Space Industry Cheat Sheet: Starship Soars, Defense Dollars Flow, and Europe Eyes Independence

Team, here’s your week­ly space indus­try roundup. Even with the con­tin­ued gov­ern­ment shut­down, the week brought major devel­op­ments across com­mer­cial, mil­i­tary, and inter­na­tion­al space sec­tors that could reshape our approach to orbital oper­a­tions and home­land defense.

SpaceX Closes Chapter on Starship V2 with Near-Perfect Flight

SpaceX wrapped up its Star­ship V2 test cam­paign Mon­day with what might be its most suc­cess­ful flight yet. The 11th full-scale test sent the stain­less steel giant halfway around the world from Boca Chi­ca to the Indi­an Ocean, and unlike pre­vi­ous flights, this bird came home look­ing pristine.

The mis­sion test­ed sev­er­al new capa­bil­i­ties: the Super Heavy boost­er exper­i­ment­ed with a five-engine burn con­fig­u­ra­tion instead of the usu­al three. At the same time, Star­ship deployed eight Star­link mass sim­u­la­tors and suc­cess­ful­ly relit one of its Rap­tor engines in space. As the indus­try learns that SpaceX likes to con­duct stress test­ing, it is will­ing to lose a cou­ple of rock­ets along the way, and it will only become more effi­cient in putting more rock­ets in the air. 

Military Space Spending Accelerates Under Golden Dome Initiative

The defense sec­tor is dou­bling down on space capa­bil­i­ties. Trump’s Gold­en Dome mis­sile defense ini­tia­tive has sparked a $3.5 bil­lion invest­ment surge in Q3 2025 alone, with con­trac­tors posi­tion­ing for what could be $25–125 bil­lion in con­tracts through the Mis­sile Defense Agen­cy’s $151 bil­lion SHIELD program.

Sev­er­al key devel­op­ments high­light this shift:

• Army Expands Space Com­mand: Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey announced that Space and Mis­sile Defense Com­mand now over­sees com­pre­hen­sive home­land air and mis­sile defense, inher­it­ing two addi­tion­al com­mands as part of the new West­ern Hemi­sphere Com­mand structure.
• Viasat Eyes Mil­i­tary Mar­ket: The satel­lite com­mu­ni­ca­tions giant is devel­op­ing cus­tomized dual-band satel­lites for the Space Force’s Pro­tect­ed Tac­ti­cal Sat­com-Glob­al pro­gram, lever­ag­ing com­mer­cial tech­nol­o­gy for mil­i­tary applications.
• SDA Con­stel­la­tion Grows: SpaceX launched anoth­er 21 Trans­port Lay­er satel­lites for the Space Devel­op­ment Agency, build­ing out the Pen­tagon’s pro­lif­er­at­ed mis­sile track­ing and data relay network.

Commercial Developments Signal Market Maturation

The com­mer­cial space sec­tor showed both promise and tur­bu­lence this week:

Axiom Space Lead­er­ship Shake­up: The space sta­tion devel­op­er replaced CEO Tej­paul Bha­tia with Jonathan Cir­tain, a for­mer BWXT exec­u­tive. This “strate­gic lead­er­ship change” comes as Axiom pre­pares to attach its first com­mer­cial mod­ule to the ISS in late 2027.

Ama­zon’s Kuiper Progress: SpaceX launched 24 more Project Kuiper satel­lites Mon­day, bring­ing Ama­zon’s con­stel­la­tion to 153 oper­a­tional satel­lites out of a planned 3,232. The final Kuiper launch is cur­rent­ly booked on Fal­con 9.

Van­den­berg Expan­sion Approved: The Air Force green­lit SpaceX to dou­ble its annu­al launch rate at Van­den­berg from 50 to 100 mis­sions, includ­ing devel­op­ment of Space Launch Com­plex 6 for Fal­con Heavy oper­a­tions. For Van­den­berg SFB to increase the num­ber of launch­es rep­re­sents a stun­ning turn­around for a base that host­ed just one orbital launch five years ago.

