tor is absolute­ly explod­ing with activ­i­ty. State-owned CASC is devel­op­ing the Long March 10 series for crewed lunar mis­sions, while its com­mer­cial sec­tor is rac­ing to debut reusable launch­ers that mir­ror SpaceX’s approach.

Two new­com­ers, Ark­tech and Welight, just entered the fray with full-flow staged com­bus­tion engines – show­ing how quick­ly Chi­nese star­tups are adopt­ing cut­ting-edge tech. Mean­while, estab­lished play­ers CAS Space and Land­space are advanc­ing toward IPOs on Shang­hai’s STAR Mar­ket, with val­u­a­tions hit­ting $1.55 bil­lion despite sig­nif­i­cant losses.

The real dri­ver? Mega­con­stel­la­tions. Chi­na’s Guowang and Qian­fan projects are cre­at­ing mas­sive demand for launch capac­i­ty. Who­ev­er cracks reli­able reusabil­i­ty first will dom­i­nate their market.

Commercial Satellite Innovations

Some excit­ing devel­op­ments in the com­mer­cial sec­tor this week:

Plan­et’s Pel­i­can Pro­duc­tion: Plan­et launched their third and fourth Pel­i­can satel­lites – the first ones built by their man­u­fac­tur­ing teams rather than engi­neers. These high-res birds will even­tu­al­ly form a 30-satel­lite con­stel­la­tion capa­ble of revis­it­ing any loca­tion every 30 min­utes. Their pro­duc­tion line hit full speed last month, and they’re already plan­ning Gen2 Pel­i­cans with even high­er resolution.

Esper’s Hyper­spec­tral Suc­cess: Aus­tralian start­up Esper launched their OTR‑2 hyper­spec­tral sen­sor as a host­ed pay­load. After their first satel­lite failed to make con­tact, they piv­ot­ed to a vir­tu­al mis­sion that’s gen­er­at­ed $32M in book­ings. Their sen­sors can iden­ti­fy rare earth ele­ments from orbit for just $1.50 per km² – com­pared to $4M+ for tra­di­tion­al ground explo­ration. They claim a 100% accu­ra­cy rate so far, which sounds almost too good to be true.

EchoStar’s Big Move: In a mas­sive strate­gic shift, EchoStar is sell­ing $23 bil­lion worth of ter­res­tri­al wire­less spec­trum to AT&T. This ends their tra­di­tion­al mobile car­ri­er ambi­tions but pro­vides cap­i­tal to pay down debt and fund their $5 bil­lion direct-to-device satel­lite con­stel­la­tion. They’ve already ordered 100 satel­lites from MDA Space.

Launch Sector Updates

Fire­fly­’s Back: After their April fail­ure, Fire­fly com­plet­ed their inves­ti­ga­tion and got FAA clear­ance to resume launch­es. The cul­prit? Plume-induced flow sep­a­ra­tion caused by fly­ing at a high­er angle of attack, lead­ing to exces­sive heat­ing and struc­tur­al fail­ure. They’re adding heat shield­ing and adjust­ing flight pro­files for future missions.

Rock­et Lab’s Neu­tron Progress: The com­pa­ny inau­gu­rat­ed Launch Com­plex 3 at Wal­lops Island, bring­ing Neu­tron one step clos­er to its maid­en flight. The pad fea­tures a unique launch stand design meant to min­i­mize refur­bish­ment between launch­es. They’re still tar­get­ing a launch before year’s end if every­thing goes smoothly.

Record Reusabil­i­ty: SpaceX hit anoth­er mile­stone with boost­er B1067 com­plet­ing its 30th flight on a Star­link mis­sion. That’s just incred­i­ble when you think about where we were a decade ago.

Quick Hits

  • Aero­space­lab raised €94 mil­lion ($110M) to expand their “Megafac­to­ry” in Bel­gium, designed to pro­duce 500 satel­lites annu­al­ly by 2027
  • NOAA’s weath­er satel­lite over­haul is fac­ing major cuts, reduc­ing from 6 to 4 satel­lites and can­cel­ing $852M in sen­sor contracts
  • Space Force opti­cal pay­loads: Rock­et Lab’s Geost sub­sidiary won an expand­ed $80.7M con­tract for GEO opti­cal payloads
  • Poland’s pres­i­dent vetoed fund­ing for Star­link ser­vices in Ukraine, poten­tial­ly cut­ting off sup­port by October

Looking Ahead

The space indus­try con­tin­ues to expe­ri­ence a break­neck pace of inno­va­tion and com­pe­ti­tion. Between Star­ship’s suc­cess, Chi­na’s aggres­sive launch devel­op­ment, and the mas­sive Gold­en Dome ini­tia­tive, we’re see­ing unprece­dent­ed invest­ment and activ­i­ty across both com­mer­cial and defense sectors.

What strikes me most is the shift in risk tol­er­ance – from MDA’s will­ing­ness to “go fast” on mis­sile defense to com­mer­cial com­pa­nies push­ing the enve­lope on reusabil­i­ty and pro­duc­tion. The next few months will be crit­i­cal as these ini­tia­tives move from plan­ning to execution.

Stay tuned for next week’s update. Until then, keep look­ing up!

