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

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

Trump Administration Shakes Up Space Regulations

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

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

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

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

Nuclear Power: The Next Frontier

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

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

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

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

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

Launch Successes and Failures

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

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

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

Defense and Security Updates

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

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

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

Commercial Developments

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

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

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

Looking Ahead

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

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

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

Until next time, keep look­ing up!