International Space Race Intensifies

Glob­al com­pe­ti­tion and coop­er­a­tion both advanced this week:

Chi­na’s Stealth Launch: Bei­jing con­duct­ed an unan­nounced launch of the Shiyan-31 remote sens­ing satel­lite—unusu­al for a nation that typ­i­cal­ly issues warn­ings. The opti­cal sur­veil­lance satel­lite now orbits 300 miles above Earth.

Oman’s Bold Play: The Mid­dle East­ern nation approved a 45-day space launch licens­ing pro­ce­dure, poten­tial­ly the world’s fastest. The Etlaq Space­port aims to become the region’s pre­mier com­mer­cial launch hub, with no lim­its on annu­al launches.

Europe’s Launch Inde­pen­dence Push: Ger­man start­up HyIm­pulse secured €45 mil­lion ($52.5M) in new fund­ing to devel­op its SL‑1 rock­et, tar­get­ing 2027 for first flight. Mean­while, ESA award­ed con­tracts for a reusable rock­et recov­ery ves­sel, sig­nal­ing Europe’s com­mit­ment to com­pet­i­tive launch capabilities.

Technology Breakthroughs Point to Future Capabilities

Sev­er­al emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies caught my atten­tion this week:

Air-Breath­ing Satel­lites: Virid­i­an Space won a $1.7 mil­lion DoD SBIR award for propul­sion sys­tems that use atmos­pher­ic oxy­gen as fuel in very low Earth orbit (150–500km). If Virid­i­an can demon­strate that it can use atmos­pher­ic oxy­gen, this can enable future satel­lites to maneu­ver with­out tra­di­tion­al fuel constraints—a game-chang­er for mil­i­tary applications.

Lunar Econ­o­my Takes Shape: At Pay­load­’s Lunar and Mars Econ­o­my Sum­mit, for­mer NASA chief Jim Briden­s­tine deliv­ered a stark warn­ing: Chi­na will like­ly beat the U.S. back to the Moon giv­en cur­rent spend­ing pri­or­i­ties. Invest­ment banker Jim Zukin pro­ject­ed the first phase of lunar infra­struc­ture will cost $23 bil­lion, focused on liq­uid oxy­gen pro­duc­tion and semi-autonomous robots.

Looking Ahead: Key Trends to Watch

As we ana­lyze this week’s devel­op­ments, sev­er­al strate­gic impli­ca­tions emerge:

1. Defense Dri­ves Inno­va­tion: Mil­i­tary spend­ing is becom­ing the pri­ma­ry cat­a­lyst for space tech­nol­o­gy advance­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly in mis­sile defense and resilient communications.
2. Com­mer­cial-Mil­i­tary Con­ver­gence: Tra­di­tion­al bound­aries between com­mer­cial and mil­i­tary space capa­bil­i­ties con­tin­ue to blur, with com­pa­nies like Viasat adapt­ing com­mer­cial tech for defense applications.
3. Launch Capac­i­ty Explo­sion: Between SpaceX’s Van­den­berg expan­sion and inter­na­tion­al space­ports com­ing online, glob­al launch capac­i­ty is set to increase dramatically.
4. Home­land Defense Pri­or­i­ty: The expan­sion of the Army Space and Mis­sile Defense Com­mand sig­nals a fun­da­men­tal shift toward com­pre­hen­sive home­land pro­tec­tion across all domains.

The space indus­try is clear­ly at an inflec­tion point. With defense bud­gets flow­ing, com­mer­cial capa­bil­i­ties matur­ing, and inter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion inten­si­fy­ing, we’re wit­ness­ing the emer­gence of a true space econ­o­my. For those of us in the tech­nol­o­gy and defense sec­tors, the opportunities—and challenges—have nev­er been greater.

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

Clin­ton Austin is a Busi­ness Exec­u­tive at CDW Gov­ern­ment, spe­cial­iz­ing in defense tech­nol­o­gy and strate­gic planning.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not nec­es­sar­i­ly reflect the offi­cial pol­i­cy or posi­tion of the CDW Government.