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

Posted in Space.