Pentagon Pivots: Technical Debt, DOGE Cuts, and Congressional Oversight Shape Defense Landscape

The Depart­ment of Defense con­tin­ues to nav­i­gate a com­plex land­scape of mod­ern­iza­tion chal­lenges, bud­get pres­sures, and con­gres­sion­al over­sight as we move deep­er into fis­cal year 2025. This week’s devel­op­ments under­score the crit­i­cal inter­sec­tion of tech­nol­o­gy trans­for­ma­tion, fis­cal respon­si­bil­i­ty, and warfight­er readi­ness that defines today’s defense environment.

Technical Debt Takes Center Stage

Sec­re­tary Hegseth’s recent mem­o­ran­dum on “Pri­or­i­ti­za­tion of Tech­ni­cal Debt for Max­i­miz­ing Warfight­er Lethal­i­ty” rep­re­sents a fun­da­men­tal shift in how DoD approach­es IT mod­ern­iza­tion. The direc­tive is crys­tal clear: tech­ni­cal debt invest­ments must direct­ly sup­port com­bat­ant com­mand require­ments and enhance warfight­er capa­bil­i­ties above all else.

The estab­lish­ment of the Mis­sion Net­work as a Ser­vice (MNaaS) Cross Func­tion­al Team sig­nals DoD’s com­mit­ment to uni­fy­ing enter­prise archi­tec­ture across com­bat­ant com­mands. This isn’t just anoth­er IT initiative—it’s a strate­gic imper­a­tive to cre­ate a cohe­sive SECRET fab­ric archi­tec­ture that enables seam­less infor­ma­tion shar­ing across areas of responsibility.

Equal­ly sig­nif­i­cant is the depart­men­t’s explo­ration of Hard­ware as a Ser­vice (HaaS) mod­els. By lever­ag­ing ven­dor leas­ing arrange­ments for routers, switch­es, and oth­er IT equip­ment, DoD can achieve scale effi­cien­cies while ensur­ing only NIAP-approved equip­ment enters the enter­prise. This approach address­es both mod­ern­iza­tion needs and secu­ri­ty requirements—a win-win for tax­pay­ers and warfight­ers alike.

DOGE’s Defense Department Focus Intensifies

The Depart­ment of Gov­ern­ment Effi­cien­cy’s impact on Pen­ta­gon oper­a­tions has moved beyond spec­u­la­tion into mea­sur­able action. Gold­man Sachs ana­lysts report that DoD now ranks sec­ond among fed­er­al agen­cies in total can­celed IT con­tract val­ue, with con­sult­ing giants Booz Allen Hamil­ton and Lei­dos bear­ing the brunt of terminations.

The num­bers tell the sto­ry: Lei­dos lost a $310 mil­lion hyper­son­ic ISR project, while Booz Allen Hamil­ton saw mul­ti­ple con­tracts total­ing over $130 mil­lion ter­mi­nat­ed. These aren’t arbi­trary cuts—they reflect new DoD mem­os rais­ing thresh­olds for IT and ser­vices con­tract­ing, forc­ing a more dis­ci­plined approach to ven­dor relationships.

From a busi­ness per­spec­tive, this cre­ates both chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties. Prime con­trac­tors must demon­strate clear val­ue propo­si­tions tied to warfight­er out­comes, while small­er, more agile firms may find new open­ings in a ratio­nal­ized marketplace.

Congressional Oversight Expands Space and Defense Priorities

The House Armed Ser­vices Com­mit­tee’s 14-hour markup of the fis­cal 2026 NDAA reveals law­mak­ers’ grow­ing focus on space capa­bil­i­ties and emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies. Beyond the head­line pro­grams, the com­mit­tee’s amend­ment requests pro­vide valu­able intel­li­gence on con­gres­sion­al pri­or­i­ties and time­line expectations.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Seth Moul­ton’s amend­ment requir­ing annu­al com­bat­ant com­mand report­ing on remote-sens­ing data sig­nals sus­tained leg­isla­tive inter­est in intel­li­gence, sur­veil­lance, and recon­nais­sance capa­bil­i­ties. The five-year report­ing require­ment sug­gests Con­gress expects long-term strate­gic plan­ning, not quick fixes.

The space domain receives par­tic­u­lar atten­tion, with brief­ing requests cov­er­ing satel­lite con­trol net­work mod­ern­iza­tion, radi­a­tion risks for non-hard­ened satel­lites, and nuclear elec­tric propul­sion roadmaps. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mike Turn­er’s push for a nuclear elec­tric propul­sion test mis­sion by 2030 estab­lish­es a con­crete time­line for advanced space capabilities.

Cloud Computing Advances Despite Complexity

The Joint Warfight­ing Cloud Capa­bil­i­ty (JWCC) pro­gram con­tin­ues its mea­sured roll­out, with secret-lev­el bid offer­ings expect­ed from Google, Microsoft, Ora­cle, and Ama­zon Web Ser­vices in the com­ing weeks. DIS­A’s Sharon Woods empha­sized the strate­gic impor­tance of enter­prise top secret cloud capabilities—a gap that JWCC aims to fill.

The mul­ti-cloud approach reflects lessons learned from the trou­bled JEDI con­tract while main­tain­ing com­pet­i­tive dynam­ics among major cloud providers. For defense con­trac­tors, this cre­ates oppor­tu­ni­ties across mul­ti­ple plat­forms rather than win­ner-take-all scenarios.

Procurement Patterns Signal Strategic Shifts

Pen­ta­gon pro­cure­ment data reveals inter­est­ing trends that savvy con­trac­tors should mon­i­tor. Sec­ond quar­ter fis­cal 2025 oblig­a­tions totaled $104.6 bil­lion, bring­ing first-half spend­ing to $212.4 billion—a quar­ter-over-quar­ter decrease that occurred only three times in the past decade.

Pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices dom­i­nat­ed Q2 spend­ing at $15.4 bil­lion, con­trast­ing sharply with civil­ian agency trends where pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices con­tracts faced high ter­mi­na­tion rates under DOGE ini­tia­tives. Northrop Grum­man’s $700 mil­lion Ground Based Strate­gic Deter­rent con­tract exem­pli­fies the con­tin­ued demand for high-val­ue pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices in crit­i­cal defense programs.

The spend­ing surge fol­low­ing Pres­i­dent Trump’s sig­na­ture on the con­tin­u­ing res­o­lu­tion demon­strates how pol­i­cy deci­sions direct­ly impact pro­cure­ment pat­terns. The week of March 10–14 saw $14.3 bil­lion in unclas­si­fied procurement—the quar­ter’s high­est week­ly total.

Strategic Implications for Defense Contractors

These devel­op­ments cre­ate a new oper­at­ing envi­ron­ment for defense con­trac­tors. Suc­cess requires align­ment with three key pri­or­i­ties: warfight­er lethal­i­ty, fis­cal dis­ci­pline, and tech­no­log­i­cal innovation.

Com­pa­nies must artic­u­late clear con­nec­tions between their offer­ings and com­bat effec­tive­ness. The days of sell­ing IT solu­tions based sole­ly on tech­ni­cal spec­i­fi­ca­tions are over—warfighter impact dri­ves fund­ing decisions.

The DOGE influ­ence demands rig­or­ous cost-ben­e­fit analy­sis and out­come-based con­tract­ing mod­els. Con­trac­tors who can demon­strate mea­sur­able val­ue through per­for­mance met­rics and cost effi­cien­cies will thrive in this environment.

Final­ly, the empha­sis on space capa­bil­i­ties, cloud com­put­ing, and advanced man­u­fac­tur­ing cre­ates oppor­tu­ni­ties for firms with rel­e­vant exper­tise. The semi­con­duc­tor man­u­fac­tur­ing dis­cus­sion in defense cir­cles high­lights the crit­i­cal need for domes­tic pro­duc­tion capa­bil­i­ties and advanced mate­ri­als discovery.

Looking Ahead

As we approach the final quar­ter of fis­cal 2025, sev­er­al fac­tors will shape the defense land­scape. Con­gres­sion­al action on the NDAA will estab­lish fund­ing pri­or­i­ties and pro­gram author­i­ties. JWCC imple­men­ta­tion will deter­mine cloud com­put­ing strate­gies across the depart­ment. Most impor­tant­ly, the con­tin­ued focus on tech­ni­cal debt pri­or­i­ti­za­tion will dri­ve IT invest­ment deci­sions through­out the enterprise.

For defense exec­u­tives, the mes­sage is clear: align with warfight­er require­ments, demon­strate fis­cal respon­si­bil­i­ty, and lever­age emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies to main­tain a com­pet­i­tive advan­tage. The Pen­tagon’s trans­for­ma­tion con­tin­ues, and those who adapt quick­ly will cap­ture the great­est oppor­tu­ni­ties in this evolv­ing marketplace.

The inter­sec­tion of pol­i­cy, tech­nol­o­gy, and fis­cal real­i­ty cre­ates both chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties. Suc­cess belongs to those who can nav­i­gate this com­plex­i­ty while deliv­er­ing mea­sur­able val­ue to our nation’s defenders.

July 30, 2025  Leave a comment

Space Industry Weekly Wrap: Funding Flows, Defense Deals, and Deep Space Dreams

Hey every­one, Austin here with your week­ly space indus­try brief­ing. I have been track­ing some fas­ci­nat­ing devel­op­ments across the sec­tor this week, from mas­sive fund­ing rounds to crit­i­cal defense con­tracts. Let’s dive into what’s been hap­pen­ing above our heads and in the boardrooms.

