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

Posted in Space.