September 1, 2025  Leave a comment

Space Industry Weekly: Launch Records Shatter While Military Space Takes Center Stage

Team, here with your week­ly space indus­try roundup. This past week has been absolute­ly packed with devel­op­ments that are reshap­ing both com­mer­cial and mil­i­tary space oper­a­tions. From SpaceX hit­ting triple dig­its to the Space Force prepar­ing for orbital com­bat, let’s dive into what’s been hap­pen­ing above our heads.

SpaceX Shatters Launch Records (Again)

SpaceX just crossed a mile­stone that would have seemed impos­si­ble just a few years ago — they launched their 100th Fal­con 9 rock­et of 2025 on Mon­day morn­ing from Van­den­berg Space Force Base. To put this in per­spec­tive, they hit this mark on Octo­ber 20th last year, mean­ing they’re run­ning near­ly two months ahead of their 2024 pace. At this rate, SpaceX will launch more Fal­con 9s this year than NASA flew Space Shut­tle mis­sions in three decades.

The com­pa­ny has also reas­signed about 20% of its Fal­con 9 engi­neer­ing team to work on Star­ship for the next six months, fol­low­ing three con­sec­u­tive upper stage fail­ures ear­li­er this year. Their tenth Star­ship test flight is sched­uled for today (Sun­day), with engi­neers believ­ing they’ve solved the dif­fuser issue that caused May’s fail­ure. We’ll see if Ver­sion 3 of Star­ship, expect­ed late this year or ear­ly 2026, can final­ly deliv­er on the vehi­cle’s ambi­tious promises.

Military Space Operations Enter New Era

The U.S. Space Com­mand is no longer play­ing defense. Gen­er­al Stephen Whit­ing made it crys­tal clear this week: “We now have a com­bat­ant com­mand focused on war fight­ing in space.” This shift from defen­sive to offen­sive capa­bil­i­ties marks a fun­da­men­tal change in how Amer­i­ca approach­es space security.

Last year’s joint U.S.-French satel­lite maneu­ver near a for­eign satel­lite (like­ly Russ­ian) demon­strat­ed new ren­dezvous and prox­im­i­ty oper­a­tions capa­bil­i­ties. The exer­cise was so suc­cess­ful, they’re plan­ning to repeat it lat­er this year. Mean­while, the Nation­al Recon­nais­sance Office has launched over 200 satel­lites since 2023, with SpaceX report­ed­ly lead­ing the com­pe­ti­tion for a new 450-satel­lite con­stel­la­tion to track mis­sile launches.

The inte­gra­tion of AI is par­tic­u­lar­ly fas­ci­nat­ing — Space Com­mand has built “Space­Bot,” a large lan­guage mod­el trained on oper­a­tional data that can com­plete tasks “at machine speed” that pre­vi­ous­ly required ten peo­ple and five hours.

International Launch Developments

The glob­al launch land­scape con­tin­ues to evolve rapid­ly. Fire­fly Aero­space signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing with Japan’s Space Cotan to study launch­ing their Alpha rock­et from Hokkai­do Space­port, which would give them access to the Asian satel­lite mar­ket and pro­vide redun­dan­cy for U.S. allies.

Chi­na’s space ambi­tions faced a set­back when Land­Space’s Zhuque-2E Y2 methane rock­et failed dur­ing an upper stage anom­aly, los­ing four Guowang inter­net satel­lites. Despite this, Chi­na suc­cess­ful­ly test-fired its Long March 10 rock­et’s cen­ter core with sev­en YF-100K engines, keep­ing them on track for crewed lunar mis­sions before 2030. They’ve also approved devel­op­ment of the Long March 10B vari­ant, and Bei­jing-based Ark­tech secured fund­ing for their mas­sive Glacier‑1 rock­et capa­ble of lift­ing 40,000 kg to LEO.

In Europe, Avio gained a 10-year license to oper­ate Vega rock­ets from French Guiana inde­pen­dent­ly of Ari­ane­space. At the same time, Ari­ane 6 com­plet­ed its third launch, deploy­ing the MetOp-SG-A1 weath­er satellite.

Major Industry Moves and Funding

True Anom­aly raised $260 mil­lion in Series C fund­ing (mix of equi­ty and debt) to devel­op space­craft for nation­al secu­ri­ty mis­sions. The com­pa­ny plans four mis­sions over the next 18 months and will grow from 170 to 250 employees.

Rock­et Lab com­plet­ed its $275 mil­lion acqui­si­tion of Geost, expand­ing its role as a defense con­trac­tor with elec­tro-opti­cal and infrared sen­sor capa­bil­i­ties. Spin­Launch secured $30 mil­lion for its Merid­i­an Space broad­band con­stel­la­tion, sup­ple­ment­ing April’s $12 mil­lion from Kongs­berg Defence and Aerospace.

On the ser­vices side, Amen­tum began work on the $4 bil­lion Space Force Range Con­tract after com­peti­tor RGNext dropped its legal chal­lenge. They’re tasked with mod­ern­iz­ing launch ranges to han­dle high­er launch rates.

