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

Space Industry Weekly: Chaos, Crashes, and Critical Contracts Define Turbulent Week

The space indus­try expe­ri­enced one of its most tumul­tuous weeks in recent mem­o­ry last week, marked by polit­i­cal upheaval at NASA, failed lunar mis­sions, and mas­sive defense con­tracts that sig­nal a fun­da­men­tal shift in how the Unit­ed States approach­es space security.

Political Turmoil Rocks NASA Leadership

The most shock­ing devel­op­ment came from the White House­’s abrupt aban­don­ment of Jared Isaac­man as NASA admin­is­tra­tor nom­i­nee. After propos­ing record-break­ing cuts that would reduce NASA’s bud­get to pre-space age lev­els (adjust­ed for infla­tion), Pres­i­dent Trump pulled Isaac­man’s nom­i­na­tion, cit­ing con­cerns about “com­plete align­ment” with his Amer­i­ca First agenda.

Accord­ing to sources, this was­n’t about the bud­get cuts—it was inter­nal pol­i­tics. Isaac­man’s past dona­tions to Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates became ammu­ni­tion for Musk’s rivals with­in the admin­is­tra­tion, lead­ing to his sud­den dis­missal. The chaos esca­lat­ed Thurs­day when a pub­lic feud between Musk and Trump includ­ed threats to can­cel SpaceX con­tracts and decom­mis­sion Drag­on space­craft, though both sides quick­ly walked back these statements.

The admin­is­tra­tion is now con­sid­er­ing retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Steven Kwast as a replace­ment, but this lead­er­ship vac­u­um comes at a crit­i­cal time. NASA faces pro­posed cuts of $12 bil­lion in strand­ed invest­ments, the can­cel­la­tion of 41 sci­en­tif­ic projects (includ­ing 19 active mis­sions), and plans to run the ISS with a skele­ton crew through 2029.

Golden Dome: America’s $500 Billion Space Defense Gamble

While NASA strug­gles, the Defense Depart­ment is push­ing for­ward with Gold­en Dome, the ambi­tious mis­sile defense ini­tia­tive that’s absorb­ing exist­ing pro­grams and rais­ing con­cerns about a new arms race. BAE Sys­tems secured a $1.2 bil­lion con­tract to build 10 mis­sile-track­ing satel­lites for the Resilient Mis­sile Warn­ing Track­ing Epoch 2 pro­gram, with deliv­ery sched­uled for 2029.

The tech­ni­cal chal­lenges are immense. As Amen­tum exec­u­tives not­ed, cre­at­ing a uni­fied “sys­tem of sys­tems” that inte­grates space sen­sors, ground radars, and oth­er data sources for real-time deci­sion-mak­ing rep­re­sents one of the most com­plex inte­gra­tion chal­lenges in the his­to­ry of defense. The can­cel­la­tion of DoD’s planned indus­try day this week only adds to the uncer­tain­ty sur­round­ing the program.

Democ­rats on the House Armed Ser­vices Com­mit­tee expressed seri­ous con­cerns, with Rep. Seth Moul­ton warn­ing that Gold­en Dome could be “a mas­sive waste of tax­pay­er dol­lars” if adver­saries devel­op coun­ter­mea­sures. Chi­na, Rus­sia, and North Korea have all crit­i­cized the project, with Chi­na claim­ing orbital inter­cep­tors vio­late the Out­er Space Treaty. (Author’s Note: I rec­om­mend that Rep. Moul­ton sub­scribe to the Integri­ty ISR newslet­ter to bet­ter under­stand inter­na­tion­al threats before mak­ing bold claims.)

Commercial Sector Shows Resilience Amid Government Chaos

Despite gov­ern­ment tur­moil, the com­mer­cial sec­tor demon­strat­ed remark­able momen­tum. Impulse Space’s $300 mil­lion Series C fund­ing round stands out as a vote of con­fi­dence in the future of in-space transportation.

The com­pa­ny plans to lever­age its Helios space­craft for a range of appli­ca­tions, from GEO rideshare ser­vices to lunar mis­sions, poten­tial­ly increas­ing pay­load capac­i­ty to the Moon by a fac­tor of ten com­pared to cur­rent Com­mer­cial Lunar Pay­load Ser­vices (CLPS) missions.

The Space Force’s $4 bil­lion con­tract to Jacobs Tech­nol­o­gy for launch range upgrades rep­re­sents a par­a­digm shift in infra­struc­ture fund­ing. For the first time, com­mer­cial launch providers can direct­ly pay for ser­vices and upgrades rather than rely­ing on gov­ern­ment fund­ing. This mar­ket-dri­ven approach could accel­er­ate mod­ern­iza­tion at both East­ern and West­ern ranges.