Golden Dome Takes Shape Under New Leadership

One of the week’s biggest devel­op­ments came from the world of mis­sile defense. Gen. Michael Guetlein, fresh­ly con­firmed as the Gold­en Dome pro­gram man­ag­er, wast­ed no time lay­ing out his vision for Amer­i­ca’s next-gen­er­a­tion home­land mis­sile defense sys­tem. Speak­ing at the Space Foun­da­tion con­fer­ence, Guetlein com­mit­ted to deliv­er­ing an “objec­tive archi­tec­ture” with­in 60 days – an aggres­sive time­line that sig­nals the admin­is­tra­tion’s urgency on this initiative.

What’s par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing is Guetlein’s direct report­ing line to Deputy Sec­re­tary of Defense Steve Fein­berg, bypass­ing tra­di­tion­al chains of com­mand. This stream­lined struc­ture, com­bined with efforts to expand the con­trac­tor base beyond SpaceX to include com­pa­nies like Ama­zon, Rock­et Lab, and Stoke Space, sug­gests a seri­ous push to accel­er­ate devel­op­ment. The MDA’s draft RFP for this inte­grat­ed defense shield rep­re­sents a fun­da­men­tal shift in how we approach home­land defense, tran­si­tion­ing from iso­lat­ed sys­tems to a tru­ly inte­grat­ed archi­tec­ture that com­bines satel­lites, sen­sors, inter­cep­tors, and com­mand networks.

True Anomaly Scores Big with $260M Series C

The week kicked off with a bang as True Anom­aly, the defense-focused aero­space start­up, announced a whop­ping $260 mil­lion Series C fund­ing round. Led by Accel, this mix of equi­ty and debt financ­ing (with Stifel Bank pro­vid­ing the debt por­tion) will fuel the com­pa­ny’s ambi­tious plans to devel­op space­craft capa­ble of maneu­ver­ing near oth­er satel­lites in orbit.

What caught my atten­tion here is the strate­gic tim­ing. With the com­pa­ny plan­ning four mis­sions over the next 18 months and expand­ing from 170 to 250 employ­ees, True Anom­aly is posi­tion­ing itself at the fore­front of U.S. space domain aware­ness efforts. This isn’t just about build­ing cool tech – it’s about nation­al secu­ri­ty in an increas­ing­ly con­test­ed space environment.

Command and Control Gets an Upgrade

Speak­ing of defense, Booz Allen Hamil­ton land­ed a sub­stan­tial $315 mil­lion Air Force con­tract to devel­op the sec­ond pro­to­type of the Tac­ti­cal Oper­a­tions Cen­ter-Light (TOC‑L). This portable com­mand and con­trol kit is a game-chang­er for bat­tle­field com­mu­ni­ca­tions, inte­grat­ing mul­ti­ple data sources to cre­ate a syn­chro­nized air picture.

What’s par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing is the shift in prime con­trac­tors – Lock­heed Mar­tin led phase one, but now Booz Allen takes the helm with L3Harris as a part­ner. The focus on reduc­ing size, weight, and pow­er while improv­ing usabil­i­ty shows the mil­i­tary’s push toward more agile, deploy­able sys­tems. With 16 kits already deployed world­wide and hun­dreds more planned, this rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant evo­lu­tion in how we approach bat­tle­field management.

Rethinking Missile Defense Architecture

The Cen­ter for Strate­gic and Inter­na­tion­al Stud­ies dropped a thought-pro­vok­ing study this week on reimag­in­ing our air and mis­sile defense sys­tems. Their pro­pos­al? Move away from large, vul­ner­a­ble ground-based radars and opt for a mesh net­work of small­er, pas­sive sensors.

The num­bers are stag­ger­ing – their Poland case study sug­gests 400 elec­tro-opti­cal and infrared sen­sors would be need­ed for com­pre­hen­sive cov­er­age. While pas­sive sys­tems offer stealth advan­tages (they don’t emit detectable sig­nals), the study acknowl­edges sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges, includ­ing weath­er degra­da­tion and the com­plex­i­ty of sen­sor place­ment. This hybrid approach, com­bin­ing pas­sive and active sys­tems, could rep­re­sent the future of home­land defense; how­ev­er, its imple­men­ta­tion won’t be sim­ple or inexpensive.

NASA’s Interplanetary Internet Plans

Look­ing beyond Earth­’s orbit, NASA is advanc­ing plans to com­mer­cial­ize deep space com­mu­ni­ca­tions. The agency is seek­ing indus­try pro­pos­als for two ambi­tious projects: a Lunar Trun­k­line Com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tem with 5 Gbps down­link capa­bil­i­ty by 2029, and a Mars End-to-End Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Ser­vice oper­a­tional by 2030.

These aren’t just incre­men­tal improve­ments – we’re talk­ing about build­ing the infra­struc­ture for sus­tained human pres­ence on the Moon and Mars. The Mars sys­tem require­ments include posi­tion­ing, nav­i­ga­tion, and tim­ing func­tions sim­i­lar to GPS, plus the abil­i­ty to con­trol robot­ic oper­a­tions on the Red Plan­et. With the White House call­ing for $1.6 bil­lion in com­mer­cial Moon and Mars infra­struc­ture invest­ment, this could be a major oppor­tu­ni­ty for com­pa­nies ready to tack­le the chal­lenges of deep space operations.

Global Space Politics Heat Up

The geopo­lit­i­cal land­scape saw inter­est­ing devel­op­ments as Sene­gal became the 56th nation to join the Artemis Accords – and only the sec­ond coun­try to sign both the U.S.-led Artemis Accords and Chi­na’s Inter­na­tion­al Lunar Research Sta­tion ini­tia­tive. This diplo­mat­ic bal­anc­ing act high­lights how small­er nations are nav­i­gat­ing the increas­ing­ly bifur­cat­ed land­scape of space exploration.

Mean­while, ten­sions con­tin­ue else­where. Russ­ian mil­i­tary air­craft con­duct­ed a three-hour flight in Alaska’s Air Defense Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion Zone, prompt­ing a response from 10 U.S. air­craft, includ­ing F‑35s and F‑16s. While such flights are rou­tine, they serve as a reminder of the ongo­ing strate­gic com­pe­ti­tion extend­ing into the aero­space domain.

Commercial Sector Momentum

The com­mer­cial space sec­tor showed mixed sig­nals this week. SpaceX’s Star­link expe­ri­enced one of its longest out­ages – about 2.5 hours affect­ing users glob­al­ly due to a fail­ure of “key inter­nal soft­ware ser­vices. With over 6 mil­lion cus­tomers world­wide, this high­lights the grow­ing depen­dence on space-based inter­net infrastructure.

On the fund­ing front, Space42 secured a mas­sive $695.5 mil­lion loan for its Al Yah 4 and 5 GEO satel­lites, backed by a $5.1 bil­lion UAE gov­ern­ment con­tract. How­ev­er, the com­pa­ny’s heavy reliance on this sin­gle gov­ern­ment con­tract, which accounts for near­ly 75% of its $7 bil­lion rev­enue back­log, rais­es ques­tions about diversification.

Looking Ahead: Challenges and Opportunities

Sev­er­al con­cern­ing trends emerged this week. Indus­try offi­cials warned that pro­posed 25% bud­get cuts to the ISS could turn astro­nauts into “cus­to­di­ans of a moth­balled facil­i­ty” and push inter­na­tion­al part­ners toward Chi­na’s Tian­gong sta­tion. This could have seri­ous impli­ca­tions for the tran­si­tion to com­mer­cial space stations.

More pos­i­tive­ly, NASA released an updat­ed soft­ware cat­a­log with over 1,200 codes avail­able for pub­lic down­load. From flight-ter­mi­na­tion soft­ware used by com­mer­cial launch providers to algo­rithms adapt­ed for dis­as­ter response, this rep­re­sents a real exam­ple of tech­nol­o­gy trans­fer in action.

The Bottom Line

This week rein­forced sev­er­al key themes I’ve been track­ing: the increas­ing mil­i­ta­riza­tion of space, the push toward com­mer­cial solu­tions for gov­ern­ment needs, and the grow­ing impor­tance of inter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships. With Gold­en Dome’s accel­er­at­ed time­line, major fund­ing rounds, crit­i­cal defense con­tracts, and ambi­tious deep-space plans all con­verg­ing, we’re see­ing the space indus­try mature into a com­plex ecosys­tem bal­anc­ing com­mer­cial inno­va­tion with nation­al secu­ri­ty imperatives.

For those of us in this “space” (I know it is a hor­ri­ble pun), these devel­op­ments present both oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges. The shift toward inte­grat­ed mis­sile defense archi­tec­tures, mesh sen­sor net­works, com­mer­cial deep-space com­mu­ni­ca­tions, and hybrid gov­ern­ment-com­mer­cial part­ner­ships all require sophis­ti­cat­ed analy­sis and strate­gic plan­ning. As always, suc­cess will come to those who can nav­i­gate the tech­ni­cal com­plex­i­ties while under­stand­ing the broad­er geopo­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic context.

That’s your week in space. As always, I am close­ly track­ing these devel­op­ments for oppor­tu­ni­ties that align with our strate­gic objec­tives. The rapid pace of change cre­ates both chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties — stay­ing informed is critical.

Until next week, keep look­ing up!

July 28, 2025  Leave a comment

Space Industry Weekly: Major Shifts in Defense, VMware’s Partner Issues, Commercial Consolidation, and Policy Battles


Hey Team, here is your week­ly space indus­try roundup. This week brought some sig­nif­i­cant devel­op­ments that’ll shape both our nation­al secu­ri­ty pos­ture, tech­nol­o­gy, and the com­mer­cial space land­scape. Let me break down what caught my attention.

Golden Dome Gets Its Leader

The big news last Thurs­day was the Sen­ate’s con­fir­ma­tion of Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein to lead Pres­i­dent Trump’s Gold­en Dome mis­sile defense ini­tia­tive. This con­fir­ma­tion, com­ing two months after his nom­i­na­tion, marks a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone for what is arguably the admin­is­tra­tion’s most ambi­tious space program.