Policy Shifts and Controversies

NASA’s act­ing admin­is­tra­tor Sean Duffy cre­at­ed waves by stat­ing the agency would “move aside” Earth sci­ence pri­or­i­ties in favor of explo­ration. In his Fox Busi­ness inter­view on August 14th, Duffy specif­i­cal­ly stat­ed: “All of the cli­mate sci­ence and all of the oth­er pri­or­i­ties that the last admin­is­tra­tion had at NASA, we’re going to move aside. All of the sci­ence that we do is going to be direct­ed towards explo­ration, which is the mis­sion of NASA. That’s why we have NASA, is to explore, not to do all of these Earth sci­ences.” This shift would rep­re­sent a major shift for NASA since Earth sci­ence — includ­ing cli­mate mon­i­tor­ing — has been a core NASA mis­sion since the agen­cy’s found­ing. In fact, the 1958 law that cre­at­ed NASA lists as its first objec­tive “the expan­sion of human knowl­edge of the Earth and of phe­nom­e­na in the atmos­phere and space.”

In oth­er news, the Air Nation­al Guard’s trans­fer to the Space Force remains con­tentious. Despite Pres­i­dent Trump’s 2024 cam­paign promise to cre­ate a Space Nation­al Guard, the trans­fer of 578 posi­tions begins on Octo­ber 1st. A Col­orado sur­vey showed only 8 of 101 space oper­a­tors were will­ing to trans­fer full-time, high­light­ing the resis­tance to this reorganization.

In the UK, it has announced plans to fold its own Space Agency into the Depart­ment for Sci­ence, Inno­va­tion, and Tech­nol­o­gy by April 2026, rais­ing indus­try con­cerns about reduced vis­i­bil­i­ty into space spending.

Looking Ahead: Space-Based Solar Power

A new study from King’s Col­lege Lon­don and Xi’an Jiao­tong Uni­ver­si­ty sug­gests space-based solar pow­er could pro­vide 80% of Europe’s renew­able ener­gy by 2050. The research ana­lyzed NASA’s heliosat swarm and pla­nar array designs, find­ing poten­tial cost sav­ings of 7–15% com­pared to ground-based solar, plus a two-thirds reduc­tion in bat­tery require­ments due to con­sis­tent pow­er generation.

Notable Launches and Milestones

The X‑37B space­plane launched on its eighth mis­sion Thurs­day night aboard a Fal­con 9, car­ry­ing exper­i­ments includ­ing laser com­mu­ni­ca­tions and quan­tum iner­tial sen­sors. The pre­vi­ous mis­sion last­ed 908 days, and no dura­tion has been announced for this flight.

In a his­toric first, Con­cor­dia Uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents launched Canada’s first space rock­et in 25 years with their Star­sailor vehi­cle. How­ev­er, it sep­a­rat­ed ear­li­er than planned and did­n’t reach the Kár­mán line.

The Bottom Line

This week per­fect­ly encap­su­lates the cur­rent state of the space indus­try — com­mer­cial com­pa­nies are achiev­ing unprece­dent­ed launch cadences. In con­trast, mil­i­tary space oper­a­tions open­ly embrace offen­sive capa­bil­i­ties. The inte­gra­tion of AI, the push toward reusabil­i­ty across mul­ti­ple providers, and the con­tin­ued inter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion for lunar land­ing capa­bil­i­ties all point to an indus­try that’s matur­ing rapid­ly while still push­ing boundaries.

As we watch Star­ship’s tenth test flight and mon­i­tor the ongo­ing Nation­al Guard inte­gra­tion debates, one thing is clear: space is no longer just about explo­ration and sci­ence. It’s about nation­al secu­ri­ty, eco­nom­ic com­pet­i­tive­ness, and increas­ing­ly, the infra­struc­ture that will define the next cen­tu­ry of human activ­i­ty both on and off Earth.

Until next time, keep look­ing up!

August 31, 2025  Leave a comment

Defense Industry Weekly: Major Shifts in Military Tech, Procurement, and Security

This past week brought sig­nif­i­cant devel­op­ments across the defense indus­tri­al base, from rev­o­lu­tion­ary mis­sile defense ini­tia­tives to con­cern­ing secu­ri­ty rev­e­la­tions about our cloud infra­struc­ture. As some­one who’s spent decades ana­lyz­ing the inter­sec­tion of tech­nol­o­gy and nation­al defense, I’m see­ing pat­terns that demand our imme­di­ate attention.

Missile Defense Revolution: Speed at Any Cost

The Mis­sile Defense Agen­cy’s indus­try sum­mit revealed an urgent real­i­ty check. With adver­saries advanc­ing their mis­sile capa­bil­i­ties, MDA lead­er­ship made it crys­tal clear: we have rough­ly 1,020 days to deliv­er ini­tial mis­sile defense capa­bil­i­ties. That’s not a sug­ges­tion – it’s a sur­vival timeline.

Admi­ral Williams deliv­ered the blunt truth about our test­ing phi­los­o­phy need­ing a com­plete over­haul. The old mod­el of tak­ing 14 months for six major flight tests? Dead. The new man­date: com­press six months of data analy­sis into six min­utes using dig­i­tal tools and satel­lite links. This shift of men­tal­i­ty isn’t just about effi­cien­cy; it’s about match­ing the pace of threats that evolve faster than our tra­di­tion­al pro­cure­ment cycles can handle.