Lunar Ambitions Meet Harsh Reality

Thurs­day’s crash of iSpace’s RESILIENCE lan­der serves as a sober­ing reminder of the chal­lenges fac­ing com­mer­cial lunar explo­ration. This was the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive fail­ure for the Japan­ese com­pa­ny, caused by a laser rangefind­er issue that pre­vent­ed prop­er decel­er­a­tion, result­ing in a 30% drop in stock price and rais­ing ques­tions about the via­bil­i­ty of low-cost lunar missions.

CEO Takeshi Haka­mada’s sto­ic response at the press conference—refusing to show emo­tion despite the setback—exemplifies the deter­mi­na­tion required in this high-risk indus­try. But with only Fire­fly achiev­ing a suc­cess­ful land­ing among this year’s com­mer­cial attempts, the path to rou­tine lunar access remains steep.

Industry Responds with New Advocacy

Rec­og­niz­ing the need for uni­fied action, the Com­mer­cial Space Fed­er­a­tion launched its Space Sup­ply Chain Coun­cil (S2C2) this week. With found­ing mem­bers span­ning logis­tics, sub­sys­tems, and man­u­fac­tur­ing, the coun­cil aims to edu­cate Wash­ing­ton on how pol­i­cy deci­sions impact the broad­er space ecosystem—not just prime contractors.

This could­n’t come at a more crit­i­cal time. New 50% tar­iffs on steel and alu­minum are dri­ving up costs for rock­et and satel­lite man­u­fac­tur­ers, while pro­posed bud­get cuts threat­en to ren­der bil­lions of dol­lars in pri­or invest­ments obsolete.

Looking Ahead: Uncertainty and Opportunity

As we close out last week, sev­er­al crit­i­cal devel­op­ments loom:

  • The Euro­pean Com­mis­sion’s expect­ed approval of the SES-Intel­sat merg­er by June 10
  • Hydrosat’s VanZyl‑2 ther­mal imag­ing satel­lite launch on SpaceX’s Transporter-14
  • Con­gres­sion­al action on Sen. Ted Cruz’s pro­pos­al to restore $10 bil­lion to NASA’s budget
  • The ongo­ing search for a new NASA administrator

The dis­con­nect between rhetoric about space as a crit­i­cal domain and actu­al bud­get allo­ca­tions has nev­er been stark­er. The Space Force faces a $2.7 bil­lion cut even as offi­cials tout the need for resilient capa­bil­i­ties against Chi­na and Russia.

For those of us ana­lyz­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties in this sec­tor, the mes­sage is clear: com­mer­cial inno­va­tion will need to fill the gaps left by gov­ern­ment retrench­ment. Com­pa­nies that can deliv­er capa­bil­i­ties faster and cheap­er than tra­di­tion­al con­trac­tors will find eager cus­tomers in both civ­il and defense markets.

The space indus­try has always been about man­ag­ing risk and uncer­tain­ty, and last week proved that polit­i­cal risk may now be the great­est chal­lenge of all. As we nav­i­gate these tur­bu­lent times, one thing remains certain—the com­pa­nies that sur­vive and thrive will be those that can adapt quick­ly to rapid­ly chang­ing cir­cum­stances, whether tech­ni­cal, finan­cial, or political.

June 11, 2025  Leave a comment

Golden Dome Initiative Takes Shape: $175B Missile Defense Shield Faces Technical and Political Hurdles

Pres­i­dent Trump’s ambi­tious Gold­en Dome mis­sile defense ini­tia­tive gained momen­tum this week with the announce­ment of a $175 bil­lion price tag and the appoint­ment of Space Force Gen­er­al Michael Guetlein to lead the project. How­ev­er, new analy­sis sug­gests the pro­gram faces sig­nif­i­cant tech­ni­cal, finan­cial, and polit­i­cal chal­lenges that could impact its three-year timeline.

Leadership and Timeline Announced

Dur­ing a May 20 Oval Office brief­ing, Pres­i­dent Trump unveiled key details about the Gold­en Dome pro­gram, nam­ing Gen. Michael Guetlein, Vice Chief of Space Oper­a­tions, as project lead. The admin­is­tra­tion claims the sys­tem will be “ful­ly oper­a­tional” by the end of Trump’s term – an aggres­sive time­line that experts say will require a phased approach.