For those track­ing the lead­er­ship changes, Lt. Gen. Shawn Brat­ton was nom­i­nat­ed ear­li­er this week to fill Guetlein’s for­mer role as Vice Chief of Space Oper­a­tions. The Space Force is mov­ing quick­ly to main­tain con­ti­nu­ity while pur­su­ing this new defen­sive architecture.

What’s par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing is the tim­ing — get­ting Guetlein con­firmed now allows the pro­gram to tran­si­tion from the con­cept phase to the exe­cu­tion phase. I’m watch­ing close­ly to see how they’ll struc­ture the pro­cure­ment strat­e­gy for what promis­es to be a mas­sive undertaking.

SES-Intelsat Merger Creates Satellite Giant

In the com­mer­cial sec­tor, SES com­plet­ed its acqui­si­tion of Intel­sat on Thurs­day, cre­at­ing what is essen­tial­ly a geo­sta­tion­ary behe­moth with approx­i­mate­ly 90 GEO satel­lites — that’s more than Eutel­sat, Tele­sat, and Viasat com­bined. But here’s what’s intrigu­ing: CEO Adel Al-Saleh is already talk­ing about scal­ing up to “hun­dreds” of MEO satellites.

The com­bined enti­ty faces sev­er­al sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges, how­ev­er. They’re car­ry­ing over $4 bil­lion in debt against pro­ject­ed rev­enues of $4.3 bil­lion this year. Their plan? Cut $430 mil­lion in annu­al costs through oper­a­tional effi­cien­cies and lever­age their increased pur­chas­ing power.

From a strate­gic per­spec­tive, this con­sol­i­da­tion makes sense giv­en the pres­sure from SpaceX’s Star­link. The fact that reg­u­la­tors approved this merg­er rel­a­tive­ly eas­i­ly, com­pared to the Inmarsat-Viasat deal, shows just how much the com­pet­i­tive land­scape has shift­ed. One ana­lyst, Tim Far­rar, not­ed this indi­cates “how much reg­u­la­tors have tak­en onboard the com­pe­ti­tion from Starlink.”

VMware Partners Face Another Shakeup

Broad­com con­tin­ues its aggres­sive restruc­tur­ing of VMware’s part­ner ecosys­tem. They announced this week that the cur­rent VMware Cloud Ser­vice Provider pro­gram will end on Octo­ber 31, replaced by a new, invite-only pro­gram start­ing Novem­ber 1.

The impact? Poten­tial­ly dev­as­tat­ing for small­er providers. Part­ners not invit­ed to the new pro­gram can only ser­vice exist­ing con­tracts with­in their cur­rent terms, with no renewals or new busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties. The white-label pro­gram that allowed small­er oper­a­tors to work through larg­er part­ners? Also end­ing Octo­ber 31.

This is the sec­ond major over­haul of the part­ner pro­gram in 18 months. As some­one who has worked with numer­ous VMware part­ners over the years, I can tell you that this lev­el of dis­rup­tion is unprece­dent­ed. One Red­dit user claimed that their orga­ni­za­tion spends approx­i­mate­ly $400,000 annu­al­ly through a white-label part­ner and now has just six months to design and build an entire­ly new vir­tu­al­iza­tion plat­form. Mean­while, the U.S. com­bat­ant com­mands are being hit with bills that are mak­ing the J6 and pro­cure­ment offi­cers’ eyes water.

NASA Faces Budget Battle with Congress

Ten­sions are esca­lat­ing between NASA and House Democ­rats. Reps. Zoe Lof­gren and Valerie Foushee sent a let­ter to Act­ing Admin­is­tra­tor Sean Duffy, accus­ing the agency of ille­gal­ly impound­ing funds and pre­ma­ture­ly imple­ment­ing the fis­cal 2026 bud­get proposal.

The specifics are con­cern­ing: NASA can­celed a planned upgrade to the ISS’s Alpha Mag­net­ic Spec­trom­e­ter and is block­ing press releas­es about mis­sions slat­ed for can­cel­la­tion. This, while the White House pro­pos­es a 25% bud­get cut that both House and Sen­ate appro­pri­a­tors seem like­ly to reject.

Speak­ing of Duffy, he’s final­ly set­tling into his dual role as Trans­porta­tion Sec­re­tary and Act­ing Admin­is­tra­tor of NASA. He addressed the NASA work­force via video on Fri­day, although he admit­ted that Wednes­day was only his “first full day at NASA.” His com­ment that lead­ing NASA won’t impact his DOT work raised some eye­brows — we’ll see how that plays out.

Space Force Prioritizes Military Launch Access

With com­mer­cial launch demand surg­ing, the Space Force released new guide­lines Wednes­day for allo­cat­ing launch infra­struc­ture and range resources. The mes­sage is clear: nation­al secu­ri­ty mis­sions get pri­or­i­ty access to finite gov­ern­ment resources.

This isn’t sur­pris­ing, giv­en the strain on Cape Canaver­al and Van­den­berg facil­i­ties, but it does sig­nal poten­tial con­flicts ahead as com­mer­cial oper­a­tors con­tin­ue to ramp up their launch cadence. The Space Force reaf­firmed sup­port for com­mer­cial indus­try but drew a clear line on resource allocation.

Quick Hits from the Week

  • Blue Orig­in’s NG‑2 Mis­sion: The sec­ond New Glenn launch will car­ry NASA’s ESCAPADE Mars mis­sion. No date has been set yet, but the space­craft has­n’t shipped to the launch site, sug­gest­ing we’re still months away.
  • NASA’s TRACERS Mis­sion: Set to launch this month on SpaceX, this $115 mil­lion dual-satel­lite mis­sion will study the impacts of space weath­er on satel­lite oper­a­tions. With the May 2024 G5 storm caus­ing an esti­mat­ed $500 mil­lion in loss­es, under­stand­ing these phe­nom­e­na is becom­ing eco­nom­i­cal­ly critical.
  • House NDAA Progress: The House Armed Ser­vices Com­mit­tee advanced the FY26 NDAA with pro­vi­sions sup­port­ing Gold­en Dome and for­mal­iz­ing Pen­ta­gon pro­cure­ment of com­mer­cial satel­lite imagery. The 55–2 vote shows strong bipar­ti­san sup­port for space initiatives.
  • Fire­fly Goes Pub­lic: Fire­fly Aero­space has filed its S‑1 with the SEC, plan­ning to list on the Nas­daq under the tick­er sym­bol FLY. Anoth­er sign of the matur­ing com­mer­cial space market.

Looking Ahead

The con­sol­i­da­tion in both gov­ern­ment part­ner­ships (VMware) and satel­lite oper­a­tions (SES-Intel­sat) reflects a mar­ket in tran­si­tion. Small­er play­ers are being squeezed out while larg­er enti­ties posi­tion them­selves for the next phase of competition.

For those of us in the fed­er­al con­tract­ing space, the Gold­en Dome pro­gram presents a sig­nif­i­cant oppor­tu­ni­ty, but also pos­es sub­stan­tial risk due to the tech­ni­cal chal­lenges it entails. I’ll be watch­ing close­ly to see how the pro­cure­ment strat­e­gy develops.

The NASA bud­get bat­tle is far from over. With appro­pri­a­tors in both cham­bers reject­ing the pro­posed cuts, we’re like­ly head­ed for anoth­er con­tin­u­ing res­o­lu­tion sce­nario — nev­er ide­al for long-term programs.

That’s your week in space. As always, I’m track­ing these devel­op­ments close­ly for oppor­tu­ni­ties that align with our strate­gic objec­tives. The rapid pace of change cre­ates both chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties — stay­ing informed is critical.

Until next week, keep look­ing up!

July 21, 2025  Leave a comment

Space Industry Weekly Roundup: Leadership Changes, Chinese Maneuvers, and Funding Flows

The space indus­try expe­ri­enced sig­nif­i­cant devel­op­ments this week, marked by unprece­dent­ed lead­er­ship changes at NASA, con­cern­ing Chi­nese satel­lite activ­i­ties, and robust invest­ment activ­i­ty that sig­nals con­tin­ued con­fi­dence in the sec­tor’s growth trajectory.

NASA Leadership Shake-Up Creates Unprecedented Situation

In a move that caught the space com­mu­ni­ty off guard, Pres­i­dent Trump announced late Wednes­day that Trans­porta­tion Sec­re­tary Sean Duffy would serve as act­ing NASA admin­is­tra­tor while retain­ing his Cab­i­net posi­tion. This unprece­dent­ed arrange­ment replaces Janet Petro, who had been lead­ing NASA on an act­ing basis since the admin­is­tra­tion began.

Duffy, a for­mer con­gress­man with no space back­ground, now over­sees both the nation’s trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture and its $24.9 bil­lion space agency. The deci­sion rep­re­sents the first time in NASA’s near­ly 70-year his­to­ry that a Cab­i­net mem­ber has tak­en inter­im con­trol of the space agency, rais­ing ques­tions about the admin­is­tra­tion’s long-term NASA strategy.

Mean­while, the Sen­ate remains grid­locked on NASA’s bud­get. A Sen­ate Appro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee markup ses­sion was sus­pend­ed Thurs­day due to an unre­lat­ed FBI head­quar­ters fund­ing dis­pute, leav­ing a bill that would restore NASA’s pro­posed bud­get cuts in lim­bo. The leg­is­la­tion would pro­vide $24.9 bil­lion for NASA in fis­cal 2026, revers­ing the admin­is­tra­tion’s pro­posed 25% cut and main­tain­ing cur­rent fund­ing levels.