What struck me most was the call for “orders of mag­ni­tude” improve­ments in afford­abil­i­ty. We’re not talk­ing incre­men­tal changes – we need rev­o­lu­tion­ary cost reduc­tions while accel­er­at­ing deliv­ery. The mes­sage to indus­try was clear: bring your A‑game or get left behind.

Army Transformation: Streamlining for Future Warfare

The Army’s trans­for­ma­tion ini­tia­tive is reshap­ing how we orga­nize and acquire capa­bil­i­ties. At Tech­Net Augus­ta, offi­cials con­firmed a major reor­ga­ni­za­tion of Pro­gram Exec­u­tive Offices (PEOs), poten­tial­ly con­sol­i­dat­ing from 13 to 9 offices. This move isn’t bureau­crat­ic shuf­fling – it’s recog­ni­tion that our acqui­si­tion struc­ture must match our evolv­ing requirements.

The new Mod­u­lar Mis­sion Pay­load (MMP) for elec­tron­ic war­fare exem­pli­fies this shift. Instead of ded­i­cat­ed EW vehi­cles “look­ing like por­cu­pines” with anten­nas, the Army wants plug-and-play capa­bil­i­ties that work across plat­forms. Col. Scott Shaf­fer empha­sized COTS/GOTS solu­tions that deliv­er 60% of the capa­bil­i­ty quick­ly, rather than per­fect sys­tems years late.

Bran­don Pugh, the Army’s new prin­ci­pal cyber advi­sor, high­light­ed anoth­er crit­i­cal gap: we need AI for cyber oper­a­tions at the tac­ti­cal edge, not just enter­prise IT. His vision of AI detect­ing mali­cious code in real-time while keep­ing humans in the loop rep­re­sents the bal­anced approach we need.

Security Breaches and Supply Chain Vulnerabilities

The most alarm­ing news came from ProP­ub­li­ca’s inves­ti­ga­tion into Microsoft­’s Defense Depart­ment cloud oper­a­tions. The rev­e­la­tion that Microsoft used Chi­na-based engi­neers with “dig­i­tal escorts” to main­tain DoD sys­tems rep­re­sents a cat­a­stroph­ic secu­ri­ty fail­ure. For­mer DoD CIO John Sher­man called it right: this prac­tice does­n’t pass the com­mon sense test.

Microsoft­’s secu­ri­ty plan sub­mit­ted to DISA con­ve­nient­ly omit­ted any men­tion of for­eign engi­neers or Chi­na-based oper­a­tions. The com­pa­ny buried vague ref­er­ences to “escort­ed access” deep in a 125-page doc­u­ment. At the same time, Defense offi­cials expressed shock when the prac­tice came to light. Microsoft has since stopped using Chi­na-based engi­neers for DoD work, but the dam­age to trust is done. The con­tin­ued breakdown

Microsoft con­tin­ues to expe­ri­ence a series of mis­steps, which are con­nect­ed to broad­er sup­ply chain con­cerns high­light­ed by the DHS’s expan­sion of the Uyghur Forced Labor Pre­ven­tion Act. Adding steel, cop­per, and lithi­um to import restric­tions acknowl­edges that our defense indus­tri­al base faces both secu­ri­ty and eth­i­cal chal­lenges. With over 16,700 ship­ments worth $3.7 bil­lion already blocked, we’re see­ing real enforce­ment of these concerns.

Economic and Strategic Implications

The Trump admin­is­tra­tion’s Intel deal rep­re­sents a new mod­el for secur­ing domes­tic chip pro­duc­tion. Con­vert­ing $8.9 bil­lion in CHIPS Act grants into a 10% equi­ty stake (with options for anoth­er 5% at $20/share) gives tax­pay­ers actu­al own­er­ship rather than just sub­si­dies. Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan’s jour­ney from “high­ly CONFLICTED” to “High­ly Respect­ed” in Trump’s eyes shows how quick­ly dynam­ics shift when nation­al secu­ri­ty meets busi­ness reality.

Pen­ta­gon pro­cure­ment data reveals inter­est­ing trends: Q2 spend­ing reached $14.3 bil­lion in one week fol­low­ing the pas­sage of the con­tin­u­ing res­o­lu­tion, with pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices account­ing for $15.4 bil­lion in total. Northrop Grum­man’s $700 mil­lion ground-based strate­gic deter­rent con­tract led the pack, show­ing where pri­or­i­ties lie.

Technology and Innovation Drivers

Chi­na’s graphite bomb rev­e­la­tion deserves seri­ous atten­tion. This “soft-kill” weapon can dis­able pow­er grids with­out destroy­ing infra­struc­ture – per­fect for “pres­sure not con­quest” strate­gies. The abil­i­ty to scat­ter 90 sub­mu­ni­tions across 10,000 square meters, caus­ing wide­spread elec­tri­cal fail­ure with­out vis­i­ble destruc­tion, rep­re­sents a new form of war­fare that tar­gets civil­ian con­fi­dence as much as mil­i­tary capability.