“It is time that we change that equa­tion and start dou­bling down on the pro­tec­tion of the home­land,” Guetlein stat­ed dur­ing the announce­ment, call­ing the mis­sile defense project a “bold and aggres­sive approach” to counter emerg­ing threats like cruise mis­siles and hypersonics.

Cost Estimates Vary Widely

While Trump pegged the pro­gram at $175 bil­lion, a Con­gres­sion­al Bud­get Office report released May 5 sug­gests costs could range from $161 bil­lion to $542 bil­lion. Some offi­cials, includ­ing Mon­tana Sen­a­tor Tim Shee­hy, have warned that the final price tag could reach into the “tril­lions.”

The pro­gram’s ini­tial fund­ing would come from a $25 bil­lion allo­ca­tion in the Repub­li­can rec­on­cil­i­a­tion bill, though that leg­is­la­tion cur­rent­ly faces inter­nal GOP oppo­si­tion in the House.

System Architecture: A “System of Systems”

Gold­en Dome won’t be a sin­gle defen­sive sys­tem but rather a com­plex inte­gra­tion of mul­ti­ple technologies:

  • Ground-based sen­sors and radars
  • Space-based sen­sors and track­ing systems
  • Ter­res­tri­al interceptors
  • Space-based inter­cep­tors capa­ble of boost-phase interception
  • Inte­grat­ed com­mand and con­trol systems

The inclu­sion of space-based inter­cep­tors marks a sig­nif­i­cant depar­ture from cur­rent U.S. mis­sile defense archi­tec­ture and rep­re­sents the pro­gram’s most tech­ni­cal­ly chal­leng­ing aspect.

Critical Spectrum Battle Threatens Program

A major threat to the Gold­en Dome emerged this week as Con­gress debates auc­tion­ing off the 3.10–3.45 GHz spec­trum band – what the DoD calls the “Goldilocks zone” for mis­sile defense radars. A new Cen­ter for Strate­gic and Inter­na­tion­al Stud­ies (CSIS) report warns that open­ing this spec­trum to com­mer­cial 5G net­works would jam crit­i­cal defense sys­tems, including:

  • Navy’s Aegis SPY radar family
  • Army’s TPQ-53
  • Marine Corps’ Ground/Air Task-Ori­ent­ed Radar
  • Space Force’s Long-Range Dis­crim­i­na­tion Radar

“To steal a phrase from chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture, sell­ing off the low 3 band is a ter­ri­ble, hor­ri­ble, no good, very bad idea,” said Tom Karako, direc­tor of the CSIS Mis­sile Defense Project.

Industry Competition Heats Up

The admin­is­tra­tion empha­sized that Gold­en Dome con­tracts would be open to com­pa­nies of all sizes. Sen­a­tor Dan Sul­li­van not­ed that both tra­di­tion­al defense con­trac­tors, such as Lock­heed Mar­tin and Raytheon, as well as “new defense tech com­pa­nies” offer­ing low­er-cost solu­tions, would com­pete for work.

“What’s excit­ing about this is it makes it avail­able to every­body to par­tic­i­pate, to com­pete. Big com­pa­nies, mid-sized com­pa­nies, small com­pa­nies,” said Sen­a­tor Kevin Cramer dur­ing the briefing.

SpaceX has report­ed­ly emerged as a fron­trun­ner for space-based com­po­nents, rais­ing ethics con­cerns among Sen­ate Democ­rats about Elon Musk’s influ­ence on the pro­gram. (Author’s Note: This is before an X (Twit­ter) heat­ed exchange between Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and Elon Musk).

International Partnership and Strategic Implications

Cana­da has expressed inter­est in join­ing the Gold­en Dome ini­tia­tive, with Trump stat­ing they would “pay their fair share” to par­tic­i­pate. This part­ner­ship could extend the defen­sive shield beyond U.S. bor­ders. (Author’s Note: Cana­da is already deeply involved in the defense of North Amer­i­ca through its rela­tion­ship with North Amer­i­can Aero­space Defense Com­mand (NORAD). The rela­tion­ship will be an exten­sion of this.)

The pro­gram builds on lessons learned from Ukraine’s suc­cess­ful use of com­mer­cial satel­lite sys­tems dur­ing the 2022 Russ­ian inva­sion. Gen. Stephen Whit­ing, com­man­der of U.S. Space Com­mand, recent­ly high­light­ed how Ukraine’s expe­ri­ence demon­strat­ed that even nations with lim­it­ed space infra­struc­ture can lever­age com­mer­cial space capa­bil­i­ties dur­ing conflict.