Chinese Space Activities Raise Strategic Concerns

Chi­na’s increas­ing­ly sophis­ti­cat­ed space oper­a­tions are draw­ing height­ened atten­tion from U.S. defense offi­cials. Two sig­nif­i­cant devel­op­ments this week under­score the grow­ing com­plex­i­ty of Chi­nese space capa­bil­i­ties and their poten­tial mil­i­tary implications.

First, Chi­na has achieved a break­through in orbital refu­el­ing tech­nol­o­gy. Satel­lite track­ing data indi­cate that Chi­nese satel­lites Shi­jian-21 and Shi­jian-25 suc­cess­ful­ly docked in geo­syn­chro­nous orbit, like­ly con­duct­ing the first high-alti­tude orbital refu­el­ing demon­stra­tion. The oper­a­tion, which occurred more than 20,000 miles above Earth, rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant advance­ment in space ser­vic­ing capa­bil­i­ties with clear dual-use applications.

The impli­ca­tions extend beyond tech­ni­cal achieve­ment. Orbital refu­el­ing tech­nol­o­gy could enable Chi­na to extend satel­lite lifes­pans indef­i­nite­ly, pro­vid­ing strate­gic advan­tages in both civil­ian and mil­i­tary appli­ca­tions. U.S. Space Force GSSAP inspec­tor satel­lites posi­tioned them­selves near­by to mon­i­tor the oper­a­tion, high­light­ing Amer­i­can inter­est in Chi­nese space activities.

Addi­tion­al­ly, an exper­i­men­tal Chi­nese satel­lite, Shiyan-28B, was dis­cov­ered in an unusu­al low-incli­na­tion orbit nev­er before used by Chi­na. The space­craft, launched July 3, was found in a 795-kilo­me­ter orbit inclined at just 11 degrees, pro­vid­ing cov­er­age over the South Chi­na Sea and Indi­an Ocean. The satel­lite’s pur­pose remains clas­si­fied, though ana­lysts sug­gest poten­tial appli­ca­tions in region­al mon­i­tor­ing, com­mu­ni­ca­tions test­ing, or sig­nals intelligence.

Between late 2023 and Decem­ber 2024, five Chi­nese satel­lites exe­cut­ed unprece­dent­ed close approach maneu­vers that space ana­lysts described as the most com­plex mul­ti-satel­lite oper­a­tions ever observed. These activ­i­ties are prompt­ing the Pen­ta­gon to enlist com­mer­cial firms to help deci­pher Chi­nese inten­tions in space.

Investment Activity Signals Sector Confidence

Despite broad­er eco­nom­ic head­winds, space indus­try invest­ment showed remark­able strength in the sec­ond quar­ter. Space com­pa­nies raised $3.2 bil­lion, mark­ing the high­est quar­ter­ly fund­ing total in more than a year, accord­ing to Space Cap­i­tal research.

The stand­out deal was Var­da Space Indus­tries’ $187 mil­lion Series C round, bring­ing the reen­try vehi­cle man­u­fac­tur­er’s total fund­ing to $329 mil­lion. Led by Nat­ur­al Cap­i­tal and Shrug Cap­i­tal, with par­tic­i­pa­tion from Founders Fund, Peter Thiel, and Lux Cap­i­tal, the fund­ing will sup­port Var­da’s phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing ambi­tions and increase flight cadence toward a goal of one mis­sion per day.

Oth­er notable fund­ing rounds includ­ed Cis­Lu­nar Indus­tries’ $1 mil­lion seed invest­ment from Col­orado ONE Fund to scale pro­duc­tion of pow­er pro­cess­ing units, and Inter­stel­lar Tech­nolo­gies’ $61.8 mil­lion Series F round to sup­port its Zero launch vehi­cle development.

Euro­pean invest­ment activ­i­ty surged, dri­ven by geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions that moti­vate efforts to build sov­er­eign space capa­bil­i­ties. The U.K. gov­ern­ment con­firmed a $191 mil­lion invest­ment in Eutel­sat to main­tain its stake and sup­port OneWeb con­stel­la­tion upgrades, bring­ing total fund­ing to approx­i­mate­ly $1.76 billion.

Technology Developments and Market Dynamics

Sev­er­al com­pa­nies achieved sig­nif­i­cant tech­ni­cal mile­stones this week. North­wood Space announced that its Por­tal ground ter­mi­nal suc­cess­ful­ly passed oper­a­tional tests, col­lect­ing data from U.S. Defense Mete­o­ro­log­i­cal Satel­lite Pro­gram space­craft. The ful­ly dig­i­tal phased array anten­na rep­re­sents a new gen­er­a­tion of ground seg­ment tech­nol­o­gy capa­ble of con­nect­ing to mul­ti­ple satel­lites simultaneously.

EnduroSat, the Bul­gar­i­an satel­lite man­u­fac­tur­er, appoint­ed for­mer DARPA offi­cial Paul “Rusty” Thomas to lead its U.S. oper­a­tions. Thomas, who pre­vi­ous­ly led Project Black­jack and worked at SpaceX and Ama­zon’s Kuiper Gov­ern­ment Solu­tions, will help EnduroSat expand its Amer­i­can pres­ence as the com­pa­ny scales from small-batch pro­duc­tion to tens of satel­lites per month.

The appoint­ment reflects broad­er indus­try trends toward rapid scal­ing and inter­na­tion­al expan­sion, par­tic­u­lar­ly as defense appli­ca­tions dri­ve demand for pro­lif­er­at­ed satel­lite architectures.

Regulatory and Policy Developments

Space traf­fic man­age­ment remained a con­tentious issue as sev­en indus­try groups urged Con­gress to ful­ly fund the Office of Space Com­merce’s Traf­fic Coor­di­na­tion Sys­tem for Space (TraC­SS) at $65 mil­lion, rather than zero­ing out the pro­gram as the admin­is­tra­tion pro­posed. The sys­tem rep­re­sents crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture for man­ag­ing the increas­ing­ly crowd­ed orbital environment.

SpaceX moved clos­er to enter­ing the Indi­an mar­ket after receiv­ing approval from the Indi­an Nation­al Space Pro­mo­tion Autho­riza­tion Cen­tre for Star­link ser­vices. While addi­tion­al spec­trum and reg­u­la­to­ry clear­ances remain pend­ing, suc­cess­ful entry would pro­vide access to the world’s most pop­u­lous nation and estab­lish a strate­gic foothold in Asia.

Looking Ahead

The space indus­try faces a com­plex land­scape of oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges. Chi­nese tech­no­log­i­cal advances in orbital ser­vic­ing and satel­lite oper­a­tions are reshap­ing strate­gic cal­cu­la­tions. At the same time, robust pri­vate invest­ment con­tin­ues dri­ving inno­va­tion and capa­bil­i­ty development.

The unprece­dent­ed NASA lead­er­ship arrange­ment under Sec­re­tary Duffy will like­ly face scruti­ny as Con­gress con­sid­ers the agen­cy’s bud­get and long-term direc­tion. Mean­while, the grow­ing empha­sis on space as a domain of strate­gic com­pe­ti­tion ensures con­tin­ued gov­ern­ment and pri­vate sec­tor focus on devel­op­ing advanced capabilities.

For defense con­trac­tors and space com­pa­nies, the mes­sage is clear: the pace of tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ment and oper­a­tional com­plex­i­ty in space is accel­er­at­ing rapid­ly, cre­at­ing both oppor­tu­ni­ties for those who can adapt quick­ly and risks for those who can­not keep pace with evolv­ing require­ments and capabilities.

July 14, 2025  Leave a comment

Space Industry Weekly Roundup: Big Beautiful Bill Passes, Contract Wins, and Technical Setbacks

This week deliv­ered a fas­ci­nat­ing mix of progress and chal­lenges across the space sec­tor. While Con­gress approved sig­nif­i­cant fund­ing increases—including $25 bil­lion for the Gold­en Dome and near­ly $10 bil­lion for NASA explo­ration programs—we’re also see­ing some sober­ing tech­ni­cal real­i­ties emerge around our most ambi­tious missions.

Major Contract Awards Drive Defense Spending

The space defense sec­tor expe­ri­enced sub­stan­tial con­tract activ­i­ty this week, with Plan­et Labs secur­ing a mul­ti-year con­tract worth €240 mil­lion ($283 mil­lion) with the Ger­man gov­ern­ment for high-res­o­lu­tion satel­lite imagery and geospa­tial intel­li­gence ser­vices. This deal rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant shift as Euro­pean allies increas­ing­ly invest in their defense capa­bil­i­ties amid grow­ing threats from Rus­sia and China.

The Nation­al Geospa­tial-Intel­li­gence Agency (NGA) also made waves with over $70M in awards through its new Luno pro­gram, designed to inte­grate AI and com­mer­cial data into nation­al secu­ri­ty oper­a­tions. Black­Sky secured the largest con­tract, val­ued at $24.4M, for facil­i­ty and object mon­i­tor­ing. At the same time, oth­er awards went to estab­lished play­ers, such as Maxar Intel­li­gence, and emerg­ing firms, includ­ing Ursa Space Systems.

From a strate­gic per­spec­tive, these awards sig­nal two crit­i­cal trends: first, the inter­na­tion­al­iza­tion of space-based intel­li­gence capa­bil­i­ties as allies reduce depen­dence on U.S. sys­tems, and sec­ond, the mil­i­tary’s accel­er­at­ing adop­tion of com­mer­cial space solu­tions enhanced by arti­fi­cial intelligence.