On the pos­i­tive side, the admin­is­tra­tion’s Nation­al Design Stu­dio ini­tia­tive aims to mod­ern­ize fed­er­al dig­i­tal ser­vices by July 4, 2026. With only 6% of fed­er­al web­sites rat­ed “good” for mobile use and less than 20% uti­liz­ing stan­dard­ized design sys­tems, there is a mas­sive room for improve­ment. The three-year tem­po­rary orga­ni­za­tion mod­el mir­rors DOGE’s approach to dri­ving rapid change.

Looking Ahead

Sev­er­al trends demand our attention:

  1. Speed Over Per­fec­tion: From mis­sile defense to Army EW sys­tems, the mes­sage is clear – deliv­er 60% capa­bil­i­ty now rather than 100% capa­bil­i­ty never.
  2. Secu­ri­ty Through Own­er­ship: The Intel deal sig­nals poten­tial new mod­els for secur­ing crit­i­cal capa­bil­i­ties through equi­ty stakes rather than just contracts.
  3. Trust Deficit: The Microsoft-Chi­na rev­e­la­tion is like­ly to trig­ger a deep­er scruti­ny of all defense con­trac­tors’ for­eign oper­a­tions and secu­ri­ty practices.
  4. Inte­gra­tion Imper­a­tive: Army PEO con­sol­i­da­tion and mod­u­lar sys­tems reflect the need for inte­grat­ed capa­bil­i­ties rather than stovepiped programs.

The defense indus­tri­al base faces a fun­da­men­tal ten­sion: we need to move faster while main­tain­ing secu­ri­ty, reduce costs while increas­ing capa­bil­i­ty, and embrace com­mer­cial tech­nol­o­gy while pro­tect­ing mil­i­tary advan­tages. Suc­cess requires indus­try part­ners who under­stand that busi­ness as usu­al is a lux­u­ry we can no longer afford.

As we nav­i­gate these chal­lenges, remem­ber that every deci­sion impacts our abil­i­ty to deter and defend. The 1,020-day count­down Admi­ral Williams men­tioned isn’t just about mis­sile defense – it’s about trans­form­ing how we think about defense acqui­si­tion and indus­tri­al base resilience. The ques­tion isn’t whether we can afford to change; it’s whether we can afford not to.

August 27, 2025  Leave a comment

DoD Industry Weekly: Procurement Trends and Strategic Shifts Shape Defense Landscape

As we nav­i­gate the com­plex­i­ties of the defense indus­tri­al land­scape in August 2025, sev­er­al key devel­op­ments are reshap­ing how the Depart­ment of Defense approach­es pro­cure­ment, indus­tri­al base man­age­ment, and strate­gic part­ner­ships. This week’s analy­sis reveals crit­i­cal trends that every defense con­trac­tor and indus­try stake­hold­er should understand.

Procurement Spending Patterns Signal Strategic Realignment

The lat­est Bloomberg Gov­ern­ment data reveals a fas­ci­nat­ing shift in Pen­ta­gon pro­cure­ment pat­terns that deserves our atten­tion. For only the third time in a decade, we’ve wit­nessed a quar­ter-over-quar­ter decrease in Defense Depart­ment spend­ing, with Q2 FY2025 oblig­a­tions drop­ping to $104.6 bil­lion from high­er Q1 lev­els. This quar­ter brings total agency spend­ing to $212.4 bil­lion for the first half of the fis­cal year.

What’s par­tic­u­lar­ly note­wor­thy is the tim­ing of this trend. Spend­ing surged dur­ing the sec­ond week of March, coin­cid­ing with Pres­i­dent Trump’s sign­ing of the con­tin­u­ing res­o­lu­tion (Pub­lic Law 119–4) that extend­ed stop­gap fund­ing through the fis­cal year’s end. This spike, reach­ing $14.3 bil­lion in unclas­si­fied pro­cure­ment from March 10–14, rep­re­sents the quar­ter’s high­est week­ly spending.

The con­tin­u­ing res­o­lu­tion’s impact can­not be under­stat­ed. Unlike typ­i­cal stop­gap mea­sures that restrict new project ini­ti­a­tion, this res­o­lu­tion pro­vid­ed the Pen­ta­gon with increased pro­cure­ment fund­ing and cru­cial flex­i­bil­i­ty to launch new ini­tia­tives. This devel­op­ment sig­nals a more strate­gic approach to defense spend­ing, mov­ing away from the tra­di­tion­al end-of-fis­cal-year rush we’ve his­tor­i­cal­ly observed.

Professional Services Market Dominates Defense Spending

A sig­nif­i­cant trend emerg­ing from Q2 data shows pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices lead­ing defense pro­cure­ment at $15.4 bil­lion. This data con­trasts sharply with civil­ian agency trends, where pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices con­tracts faced high ter­mi­na­tion rates due to Depart­ment of Gov­ern­ment Effi­cien­cy ini­tia­tives dur­ing the same period.

The stand­out con­tract in this cat­e­go­ry was Northrop Grum­man’s Air Force ground-based strate­gic deter­rent con­tract, val­ued at near­ly $700 mil­lion. This award under­scores the Pen­tagon’s con­tin­ued invest­ment in strate­gic mod­ern­iza­tion capa­bil­i­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly in nuclear deter­rence infrastructure.