Challenges Ahead

Beyond fund­ing and tech­ni­cal hur­dles, Gold­en Dome faces sev­er­al crit­i­cal challenges:

  1. Tech­ni­cal Inte­gra­tion: Stitch­ing togeth­er diverse sys­tems into an effec­tive defen­sive shield
  2. Arms Con­trol Con­cerns: Crit­ics warn that the sys­tem could desta­bi­lize the nuclear deter­rence doctrine
  3. Spec­trum Pro­tec­tion: Ongo­ing Con­gres­sion­al bat­tles over spec­trum allocation
  4. Time­line Fea­si­bil­i­ty: Three-year oper­a­tional goal con­sid­ered high­ly ambitious

Looking Forward

As MDA pre­pares for this mas­sive under­tak­ing, the can­cel­la­tion of the COMETS pro­gram and post­pone­ment of the June Gold­en Dome sum­mit sug­gest the agency is reassess­ing its acqui­si­tion strat­e­gy. The empha­sis on com­mer­cial solu­tions, high­light­ed in Exec­u­tive Order 14271, may dri­ve a new approach to devel­op­ing and field­ing these capabilities.

For defense con­trac­tors, the Gold­en Dome ini­tia­tive rep­re­sents both an unprece­dent­ed oppor­tu­ni­ty and a com­plex chal­lenge requir­ing inno­v­a­tive approach­es to sys­tem inte­gra­tion, com­mer­cial tech­nol­o­gy adop­tion, and rapid capa­bil­i­ty development.

The suc­cess of Gold­en Dome will ulti­mate­ly depend on Con­gress pro­tect­ing crit­i­cal spec­trum, secur­ing ade­quate fund­ing, and the defense indus­tri­al base’s abil­i­ty to deliv­er rev­o­lu­tion­ary capa­bil­i­ties on an accel­er­at­ed time­line. As one indus­try ana­lyst not­ed, while skep­ti­cal that an “imper­vi­ous con­ti­nen­tal mis­sile defense shield is fea­si­ble,” Gold­en Dome serves as an “impor­tant cat­a­lyst to devel­op and field crit­i­cal space-based capabilities.”

June 11, 2025  Leave a comment

MDA Partnership with Space Force for Golden Dome


Since my MDA’s LinkedIn post about the Mis­sile Defense Agency (MDA) sparked a con­ver­sa­tion, it also led to a larg­er dis­cus­sion about the MDA part­ner­ship between the U.S. Space Force (USSF) and U.S. Space Com­mand (USSPACECOM). For the Gold­en Dome for Amer­i­ca ini­tia­tive, the Mis­sile Defense Agency (MDA) would like­ly part­ner with both USSF and USSPACECOM, but for dif­fer­ent rea­sons based on their dis­tinct roles and respon­si­bil­i­ties. Here’s how the part­ner­ships would align:

MDA Part­ner­ship with Space Force

Why Space Force?

  • Capa­bil­i­ty Devel­op­ment: The Space Force is respon­si­ble for orga­niz­ing, train­ing, and equip­ping space forces, which includes devel­op­ing and main­tain­ing space-based assets, such as satel­lites, sen­sors, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion systems.
  • Tech­nol­o­gy Inte­gra­tion: The Space Force would pro­vide the nec­es­sary infra­struc­ture and exper­tise to inte­grate space-based sen­sors and com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems into the Gold­en Dome architecture.
  • Space-Based Inter­cep­tors (SBI): If Gold­en Dome includes space-based inter­cep­tors, the Space Force would like­ly play a cru­cial role in oper­at­ing and main­tain­ing these sys­tems once they are deployed.

 

Key Areas of Collaboration:

  1. Satel­lite Operations:
    • Space Force oper­ates mis­sile warn­ing satel­lites and oth­er space-based sen­sors that would feed data into Gold­en Dome’s com­mand and con­trol systems.
  2. Space Domain Awareness:
    • The Space Force tracks objects in space, ensur­ing the safe­ty and func­tion­al­i­ty of the Gold­en Dome’s space-based assets.
  3. Research and Development:
    • The Space Force could col­lab­o­rate with MDA on advanced tech­nolo­gies, such as arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI), machine learn­ing (ML), and dig­i­tal engi­neer­ing, for space-based systems.

MDA Part­ner­ship with Space Command

Why Space Command?

  • Oper­a­tional Exe­cu­tion: Space Com­mand is tasked with plan­ning and exe­cut­ing mil­i­tary oper­a­tions in the space domain, which includes mis­sile warn­ing, mis­sile defense, and space-based operations.
  • Mul­ti-Domain Inte­gra­tion: Space Com­mand ensures the inte­gra­tion of space capa­bil­i­ties into joint oper­a­tions across all domains, includ­ing land, sea, air, cyber, and space.
  • Defen­sive Oper­a­tions: Space Com­mand would over­see the oper­a­tional use of Gold­en Dome’s space-based assets to detect, track, and inter­cept threats.