Legislative Developments Shape Industry Direction

The Sen­ate’s pas­sage of the bud­get rec­on­cil­i­a­tion bill (HR 1, also known as the “Big Beau­ti­ful Bill”) with Vice Pres­i­dent Vance’s tiebreak­ing vote deliv­ers sig­nif­i­cant wins for both defense and explo­ration pro­grams. The bill allo­cates $25 bil­lion for the Gold­en Dome mis­sile defense program(this will be part of the MDA’s SHIELD IDIQ), $40 bil­lion for the U.S. Space Force, all with­in $150 bil­lion of addi­tion­al defense spend­ing, while adding near­ly $10 bil­lion for NASA explo­ration pro­grams, includ­ing addi­tion­al SLS and Ori­on vehicles.

How­ev­er, the admin­is­tra­tion’s pro­posed ter­mi­na­tion of NOAA’s Traf­fic Coor­di­na­tion Sys­tem for Space (TraC­SS) rep­re­sents a con­cern­ing pol­i­cy rever­sal. The FY 2026 bud­get pro­pos­al would slash the Office of Space Com­merce bud­get from $65 mil­lion to just $10 mil­lion, effec­tive­ly gut­ting the fed­er­al space traf­fic man­age­ment capa­bil­i­ty that was a sig­na­ture ini­tia­tive of the Trump admin­is­tra­tion under Space Pol­i­cy Directive‑3.

This cre­ates a strate­gic vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, as for­mer OSC direc­tor Richard Dal­Bel­lo cor­rect­ly notes that no sin­gle com­mer­cial enti­ty can pro­vide the uni­fied, author­i­ta­tive capa­bil­i­ty need­ed for com­pre­hen­sive space traf­fic man­age­ment. The loss of TraC­SS could force oper­a­tors into a patch­work of com­mer­cial ser­vices or dri­ve them toward inter­na­tion­al alter­na­tives, such as the EU’s SST sys­tem in Europe.

Technical Challenges Plague Major Programs

The Gov­ern­ment Account­abil­i­ty Office’s annu­al NASA assess­ment reveals sig­nif­i­cant tech­ni­cal hur­dles fac­ing the Artemis lunar pro­gram. Both SpaceX’s Star­ship HLS and Blue Orig­in’s Blue Moon lan­ders face “inad­e­quate con­trols for flam­ma­ble mate­ri­als,” rais­ing Apol­lo 1‑style fire risks that require imme­di­ate attention.

SpaceX’s time­line chal­lenges are par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cern­ing: while Artemis III tar­gets 2027, SpaceX’s lunar orbit check­out review isn’t sched­uled until 2028. The com­pa­ny still has­n’t resolved pro­pel­lant man­age­ment tech­nolo­gies for on-orbit stor­age and transfer—critical capa­bil­i­ties that Elon Musk says won’t be test­ed until 2026.

Blue Orig­in’s Blue Moon lan­der ini­tial­ly failed to meet NASA’s pro­pel­lant and mass require­ments; how­ev­er, the com­pa­ny has since per­formed addi­tion­al work to address these issues. The GAO’s find­ings under­score the tech­ni­cal com­plex­i­ty of return­ing humans to the Moon and sug­gest the 2027 time­line remains high­ly optimistic.

Satellite Failures and Operational Setbacks

The Envi­ron­men­tal Defense Fund’s Methane­SAT mis­sion was cut short when the satel­lite lost pow­er and con­tact on June 20, just over a year into its planned five-year mis­sion. The space­craft, fund­ed pri­mar­i­ly by the Bezos Earth Fund and built with a Blue Canyon Tech­nolo­gies bus, rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant set­back for methane mon­i­tor­ing capabilities.

Boe­ing’s O3b mPow­er con­stel­la­tion con­tin­ues to expe­ri­ence pow­er sys­tem issues, although recent solar storms may have inad­ver­tent­ly cleared a pro­ton buildup that was caus­ing fail­ures. The ninth and tenth satel­lites car­ry redesigned pow­er mod­ules, but the under­ly­ing reli­a­bil­i­ty con­cerns persist.

Innovation and Competition Heat Up

The legal bat­tle between York Space Sys­tems and the Depart­ment of Defense over Apex Space’s $45.9 mil­lion SBIR award high­lights grow­ing ten­sions sur­round­ing pro­cure­ment prac­tices. York argues the con­tract rep­re­sents an “improp­er use of the SBIR pro­gram” since the tech­nol­o­gy is already com­mer­cial­ly avail­able, vio­lat­ing the pro­gram’s inno­va­tion mandate.

This case could estab­lish impor­tant prece­dent for how SBIR awards are eval­u­at­ed and whether exist­ing com­mer­cial capa­bil­i­ties should dis­qual­i­fy com­pa­nies from inno­va­tion-focused contracts.

Mean­while, Atom­ic-6’s $2M Space Force con­tract for its Light Wing solar array tech­nol­o­gy demon­strates gen­uine inno­va­tion in satel­lite pow­er sys­tems. The accor­dion-style deploy­able arrays offer four times more pow­er than tra­di­tion­al sys­tems, while also enabling stealth oper­a­tions and col­li­sion avoid­ance capa­bil­i­ties, which are par­tic­u­lar­ly valu­able for mil­i­tary applications.

International Developments and Market Dynamics

Chi­na’s estab­lish­ment of the Inter­na­tion­al Deep Space Explo­ration Asso­ci­a­tion sig­nals con­tin­ued expan­sion of its space influ­ence. In con­trast, the Space Force’s devel­op­ment of maneu­ver­able satel­lites for “dynam­ic space oper­a­tions” rep­re­sents the U.S. response to evolv­ing threats.

The com­mer­cial launch sec­tor con­tin­ues its rapid pace, with SpaceX achiev­ing its 500th Fal­con 9 launch and set­ting a new reuse record with 29 flights of a sin­gle boost­er. How­ev­er, delays con­tin­ue plagu­ing new entrants like Gilmour Space, whose Eris rock­et debut has slipped again to no ear­li­er than July 16.

Strategic Implications

Sev­er­al themes emerge from this week’s devel­op­ments that war­rant attention:

Defense Spend­ing Momen­tum: The com­bi­na­tion of inter­na­tion­al con­tracts and domes­tic defense appro­pri­a­tions sug­gests sus­tained growth in space-based defense capa­bil­i­ties, cre­at­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for com­pa­nies with proven track records and secu­ri­ty clearances.

Tech­ni­cal Risk Man­age­ment: The fire risks iden­ti­fied in lunar lan­ders and ongo­ing satel­lite reli­a­bil­i­ty issues under­score the impor­tance of rig­or­ous test­ing and qual­i­ty assur­ance as the indus­try scales rapidly.

Pro­cure­ment Evo­lu­tion: The York-Apex legal bat­tle may reshape how inno­va­tion con­tracts are award­ed, poten­tial­ly favor­ing tru­ly nov­el tech­nolo­gies over com­mer­cial­ly avail­able solutions.

Inter­na­tion­al Com­pe­ti­tion: Euro­pean invest­ment in inde­pen­dent space capa­bil­i­ties and Chi­na’s insti­tu­tion­al expan­sion sug­gest the U.S. must bal­ance export con­trols with alliance coop­er­a­tion to main­tain tech­no­log­i­cal leadership.

The space indus­try con­tin­ues to evolve rapid­ly, dri­ven by defense imper­a­tives, com­mer­cial inno­va­tion, and inter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion. Suc­cess will increas­ing­ly depend on com­pa­nies’ abil­i­ty to nav­i­gate com­plex tech­ni­cal chal­lenges while adapt­ing to shift­ing pol­i­cy pri­or­i­ties and pro­cure­ment practices.

July 7, 2025  Leave a comment

🚀 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  Leave a comment

Space Industry Weekly: When Rockets Go Boom, China’s Satelite Dance, and Golden Dome Defense Budget Concerns

Team, if you thought last week was inter­est­ing in the space indus­try, this week has added to the indus­try’s per­plex­i­ty. Between explod­ing Star­ships, mys­te­ri­ous Chi­nese satel­lite ren­dezvous, and Con­gress play­ing hot pota­to with the defense bud­get, there’s plen­ty to unpack. So let’s go high-lev­el dive into what’s been hap­pen­ing above our heads and in the halls of power.

SpaceX’s Star­ship Has a Bad Night

Let’s start with the big boom heard at Star­base. SpaceX’s Ship 36 decid­ed to put on an unsched­uled fire­works dis­play just after mid­night East­ern on June 19th. The upper stage was sit­ting on a test stand, ready for what should have been a rou­tine sta­t­ic-fire test, when the explo­sion occurred.

SpaceX con­firmed all per­son­nel were safe and account­ed for. But this throws a wrench in their plans for the tenth Star­ship test flight, which was tar­get­ing late June. The SpaceX’s Ship 36 explo­sion marks anoth­er set­back in the Star­ship devel­op­ment pro­gram, fol­low­ing upper-stage fail­ures on three pre­vi­ous flights. With Elon Musk return­ing from his DOGE respon­si­bil­i­ties, there are going to be a lot of sleep­less nights for sev­er­al SpaceX employ­ees until this mat­ter is resolved.

Chi­na’s Space Dance: Are They Refu­el­ing or Just Get­ting Cozy?

Chi­na has two satel­lites in geo­syn­chro­nous orbit: Shi­jian-21 and Shi­jian-25. Mul­ti­ple track­ing com­pa­nies, includ­ing Sling­shot Aero­space and COMSPOC, observed these two birds approach­ing each oth­er on June 13th, com­ing with­in approx­i­mate­ly a kilo­me­ter (0.6 miles) of each other.

Why should we care? If Chi­na suc­cess­ful­ly pulls off an on-orbit refu­el­ing oper­a­tion, that would be a game-chang­er. Think about it — the abil­i­ty to gas up satel­lites in space means they don’t have to be dis­pos­able any­more. Expen­sive birds in GEO could keep oper­at­ing way beyond their orig­i­nal fuel limits.