For firms that offer pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices as part of their offer­ing (this includes VARs, OEMs, and, of course, the FSI Com­mu­ni­ty), this trend rep­re­sents both oppor­tu­ni­ty and com­pe­ti­tion. The defense sec­tor’s appetite for pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices remains robust, but con­trac­tors must demon­strate clear val­ue propo­si­tions that align with effi­cien­cy ini­tia­tives while sup­port­ing crit­i­cal mis­sion requirements.

Industrial Base Vulnerabilities Under Congressional Scrutiny

Con­gres­sion­al atten­tion to defense indus­tri­al base resilience con­tin­ues to inten­si­fy. The Gov­ern­ment Account­abil­i­ty Office’s recent report (GAO-25–107283) high­lights ongo­ing con­cerns about for­eign sup­pli­er depen­den­cies and their risks to nation­al secu­ri­ty. This scruti­ny comes at a crit­i­cal time when sup­ply chain resilience has become a nation­al secu­ri­ty imperative.

The report’s find­ings will like­ly influ­ence upcom­ing pol­i­cy deci­sions and pro­cure­ment strate­gies. Defense con­trac­tors should pre­pare for increased empha­sis on domes­tic sourc­ing require­ments and sup­ply chain trans­paren­cy. Com­pa­nies that can demon­strate robust domes­tic sup­ply chains and reduced for­eign depen­den­cies will like­ly find them­selves at a com­pet­i­tive advan­tage in future competitions.

Legislative Developments Shape Future Contracting Landscape

H.R. 3838’s pro­vi­sions con­tin­ue to work through the leg­isla­tive process, with sig­nif­i­cant impli­ca­tions for defense con­trac­tors. The bill requires the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense for Indus­tri­al Base Pol­i­cy and the Direc­tor of Defense Pric­ing, Con­tract­ing, and Acqui­si­tion Pol­i­cy to sub­mit a com­pre­hen­sive report by March 1, 2026, exam­in­ing reg­u­la­tions and poli­cies that dis­cour­age con­trac­tors from main­tain­ing or invest­ing in surge capac­i­ty.

This leg­isla­tive focus on surge capac­i­ty reflects grow­ing recog­ni­tion that the defense indus­tri­al base must be pre­pared for rapid scal­ing in response to emerg­ing threats. Con­trac­tors should begin eval­u­at­ing their surge capac­i­ty capa­bil­i­ties and iden­ti­fy­ing poten­tial bar­ri­ers to expan­sion. Those who can demon­strate surge readi­ness may find new oppor­tu­ni­ties as the Pen­ta­gon seeks to strength­en indus­tri­al base resilience.

Technology Infrastructure Modernization Accelerates

The Depart­men­t’s focus on tech­ni­cal debt reduc­tion and infra­struc­ture mod­ern­iza­tion con­tin­ues to gain momen­tum. Recent com­mu­ni­ca­tions from the Chief Infor­ma­tion Offi­cer’s office empha­size pri­or­i­tiz­ing tech­ni­cal debt reduc­tion for Fis­cal Year 2027, with spe­cif­ic atten­tion to local area net­work infra­struc­ture upgrades.

This ini­tia­tive rep­re­sents sig­nif­i­cant oppor­tu­ni­ties for tech­nol­o­gy con­trac­tors, par­tic­u­lar­ly those spe­cial­iz­ing in net­work infra­struc­ture, cyber­se­cu­ri­ty, and sys­tems inte­gra­tion. The empha­sis on “max­i­miz­ing warfight­er lethal­i­ty” through tech­nol­o­gy improve­ments sig­nals that suc­cess­ful pro­pos­als must demon­strate oper­a­tional impact rather than mere­ly tech­ni­cal capability.

Strategic Implications for Defense Contractors

Sev­er­al key take­aways emerge from this week’s developments:

Pro­cure­ment Tim­ing Strat­e­gy: The shift away from tra­di­tion­al quar­ter­ly spend­ing pat­terns sug­gests con­trac­tors should main­tain con­sis­tent engage­ment through­out the fis­cal year rather than con­cen­trat­ing efforts on tra­di­tion­al peak peri­ods. The his­tor­i­cal pat­tern of 31% Q4, 25% Q2, 23% Q3, and 22% Q1 spend­ing may be evolving.

Pro­fes­sion­al Ser­vices Focus: The dom­i­nance of pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices spend­ing indi­cates strong demand for exper­tise-based solu­tions. Con­trac­tors should empha­size their abil­i­ty to pro­vide strate­gic advi­so­ry ser­vices, tech­ni­cal exper­tise, and spe­cial­ized knowl­edge rather than com­mod­i­ty services.

Sup­ply Chain Resilience: With increas­ing scruti­ny on for­eign depen­den­cies, con­trac­tors must proac­tive­ly address sup­ply chain vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties. This review should include map­ping sup­pli­er net­works, iden­ti­fy­ing domes­tic alter­na­tives, and devel­op­ing con­tin­gency plans for sup­ply disruptions.