 

Key Areas of Collaboration:

  1. Mis­sile Warn­ing and Tracking:
    • Space Com­mand would use data from space-based sen­sors (oper­at­ed by Space Force) to pro­vide real-time mis­sile warn­ing and track­ing for Gold­en Dome.
  2. Com­mand and Con­trol (C2):
    • Space Com­mand would inte­grate Gold­en Dome’s space-based capa­bil­i­ties into broad­er mis­sile defense oper­a­tions, ensur­ing seam­less coor­di­na­tion with oth­er com­bat­ant com­mands, such as U.S. North­ern Com­mand (NORTHCOM) and U.S. Indo-Pacif­ic Com­mand (INDOPACOM).
  3. Oper­a­tional Defense:
    • Space Com­mand would over­see the day-to-day oper­a­tions of Gold­en Dome’s space-based assets, ensur­ing they are ready to respond to threats.

How MDA, Space Force, and Space Com­mand Work Together

MDA’s Role:

  • Devel­ops and tests Gold­en Dome sys­tems, includ­ing inter­cep­tors, sen­sors, and com­mand and con­trol infrastructure.
  • Trans­fers mature sys­tems to oper­a­tional enti­ties (e.g., Space Force or Space Command).

Space Force’s Role:

  • Pro­vides the space-based infra­struc­ture (satel­lites, sen­sors, com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems) need­ed for Gold­en Dome.
  • Oper­ates and main­tains space-based assets once fielded.

Space Com­mand’s Role:

  • Uses the capa­bil­i­ties pro­vid­ed by Space Force and MDA to con­duct real-time operations.
  • Inte­grates Gold­en Dome into mul­ti-domain oper­a­tions and coor­di­nates with oth­er com­bat­ant commands.

Exam­ple Sce­nario: Gold­en Dome in Action

  1. Space Force Contribution:
    • Oper­ates mis­sile warn­ing satel­lites that detect a bal­lis­tic mis­sile launch.
    • Pro­vides track­ing data to Gold­en Dome’s com­mand and con­trol system.
  2. MDA Con­tri­bu­tion:
    • Devel­ops the inter­cep­tor sys­tem that is launched to neu­tral­ize the threat.
    • Pro­vides the inte­grat­ed archi­tec­ture that con­nects sen­sors to shooters.
  3. Space Com­mand Contribution:
    • Exe­cutes the oper­a­tional response, coor­di­nat­ing with oth­er com­bat­ant com­mands to ensure the mis­sile is inter­cept­ed and the threat neutralized.

Con­clu­sion

MDA would part­ner with Space Force for capa­bil­i­ty devel­op­ment and infra­struc­ture, and with Space Com­mand for oper­a­tional exe­cu­tion. Both part­ner­ships are essen­tial for the suc­cess of Gold­en Dome, as it requires:

  • Space Force’s exper­tise in build­ing and main­tain­ing space-based assets.
  • Space Com­mand’s exper­tise in using those assets to con­duct real-time operations.

This col­lab­o­ra­tion ensures that Gold­en Dome can pro­vide a lay­ered defense against threats across all domains—land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace.

For the BD/Capture Audience

The SHIELD is going to an $151B IDIQ, and the GOLDEN DOME, as of yet, has not got­ten a dol­lar amount assigned; I am going to bet that the GOLDEN DOME will fall under SHIELD, along with oth­er Space Force and MDA oppor­tu­ni­ties.  For the Fed­er­al Ser­vice Inte­gra­tor (FSI) com­mu­ni­ty, many of you align your MDA efforts to the 4th Estate Book of Busi­ness ver­sus Space. Let’s start part­ner­ing Account Exec­u­tives togeth­er and treat­ing it as one Book of Business.

June 4, 2025  Leave a comment

May 2025 Space Update

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

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

Launch Activ­i­ty & Technology

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

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

Inter­na­tion­al Launch Developments:

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

Major Acqui­si­tions & Investments

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

Oth­er Notable Deals:

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

Gov­ern­ment & Pol­i­cy Developments

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

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

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

Com­mer­cial Sec­tor Highlights

Satel­lite Communications:

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

Earth Obser­va­tion & Intelligence:

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

Infra­struc­ture & Sustainability

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

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

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

Look­ing Ahead

Key trends emerg­ing include:

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

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

June 3, 2025  Leave a comment

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