The U.S. Space Force has been mon­i­tor­ing this entire process, with our GSSAP satel­lites, USA 270 and USA 271, keep­ing tabs from the east and west. Mean­while, we’re spend­ing a measly $14.5 mil­lion on sim­i­lar capa­bil­i­ties — near­ly a 50% cut from last year’s already tiny bud­get. As one expert put it, “Chi­na seems to get that, while we risk being late to the party.”

Gold­en Dome: The Mis­sile Defense Sys­tem Nobody Can Define

Speak­ing of bud­gets and par­ti­san pol­i­tics, let’s dis­cuss the Gold­en Dome — the Trump admin­is­tra­tion’s ambi­tious mis­sile defense project that has Con­gress split right down par­ty lines. Gen. Michael Guetlein has just been for­mal­ly nom­i­nat­ed to lead this ini­tia­tive, which he has com­pared to the Man­hat­tan Project in terms of scale and ambition.

Repub­li­cans are all-in, with Reps. Jeff Crank and Dale Strong even launched a House Gold­en Dome Cau­cus. They want hun­dreds of satel­lites to detect and inter­cept mis­sile threats from orbit. Sounds great, right?

Well, Democ­rats aren’t buy­ing it. Rep. Seth Moul­ton called it a poten­tial arms race starter, and Rep. George White­sides hit the nail on the head: “We don’t real­ly know what it is yet, to be per­fect­ly hon­est.” Even the House Appro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee is warn­ing that DoD has­n’t pro­vid­ed basic infor­ma­tion about what Gold­en Dome entails or how it plans to imple­ment it.

The House passed $25 bil­lion for Gold­en Dome in their rec­on­cil­i­a­tion bill, but the Sen­ate has­n’t act­ed yet. With­out that fund­ing, this whole thing could be more Pow­er­Point than execution.

Bud­get Chaos: Defense Con­trac­tors Play­ing Guess­ing Games

If you’re a defense con­trac­tor right now, you’re prob­a­bly spend­ing a lot of time read­ing bud­gets, fol­low­ing AFCEA or the Space Force Asso­ci­a­tion, or try­ing to deci­pher tea leaves to under­stand this new direc­tion. The Pen­tagon’s fis­cal 2026 bud­get sit­u­a­tion is what the Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Space Asso­ci­a­tion polite­ly refers to as “a com­plex and evolv­ing bud­get landscape.”

The admin­is­tra­tion wants a $150 bil­lion one-time Pen­ta­gon increase through their “One Big Beau­ti­ful” Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion Bill, but nobody knows if it’ll pass. Sec­re­tary Hegseth is ask­ing ser­vices to find $50 bil­lion in cuts from “low­er-pri­or­i­ty pro­grams.” Invest­ment ana­lysts at TD Cowen summed it up per­fect­ly: “This has been the most con­fused bud­get release we’ve ever seen.”

The Good News Corner

It was­n’t all explo­sions and con­fu­sion this week. Some pos­i­tive developments:

  • Space Force Fund­ing: Despite the chaos, there is bipar­ti­san sup­port for boost­ing the Space Force’s bud­get to near­ly $29 billion—a $2.7 bil­lion increase. Even Democ­rats like Rep. White­sides agree that “cut­ting the Space Force is a bad idea.”
  • Com­mer­cial Progress: Var­da Space is launch­ing its W‑4 mis­sion on SpaceX’s Trans­porter this week­end, using its first in-house space­craft bus. They’re aim­ing for month­ly launches.
  • Inter­na­tion­al Coop­er­a­tion: Ukraine is receiv­ing Star­link direct-to-cell ser­vice to help areas affect­ed by Russ­ian strikes, and NASA has signed a new Artemis coop­er­a­tion agree­ment with Ger­many despite bud­get uncertainty.

Look­ing Ahead

As we head into anoth­er week, keep an eye on the poten­tial sec­ond Chi­nese satel­lite dock­ing attempt sched­uled for today (June 23rd, 2025). Will they pull off what could be the first-ever on-orbit refu­el­ing? Will Con­gress fig­ure out what the Gold­en Dome is before throw­ing bil­lions at it? Will SpaceX fig­ure out how to keep their Star­ships from spon­ta­neous­ly disassembling?

One thing’s for sure — in the space indus­try, there’s nev­er a dull moment. Whether it’s tech­ni­cal chal­lenges, geopo­lit­i­cal maneu­ver­ing, or good old-fash­ioned bud­get bat­tles, we’re liv­ing in inter­est­ing times.

June 23, 2025  Leave a comment

DoD Navigates Cloud Evolution, CMMC Progress, and Acquisition Reform in Pivotal Week

This week has been par­tic­u­lar­ly event­ful for those of us track­ing Defense Depart­ment ini­tia­tives, and I want­ed to break down the key devel­op­ments that are reshap­ing how we do busi­ness with the Depart­ment of Defense.

JWC­C’s Future Takes Shape

First, let’s dis­cuss the cur­rent sta­tus of the Joint Warfight­ing Cloud Capa­bil­i­ty (JWCC) con­tract. Rob Viet­mey­er, DoD’s chief soft­ware offi­cer, dropped some inter­est­ing insights at Fed­er­al News Net­work’s Cloud Exchange 2025. While DoD isn’t ready to unveil the full suc­ces­sor to JWCC, they’re think­ing beyond the cur­rent four hyper­scale providers.

Here’s what caught my atten­tion: DoD wants more direct access to third-par­ty ven­dors in cloud mar­ket­places. Cur­rent­ly, if you want to lever­age inno­v­a­tive solu­tions from small­er ven­dors through JWCC, it’s “sub­op­ti­mal,” as Viet­mey­er put it. That’s bureau­crat-speak for “it’s a pain in the rear.”

The depart­ment is also explor­ing ways to bring small busi­ness­es on board for cloud migra­tion, lega­cy sys­tem refac­tor­ing, and work­load opti­miza­tion. This isn’t just about buy­ing cloud ser­vices any­more – it’s about build­ing an ecosys­tem that can help DoD mod­ern­ize at scale.

OCONUS Cloud Challenges

Now, here’s where it gets inter­est­ing for those of us sup­port­ing warfight­ers at the tac­ti­cal edge. Viet­mey­er acknowl­edged that while JWCC was designed with OCONUS (out­side the con­ti­nen­tal Unit­ed States) capa­bil­i­ties in mind, there is still sig­nif­i­cant work to be done. The real­i­ty is that deliv­er­ing cloud capa­bil­i­ties to for­ward-deployed forces requires both DoD and ven­dor invest­ment. We’re talk­ing about pow­er, band­width, and host­ing in aus­tere envi­ron­ments. Hav­ing worked with sev­er­al Com­bat­ant Com­mands on sim­i­lar chal­lenges, I can tell you that this isn’t triv­ial and often requires deploy­ing a “short stack” like Ama­zon Snow­ball or Microsoft Azure in a U.S. for­ward-deployed loca­tion. Remem­ber, if a JWCC solu­tion is in Europe and not on a U.S. instal­la­tion, it is still sub­ject to EU GDPR, UK GDPR, or the Swiss FDPA reg­u­la­tions. The good news. All four JWCC ven­dors can han­dle clas­si­fied data, but extend­ing those capa­bil­i­ties to the tac­ti­cal edge is still in the “ear­ly phases.”

CMMC Final­ly Gains Momentum

Switch­ing gears to cyber­se­cu­ri­ty: CMMC is mov­ing for­ward despite the reg­u­la­to­ry freeze dra­ma. Sta­cy Bost­jan­ick from DoD’s CIO office con­firmed that the DFARS rule is head­ing to OMB’s Office of Infor­ma­tion and Reg­u­la­to­ry Affairs for final pro­cess­ing. We’re aim­ing for a late sum­mer pub­li­ca­tion date, pend­ing all goes well.

Here’s the kick­er: DoD’s pilot with cloud ser­vice providers and man­aged ser­vice providers is show­ing real promise for reduc­ing CMMC com­pli­ance costs. One unnamed com­pa­ny went from zero to 110 con­trols in just two months, spend­ing about $1,300 per seat plus $32,000 for the assess­ment. That’s a frac­tion of what many feared CMMC would cost.

By lever­ag­ing cloud ser­vice providers (CSPs) and man­aged ser­vice providers (MSPs), com­pa­nies can inher­it 80–90% of the required con­trols. This shared respon­si­bil­i­ty mod­el is exact­ly what the defense indus­tri­al base needs, espe­cial­ly for the 80,000 com­pa­nies that’ll need CMMC Lev­el 2 certification.

GSA’s VAR Con­tro­ver­sy Heats Up

Mean­while, over at GSA, things are get­ting spicy with their review of val­ue-added resellers. GSA sent let­ters to 10 major VARs – includ­ing CDW Cor­po­ra­tion – demand­ing detailed break­downs of OEM costs, markups, and fees. FAS Com­mis­sion­er Josh Gru­en­baum claims that VARs charge markups of 5–7%, which amount to a “tax on the Amer­i­can people.”

Indus­try push­back has been swift and fierce. Mul­ti­ple sources tell me VARs typ­i­cal­ly oper­ate on 1–2% mar­gins, not the inflat­ed num­bers GSA is cit­ing. As one exec­u­tive point­ed out, VARs don’t mark up prices – they receive dis­counts from OEMs based on the val­ue they provide.

This mat­ters because VARs han­dle crit­i­cal func­tions that OEMs aren’t equipped to man­age, includ­ing secu­ri­ty clear­ances, on-site instal­la­tion, inte­gra­tion ser­vices, and nav­i­gat­ing fed­er­al com­pli­ance require­ments. If GSA push­es too hard here, we could see OEMs with­draw from the fed­er­al mar­ket rather than build expen­sive direct-sales infrastructure.