Surge Capac­i­ty Prepa­ra­tion: The leg­isla­tive focus on surge capac­i­ty sug­gests future oppor­tu­ni­ties for con­trac­tors who can demon­strate rapid scal­ing capa­bil­i­ties. Com­pa­nies should assess their capac­i­ty for rapid oper­a­tional expan­sion and iden­ti­fy poten­tial bar­ri­ers to surge production.

Looking Ahead

As we move through the remain­der of FY2025, sev­er­al fac­tors will shape the defense con­tract­ing land­scape. The Pen­tagon’s empha­sis on effi­cien­cy and strate­gic spend­ing sug­gests a more dis­ci­plined approach to pro­cure­ment. Con­trac­tors must demon­strate clear val­ue propo­si­tions and align their offer­ings with strate­gic priorities.

The ongo­ing focus on indus­tri­al base resilience will like­ly dri­ve pol­i­cy changes that favor domes­tic sup­pli­ers and com­pa­nies with robust sup­ply chain man­age­ment. Orga­ni­za­tions that invest in sup­ply chain trans­paren­cy and domes­tic sourc­ing capa­bil­i­ties will be well-posi­tioned for future opportunities.

Tech­nol­o­gy mod­ern­iza­tion ini­tia­tives present sig­nif­i­cant oppor­tu­ni­ties, but suc­cess will require demon­strat­ing clear oper­a­tional impact. Con­trac­tors must move beyond tech­ni­cal spec­i­fi­ca­tions to show how their solu­tions enhance warfight­er capa­bil­i­ties and mis­sion effectiveness.

The defense indus­tri­al land­scape con­tin­ues evolv­ing rapid­ly, dri­ven by strate­gic com­pe­ti­tion, tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ment, and fis­cal dis­ci­pline. Suc­cess in this envi­ron­ment requires agili­ty, strate­gic think­ing, and a deep under­stand­ing of both cur­rent trends and emerg­ing require­ments. Com­pa­nies that can adapt to these chang­ing dynam­ics while main­tain­ing focus on mis­sion-crit­i­cal capa­bil­i­ties will thrive in the evolv­ing defense marketplace.

August 20, 2025  Leave a comment

Space Industry Weekly: Nuclear Power Takes Center Stage as Commercial Space Regulations Get Major Overhaul

Good morn­ing, Team. This week has major devel­op­ments in nuclear space tech­nol­o­gy, sweep­ing reg­u­la­to­ry changes, and some sig­nif­i­cant wins and loss­es in the launch sec­tor. Let’s dive in!

Trump Administration Shakes Up Space Regulations

The biggest news this week came from the White House, where Pres­i­dent Trump signed an exec­u­tive order titled “Enabling Com­pe­ti­tion in the Com­mer­cial Space Indus­try” on August 13th. This is a game-chang­er for com­mer­cial space com­pa­nies that have been strug­gling with bureau­crat­ic red tape.

The order directs the FAA to com­plete­ly over­haul the Part 450 launch and reen­try licens­ing reg­u­la­tions that have been a major pain point for the indus­try. It also scales back envi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tions for launch and space­port projects — a move that’s got indus­try lead­ers cel­e­brat­ing and envi­ron­men­tal groups concerned.

But here’s where it gets real­ly inter­est­ing: the Com­merce Depart­ment is now tasked with cre­at­ing a mis­sion autho­riza­tion sys­tem for “nov­el space activ­i­ties” that aren’t cur­rent­ly reg­u­lat­ed. This exec­u­tive order could open the door for all sorts of inno­v­a­tive space ven­tures we haven’t even imag­ined yet.

In a relat­ed move that raised eye­brows, the FAA ter­mi­nat­ed the entire mem­ber­ship of the Com­mer­cial Space Trans­porta­tion Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee (COMSTAC) this week with­out expla­na­tion. A DOT spokesper­son said it’s part of a broad­er effort to “recon­sti­tute” advi­so­ry boards, but the tim­ing seems coincidental.

Nuclear Power: The Next Frontier

Nuclear tech­nol­o­gy is hav­ing a moment in space, and for good rea­son. NASA just appoint­ed Steven Sina­core to lead its ambi­tious lunar nuclear reac­tor pro­gram. The goal? Put a 100kW fis­sion reac­tor on the Moon with­in five years through pub­lic-pri­vate partnerships.

This ambi­tious effort is a mas­sive scale-up from their pre­vi­ous 40kW tar­get, dri­ven by plans for com­mer­cial lunar resource extrac­tion. But as for­mer NASA asso­ciate admin­is­tra­tor Bhavya Lal point­ed out, this won’t be cheap — we’re talk­ing about $3 bil­lion over five years, plus sig­nif­i­cant tech­ni­cal assis­tance from NASA and DOE labs.

Mean­while, Zeno Pow­er made a strate­gic hire, bring­ing on AC Cha­ra­nia, NASA’s for­mer chief tech­nol­o­gist, as their new SVP of space busi­ness devel­op­ment. Zeno’s devel­op­ing nuclear bat­ter­ies that use radioiso­tope heat for pow­er in extreme envi­ron­ments — per­fect for deep space mis­sions where solar pan­els just won’t cut it.