Soft­ware Mod­ern­iza­tion Gets Real

On the soft­ware front, Defense Sec­re­tary Pete Hegseth’s push for soft­ware-defined war­fare is gain­ing trac­tion. Viet­mey­er empha­sized that the DoD needs to stop count­ing “soft­ware fac­to­ries” and start mea­sur­ing the actu­al impact on missions.

Cur­rent­ly, DoD has 50 soft­ware fac­to­ries, but Viet­mey­er argues that’s the wrong met­ric. The real ques­tion is: how many sys­tems are using mod­ern devel­op­ment prac­tices? The answer, unfor­tu­nate­ly, is “rel­a­tive­ly small.”

This aligns with what SAIC’s Bob Ritchie shared about avoid­ing “water­mel­on met­rics” – green on the out­side but not deliv­er­ing mis­sion val­ue. The focus needs to shift from check­ing box­es to deliv­er­ing capa­bil­i­ties that match the warfight­er’s needs.

FY2026 Bud­get Implications

Exam­in­ing the FY2026 bud­get doc­u­ments, we observe con­tin­ued invest­ment in cloud infra­struc­ture and cyber­se­cu­ri­ty. The empha­sis on Defense Health Pro­gram trans­for­ma­tion and sup­port for Tai­wan sig­nals ongo­ing mod­ern­iza­tion pri­or­i­ties despite fis­cal constraints.

What This Means for Industry

For those of us in the defense indus­tri­al base, these devel­op­ments sig­nal both oppor­tu­ni­ties and challenges:

  1. Cloud Evo­lu­tion: The next JWCC iter­a­tion will like­ly offer more oppor­tu­ni­ties for non-hyper­scale providers, but you’ll need to posi­tion your­self strate­gi­cal­ly in cloud marketplaces.
  2. CMMC Accel­er­a­tion: With costs com­ing down through shared ser­vices, there’s no excuse for delay­ing CMMC com­pli­ance. Start work­ing with a CSP or MSP now.
  3. VAR Mod­el Under Pres­sure: If you’re a VAR or work with one, pre­pare for increased scruti­ny. Doc­u­ment the val­ue you pro­vide beyond sim­ply ful­fill­ing products.
  4. Soft­ware-First Mind­set: Tra­di­tion­al hard­ware-cen­tric approach­es are no longer suf­fi­cient. Embrace DevSec­Ops and con­tin­u­ous deliv­ery or risk being left behind.

Look­ing Ahead

This week’s devel­op­ments show that the DoD is seri­ous about mod­ern­iza­tion, but it is try­ing to bal­ance inno­va­tion with fis­cal respon­si­bil­i­ty. The chal­lenge for the indus­try is adapt­ing to these changes while main­tain­ing the capa­bil­i­ties and ser­vices that the DoD needs.

As we move for­ward, suc­cess will require under­stand­ing not just the tech­nol­o­gy but the mis­sion out­comes DoD is try­ing to achieve. Whether it’s extend­ing the cloud to the tac­ti­cal edge, stream­lin­ing cyber­se­cu­ri­ty com­pli­ance, or rethink­ing acqui­si­tion mod­els, the com­mon thread is deliv­er­ing real val­ue to warfighters.

The next few months will be crit­i­cal as these ini­tia­tives move from plan­ning to imple­men­ta­tion. Stay tuned – this trans­for­ma­tion is just get­ting started.

June 19, 2025  Leave a comment

Building the Network of Now: A Practical Guide to Defense Network Modernization

The answer isn’t rip­ping and replac­ing everything—it’s cre­at­ing what I call the “Net­work of Now” through intel­li­gent, incre­men­tal modernization.

The Current Reality Check

Let’s be hon­est about where we are. Crit­i­cal defense sys­tems still in use are writ­ten in COBOL or FORTRAN, and oper­at­ing decades-old hard­ware remains a crit­i­cal aspect of over­all defense oper­a­tions. Mean­while, we’re try­ing to deploy AI/ML capa­bil­i­ties for mis­sile defense and inte­grate space-based sen­sors that gen­er­ate ter­abytes of data per sec­ond. It’s like try­ing to stream 4K video through a dial-up modem.

The tra­di­tion­al approach—complete sys­tem replacement—isn’t just expen­sive; it’s dan­ger­ous. These lega­cy sys­tems work. They’re bat­tle-test­ed. What we need is a bridge between what we have and what we need.

Step 1: Embrace Hybrid Architecture (Not Replacement)

The Strat­e­gy: Cre­ate abstrac­tion lay­ers that enable old and new sys­tems to com­mu­ni­cate with­out requir­ing whole­sale replacement.

Why This Works: Finan­cial ser­vices faced this exact chal­lenge. Banks still run COBOL sys­tems that process tril­lions of trans­ac­tions, yet they offer mobile apps with real-time AI fraud detec­tion. They achieved this through API gate­ways and microser­vices that wrap lega­cy func­tion­al­i­ty in mod­ern interfaces.

For defense, this means cre­at­ing a “Lega­cy Inte­gra­tion Office” with­in each Pro­gram Exec­u­tive Office. These teams would devel­op stan­dard APIs that expose lega­cy sys­tem data with­out touch­ing the core code. Think of it as putting a uni­ver­sal trans­la­tor between sys­tems speak­ing dif­fer­ent languages.

The Rea­son­ing: Risk mit­i­ga­tion. By keep­ing sta­ble lega­cy sys­tems run­ning while adding mod­ern capa­bil­i­ties around them, we main­tain oper­a­tional con­ti­nu­ity while gain­ing new func­tion­al­i­ty. It’s evo­lu­tion, not revolution.

Step 2: Liberate the Data First

The Strat­e­gy: Before mod­ern­iz­ing sys­tems, mod­ern­ize data access. Extract infor­ma­tion from lega­cy silos into mod­ern data lakes where AI/ML can use it.

Why This Works: Data is the ammu­ni­tion for mod­ern war­fare. A mis­sile defense sys­tem needs to cor­re­late infor­ma­tion from hun­dreds of sen­sors in mil­lisec­onds. If that data is locked in COBOL sys­tems acces­si­ble only through batch process­es, we’ve already lost.

The approach is straight­for­ward: build extrac­tion pipelines that con­tin­u­ous­ly copy data from lega­cy sys­tems into mod­ern repos­i­to­ries. The lega­cy sys­tems con­tin­ue to run unchanged, but their data is now avail­able for advanced analytics.

The Rea­son­ing: Data lib­er­a­tion is a low-risk, high-reward approach. It does­n’t require chang­ing oper­a­tional sys­tems, yet it enables trans­for­ma­tion­al capa­bil­i­ties. It’s like installing a win­dow in a bunker—you don’t com­pro­mise the struc­ture, but sud­den­ly you can see outside.

Step 3: Overlay Modern Networks (Don’t Replace Infrastructure)

The Strat­e­gy: Use soft­ware-defined net­work­ing to cre­ate vir­tu­al mod­ern net­works on top of exist­ing infrastructure.

Why This Works: Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions providers faced sim­i­lar chal­lenges tran­si­tion­ing from cir­cuit-switched to pack­et-switched net­works. They could­n’t replace every­thing overnight, so they built over­lay net­works that grad­u­al­ly took over traffic.

For the DoD, this means imple­ment­ing dual-stack oper­a­tions that sup­port both IPv4 and IPv6, deploy­ing trans­la­tion gate­ways at net­work edges, and uti­liz­ing Soft­ware-Defined Net­work­ing (SDN) to cre­ate flex­i­ble, pro­gram­ma­ble net­works regard­less of the under­ly­ing hardware.

The Rea­son­ing: Net­work infra­struc­ture is expen­sive and mis­sion-crit­i­cal. By over­lay­ing mod­ern capa­bil­i­ties, we can achieve next-gen­er­a­tion func­tion­al­i­ty with­out the risk and cost of phys­i­cal replace­ment. It’s like adding express lanes to an exist­ing high­way rather than build­ing an entire­ly new road.

Step 4: Deploy AI/ML as a Force Multiplier (Not a Replacement)

The Strat­e­gy: Imple­ment AI/ML capa­bil­i­ties as “side­car” ser­vices that aug­ment human deci­sion-mak­ing rather than replac­ing exist­ing systems.

Why This Works: The most suc­cess­ful AI imple­men­ta­tions enhance rather than replace. Con­sid­er how Tes­la’s autopi­lot assists dri­vers rather than replac­ing them. For defense appli­ca­tions, AI should pro­vide deci­sion sup­port, pat­tern recog­ni­tion, and pre­dic­tive ana­lyt­ics while humans retain ulti­mate control.

Start with non-crit­i­cal appli­ca­tions, such as pre­dic­tive main­te­nance, and progress to logis­tics opti­miza­tion. Then, care­ful­ly move into oper­a­tional sup­port. Each step builds con­fi­dence and capability.

The Rea­son­ing: Trust is earned incre­men­tal­ly. By demon­strat­ing AI’s val­ue in low-risk areas first, we estab­lish the orga­ni­za­tion­al con­fi­dence nec­es­sary for mis­sion-crit­i­cal appli­ca­tions. It also allows us to devel­op the human-machine team­ing skills essen­tial for future warfare.

Step 5: Reform Acquisition to Incentivize Modernization

The Strat­e­gy: Devel­op new con­tract vehi­cles that reward incre­men­tal improve­ments and facil­i­tate con­tin­u­ous modernization.

Why This Works: Tra­di­tion­al defense con­tracts assume a fixed end-state. But mod­ern­iza­tion is a jour­ney, not a des­ti­na­tion. We need “Mod­ern­iza­tion as a Ser­vice” con­tracts that pay for outcomes—reduced laten­cy, increased avail­abil­i­ty, improved security—rather than spe­cif­ic technologies.

Include pro­vi­sions for sole-source bridges dur­ing tran­si­tions, rapid acqui­si­tion for inte­gra­tion tools, and shared sav­ings mod­els where con­trac­tors ben­e­fit from the effi­cien­cy improve­ments they create.

The Rea­son­ing: Cur­rent acqui­si­tion reg­u­la­tions were designed for hard­ware pro­cure­ment, not soft­ware evo­lu­tion. By align­ing incen­tives with mod­ern­iza­tion goals, we moti­vate the indus­try to invest in cre­ative solu­tions rather than pro­tect­ing incum­bent positions.

Step 6: Organize for Success

The Strat­e­gy: Cre­ate ded­i­cat­ed mod­ern­iza­tion lead­er­ship with real author­i­ty and bud­get control.

Why This Works: Mod­ern­iza­tion efforts typ­i­cal­ly fail due to orga­ni­za­tion­al antibodies—the peo­ple and process­es that resist change. By estab­lish­ing a Chief Mod­ern­iza­tion Offi­cer with bud­get author­i­ty and cre­at­ing cross-func­tion­al teams, we ensure a sus­tained focus and allo­ca­tion of resources.

Equal­ly impor­tant is work­force devel­op­ment. The weapon sys­tems based on either COBOL or FORTRAN aren’t just obsolete—they are also poor­ly doc­u­ment­ed. Part­ner with mod­ern devel­op­ers to cap­ture that knowl­edge while build­ing new systems.

The Rea­son­ing: Tech­nol­o­gy prob­lems are peo­ple’s prob­lems. Suc­cess requires chang­ing cul­ture, incen­tives, and orga­ni­za­tion­al struc­tures. With­out this human ele­ment, even the best tech­ni­cal solu­tions will fail.

The Path Forward: Start Now, Start Small, Scale Fast

The Net­work of Now isn’t about hav­ing the newest tech­nol­o­gy everywhere—it’s about mak­ing our cur­rent capa­bil­i­ties work togeth­er while build­ing tomor­row’s foun­da­tion. Every day, we delay makes the chal­lenge hard­er and our adver­saries stronger.

Start with pilot pro­grams that demon­strate val­ue. Pick a sin­gle crit­i­cal sys­tem and show how mod­ern inte­gra­tion can enhance its capa­bil­i­ties with­out replace­ment. Use that suc­cess to build momen­tum for broad­er initiatives.

The Gold­en Dome mis­sile defense sys­tem exem­pli­fies why this mat­ters. We can’t wait for per­fect infra­struc­ture to defend against hyper­son­ic threats. We need to lever­age what we have while build­ing what we need. That’s the essence of the Net­work of Now—pragmatic mod­ern­iza­tion that deliv­ers capa­bil­i­ty today while prepar­ing for tomorrow.

The ques­tion isn’t whether to modernize—it’s how to mod­ern­ize intel­li­gent­ly. By fol­low­ing this roadmap, we can trans­form defense net­works from lia­bil­i­ty to advan­tage, ensur­ing our warfight­ers have the tools they need when they need them.

June 15, 2025  1 Comment

Space Industry Weekly: Political Turbulence Meets Technical Triumphs

Team, here is my review of the week­ly space indus­try roundup. It has been an inter­est­ing week, marked by every­thing from high-lev­el polit­i­cal dra­ma to ground­break­ing tech­ni­cal achieve­ments. Let me break down what’s been hap­pen­ing in our rapid­ly evolv­ing space sector.

The SpaceX Depen­den­cy Dilemma

This week, the ele­phant in the room has been the ongo­ing polit­i­cal clash between Pres­i­dent Trump and Elon Musk, prompt­ing every­one to ask tough ques­tions about our nation­al depen­den­cy on SpaceX. Whether you love it or hate it, the real­i­ty is stark: SpaceX has become the back­bone of Amer­i­can space capa­bil­i­ties. They’re our only means of trans­porta­tion to the ISS, dom­i­nate nation­al secu­ri­ty launch­es, and Starshield has become essen­tial to DoD operations.

Byron Callan from Cap­i­tal Alpha Part­ners put it best when he not­ed that while oth­er con­trac­tors could step in, match­ing SpaceX’s scale and effi­cien­cy would be a mas­sive chal­lenge. The irony here is thick — we went from wor­ry­ing about ULA’s monop­oly to being over-reliant on a sin­gle com­pa­ny out­pac­ing glob­al com­peti­tors. It’s a good prob­lem to have, but it’s still a problem.

Jared Isaac­man’s Lost Vision

Speak­ing of polit­i­cal casu­al­ties, we exam­ined what could have been with Jared Isaac­man’s plans for the NASA admin­is­tra­tor. After his nom­i­na­tion was pulled in the Trump-Musk fall­out, Isaac­man shared his 100-page blue­print for trans­form­ing NASA. His vision? Cut the bureau­crat­ic bloat, accel­er­ate Artemis II to Decem­ber 2025, boost ISS uti­liza­tion from a 3‑person crew every 8 months to a 7‑person crew every 4 months, and push hard into nuclear elec­tric propulsion.

The guy was even plan­ning to donate his salary to Space Camp schol­ar­ships. Now, NASA is stuck with an act­ing admin­is­tra­tor tak­ing orders from OMB while we wait months for a new nom­i­nee. This missed oppor­tu­ni­ty high­lights how polit­i­cal risk now rivals tech­ni­cal risk in our industry.

Mon­ey Moves and Mar­ket Momentum

Despite the polit­i­cal chaos, the invest­ment com­mu­ni­ty remains opti­mistic about the space. Voy­ager Tech­nolo­gies’ IPO was the sto­ry of the week — they priced at $31, opened trad­ing, and boom — shares shot up over 80% to close at $56.48. That’s a $3.8 bil­lion val­u­a­tion and a strong sig­nal that investors see oppor­tu­ni­ty in the defense-space nexus.

Oth­er notable fund­ing rounds:

  • Muon Space raised $44.5M in a Series B exten­sion and acquired propul­sion start­up Starlight Engines
  • Aethero secured $8.4M for space-based com­put­ing systems
  • Quan­tum Space pulled in $40M as it piv­ots toward nation­al secu­ri­ty applications

Tech­ni­cal Achieve­ments and Setbacks

On the tech­ni­cal front, we saw some impres­sive demon­stra­tions. Arka­dia Space has proven that its green propul­sion sys­tem works as adver­tised in orbit, uti­liz­ing hydro­gen per­ox­ide instead of the tox­ic hydrazine. This isn’t just about being envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly — it’s about cost. Fill­ing a tank with hydrazine can run $2 mil­lion; Arka­dia did it for under $57,000.

Northrop Grum­man has inte­grat­ed robot­ic arms onto its Mis­sion Robot­ic Vehi­cle, set­ting the stage for a 2026 launch that could rev­o­lu­tion­ize satel­lite ser­vic­ing in Geo­syn­chro­nous Earth Orbit (GEO). Think of it as bring­ing the gig econ­o­my to space—one vehi­cle doing every­thing from refu­el­ing to repairs to host­ing payloads.

How­ev­er, not every­thing went smooth­ly. The Ax‑4 pri­vate astro­naut mis­sion was delayed indef­i­nite­ly due to a leak in the liq­uid oxy­gen sys­tem of the Fal­con 9 first stage. NASA is also deal­ing with ongo­ing ISS air leak issues in the Russ­ian mod­ule, adding anoth­er lay­er of com­plex­i­ty to sta­tion operations.

Leg­isla­tive and Pol­i­cy Updates

Con­gress is show­ing bipar­ti­san sup­port for space, but with some inter­est­ing nuances. The House Appro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee pro­posed boost­ing Space Force fund­ing to $28.9 billion—about 10% above the White House request. Both par­ties agree that cut­ting Space Force is bad, but they’re split on Gold­en Dome mis­sile defense, with Repub­li­cans push­ing hard while Democ­rats want more tech­ni­cal details.

Two new space bills hit the Senate:

  • The Quad Space Act would boost space coop­er­a­tion among the US, Japan, India, and Australia
  • The Secure Space Act would block satel­lite licens­es for for­eign com­pa­nies pos­ing secu­ri­ty threats

Look­ing Ahead

The space indus­try con­tin­ues to trans­form from a gov­ern­ment-dom­i­nat­ed to a com­mer­cial­ly dri­ven sec­tor, but this week showed us that polit­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions remain para­mount. Com­pa­nies suc­ceed­ing in this envi­ron­ment need more than good tech­nol­o­gy — they must nav­i­gate Wash­ing­ton’s turbulence.

Key trends I’m watching:

  • The push for launch alter­na­tives to SpaceX is inten­si­fy­ing, but progress remains slow
  • Defense appli­ca­tions are dri­ving invest­ment and innovation
  • Inter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships are becom­ing crit­i­cal for both com­mer­cial and secu­ri­ty reasons
  • Sup­ply chain issues, par­tic­u­lar­ly for opti­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tions ter­mi­nals, con­tin­ue to plague major programs

Bot­tom Line

We’re at an inflec­tion point where polit­i­cal insta­bil­i­ty could threat­en Amer­i­can space lead­er­ship. The good news is that the com­mer­cial sec­tor con­tin­ues to inno­vate, investors remain con­fi­dent, and tech­ni­cal capa­bil­i­ties con­tin­ue to advance. The chal­lenge is ensur­ing that polit­i­cal dra­ma does­n’t derail the momen­tum we’ve built.

Addi­tion­al­ly, have you read my arti­cle on rec­om­men­da­tions for the Space Force and Mis­sile Defense Agency on mod­ern­iz­ing their lega­cy net­works? If not, please review it here.

June 15, 2025  Leave a comment

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