The chal­lenges are real, though. The U.S. might not have enough enriched ura­ni­um for even one full-scale reac­tor pro­gram, and our launch sites aren’t ready for nuclear pay­load han­dling. But if we can solve these prob­lems, nuclear pow­er could trans­form how we explore the solar system.

While this is an ambi­tious effort, there are plen­ty of things to focus on here on Earth, and that $3 bil­lion can be bet­ter used else­where. Fur­ther­more, we have yet to demon­strate the abil­i­ty to tran­sit back and forth to the Moon safe­ly and efficiently.

Launch Successes and Failures

It was a mixed week for launch­es. ULA’s Vul­can Cen­taur com­plet­ed its first nation­al secu­ri­ty mis­sion (USSF-106) for the Space Force on August 12th — a major mile­stone after years of delays. Europe’s Ari­ane 6 also had a suc­cess­ful flight, launch­ing the MetOp-SG-A1 weath­er satellite.

But not every­one was cel­e­brat­ing. Chi­nese start­up Land­space’s Zhuque-2E methane-fueled rock­et failed to reach orbit on Thurs­day, end­ing a streak of four suc­cess­ful flights. The com­pa­ny has­n’t dis­closed what went wrong or what pay­loads were lost, which is typ­i­cal for Chi­nese launch failures.

Speak­ing of Chi­nese space com­pa­nies, both Land­space and CAS Space are eye­ing IPOs on Shang­hai’s STAR Mar­ket. CAS Space report­ed $34 mil­lion in rev­enue but $105 mil­lion in loss­es in 2024 — a reminder that the launch busi­ness is still tough, even with gov­ern­ment support.

Defense and Security Updates

The space domain con­tin­ues to mil­i­ta­rize. A U.S. MQ‑9 Reaper drone oper­at­ed by Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion flew a rare mis­sion deep into Mex­i­co on Wednes­day, orbit­ing near Mex­i­co City. Mex­i­can offi­cials con­firmed it was at their request, like­ly relat­ed to anti-car­tel oper­a­tions fol­low­ing Trump’s direc­tive to treat cer­tain car­tels as For­eign Ter­ror­ist Orga­ni­za­tions. As alum­ni of the USAF 11th Intel­li­gence Squadron, the PED has some­thing new to look at.

In a sig­nif­i­cant orga­ni­za­tion­al change, the Space Force will assume con­trol of all space mis­sions cur­rent­ly han­dled by Air Nation­al Guard units by Octo­ber 1st. This affects about 578 Guard posi­tions and effec­tive­ly kills pro­pos­als for a sep­a­rate Space Nation­al Guard.

Lt. Gen. DeAn­na Burt, retir­ing after 33 years of ser­vice, warned that while the Space Force has made great progress, it des­per­ate­ly needs more fund­ing to keep pace with threats. She empha­sized the ser­vice’s expect­ed role in the Gold­en Dome mis­sile defense sys­tem — anoth­er sign of space’s grow­ing impor­tance to nation­al security.

Commercial Developments

True Anom­aly, the defense-focused space start­up, raised a whop­ping $260 mil­lion in Series C fund­ing led by Accel. The com­pa­ny is devel­op­ing a space­craft that can maneu­ver near oth­er satel­lites — tech­nol­o­gy that’s increas­ing­ly impor­tant as space becomes more contested.

Impulse Space announced that its GEO rideshare pro­gram, “Car­a­van,” is ful­ly booked for its first mis­sion in Q3 2026. They’ll use their Helios orbital trans­fer vehi­cle to deliv­er up to four tons of small­sat pay­loads to GEO, with annu­al mis­sions planned thereafter.

On the com­mu­ni­ca­tions front, SpaceX is cry­ing foul over Vir­gini­a’s rur­al broad­band pro­gram. Despite hav­ing Star­link sub­scribers with­in a mile of 95% of tar­get­ed loca­tions, they’re only get­ting 4% of the sub­si­dized instal­la­tions. Mean­while, Ama­zon’s still-in-devel­op­ment Kuiper con­stel­la­tion is get­ting more fund­ing for more loca­tions — pol­i­tics in space, anyone?

Looking Ahead

As bud­gets tight­en (NASA could face a 25% cut in fis­cal 2026), the indus­try’s get­ting cre­ative. Small­sats are emerg­ing as a cost-effec­tive solu­tion for plan­e­tary sci­ence mis­sions. The Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land’s TERP RAPTOR cube­sat mis­sion to study aster­oid Apophis dur­ing its 2029 fly­by shows how acad­e­mia might fill gaps left by bud­get cuts.

The mes­sage is clear: do more with less, accept high­er risks for low­er costs, and lever­age com­mer­cial part­ner­ships wher­ev­er pos­si­ble. It’s a new era for space explo­ration, dri­ven by fis­cal real­i­ty and enabled by tech­no­log­i­cal innovation.

The space indus­try con­tin­ues to evolve at break­neck speed, with nuclear tech­nol­o­gy, reg­u­la­to­ry reform, and com­mer­cial inno­va­tion lead­ing the charge. As always, I’ll be keep­ing my eye on these devel­op­ments and how they cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for com­pa­nies like ours.

Until next time, keep look­ing up!

August 18, 2025  Leave a comment

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