Four astronauts have been assigned to Artemis III, a two-week Earth orbit test mission scheduled for 2027 that will demonstrate rendezvous and docking operations with commercial lunar landers from Blue Origin and SpaceX.

The crew will include NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik as commander, ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano as pilot, and NASA astronauts Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas as mission specialists. NASA astronaut Bob Hines was named backup commander and will train alongside the prime crew.

The announcement came during a live event Tuesday at Johnson Space Center, identifying the mission as a critical step toward Artemis IV the first planned crewed landing at the lunar South Pole, targeted for 2028. The Artemis III crew will launch aboard NASA’s Space Launch System rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman gave an overview of the mission.

Isaacman VSOT (See Transcript)

The crew will begin training immediately on Orion systems and will assist in development and operations of both the SpaceX and Blue Origin lander test articles.

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York Space Systems has closed its approximately $67 million cash and stock acquisition of Solestial ... a Tempe, Arizona-based manufacturer of silicon solar cells engineered for the space environment. The transaction closed June 4th. York paid using a negotiated share value of $34.00 per unit, issuing more than 1.7 million shares of its common stock to Solestial’s sellers.

The deal targets a supply chain vulnerability York says runs through the core of the satellite manufacturing industry. China controls 99% of the gallium and more than 60% of the germanium required for the legacy III-V solar cells used in most spacecraft today. It also produces 93% of the world’s polysilicon used in terrestrial solar panels. Approximately 95% of Solestial’s supply chain is already U.S.-based. Solestial will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of York and will continue supplying solar technology to external customers outside York’s own portfolio.

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The Federal Communications Commission’s Space Bureau has opened two new processing rounds. The rounds cover non-geostationary orbit satellite systems seeking authority to operate in Ku-, Ka-, and V-band frequencies with a July 6th, 2026 deadline for new applicants. The bureau released the public notice June 5th.

Three operators already hold conditional authorizations folded into these proceedings: SpaceX, Amazon Leo, and Logos Space Services. A fourth operator, SN Space Systems, has an application pending from the second V-band processing round that also requested Ku- and Ka-band authorization. The FCC has not set a deadline for acting on applications filed in the third processing rounds.

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And are SPACs making a comeback? A merger agreement announced Monday values Rockville, Maryland-based spacecraft developer Quantum Space at $1.2 billion post-transaction. The company is set to go public through a combination with special purpose acquisition company Inflection Point Acquisition Corp.

The merged entity will operate under the Quantum Space name and is expected to list on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “QSPC” pending shareholder approval and an anticipated close in the fourth quarter of 2026. Quantum Space has raised $57 million in equity funding to date, including a $40 million Series A extension closed in June of last year. The company’s Ranger 500 spacecraft completed a Manufacturing Readiness Review in late 2025.

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SpaceX flew Starship Version 3 for the first time last week, and the launch cost equation for commercial payload customers shifted with it. [Paywall]

The test flight, designated Flight 12, launched from a newly constructed second launch pad at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in southern Texas. It deployed 20 Starlink simulator satellites on a suborbital trajectory over approximately 10 minutes. SpaceX said ahead of the flight it did not anticipate a flawless test. Post-flight, the company confirmed the V3 ship stage completed its planned suborbital trajectory but the Super Heavy booster did not return to the launch site as planned.

The architecture behind V3 is a structural redesign. The booster now uses three larger grid fins, an integrated hot-staging design, and a new interstage configuration SpaceX calls its Block 3. The company states V3 is designed to carry approximately 200 metric tons to low Earth orbit in fully reusable configuration and roughly 400 metric tons in expendable configuration.

To put that in context: SpaceX’s original Starship required an expendable vehicle to reach 200 metric tons. The V3 reusable rating matches that number. That means a customer flying on a reused V3 vehicle accesses the same mass budget that early Starship variants could only achieve by expending the vehicle.

Third-party analytics group Payload Research estimated Starship’s internal cost per kilogram in an expendable V1 configuration at approximately $500. Under V3’s advertised capacity, that same analytical framework suggests the per-kilogram number could fall by roughly half. Those are third-party projections. SpaceX has not published a V3 commercial rate card.

The commercial payload certification timeline for V3 has not been announced. Neither has the timeline for non-Starlink, non-Starshield cargo access to the vehicle.

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Impulse Space closed a $500 million Series D on June 2nd, bringing its total capital raised to more than $1 billion and the supply chain behind that ambition is still being built. [Paywall]

The round was co-led by 137 Ventures and BANNER VC, with participation from Founders Fund, Lux Capital, and Linse Capital. The funds are earmarked for vehicles, propulsion systems, and operational architecture, a broad mandate that signals Impulse is actively expanding its manufacturing and supply base.

Impulse operates two distinct vehicle programs. Mira, the company’s last-mile maneuvering spacecraft for low Earth orbit, has flown multiple operational missions, delivering satellites from rideshare drop points to their final orbital destinations. Its propulsion, avionics, and structural sub-tiers are either qualified or actively in qualification, indicating a supply chain in execution mode.

Helios is a different story. The Helios kick stage is designed for geosynchronous orbit rideshare and deep-space transfer requiring substantially higher-thrust chemical propulsion, larger propellant tanks, and thermal management hardware that Mira does not need. As of June 2026, Helios has not flown. Its sub-tier qualification chain remains open.

That opening is the primary supply chain opportunity this raise signals.

The Series D’s explicit call-out of propulsion systems as a fund deployment target confirms that Helios’s propulsion architecture is still being finalized and sourced. For suppliers of high-thrust bipropellant engines, composite overwrapped pressure vessels known as COPVs and GEO-class thermal management systems, this is a defined qualification window. Suppliers with existing COPV credentials, including Arde, a Moog subsidiary with flight-heritage high-pressure vessels, and Steelhead Composites, a Colorado-based manufacturer with LEO constellation heritage, represent the vendor class for which that window is most directly relevant.

There’s also a defense layer. Impulse is working as a subcontractor to Anduril Industries on the Space Force’s space-based interceptor prototype for Golden Dome, a team that also includes K2 Space, Inversion Space, Voyager Technologies, and Sandia National Labs. That relationship adds defense-grade guidance, navigation, and control requirements to Impulse’s avionics stack. Radiation-hardened flight computers are now part of the qualification picture.

And those parts face supply pressure across the entire defense space sector. Suppliers currently qualified on SpaceX, Rocket Lab, or Millennium Space Systems programs hold a meaningful head start. For others, early engagement with Impulse’s supply chain team should be considered a prerequisite.

NASA awarded two Lunar Terrain Vehicle contracts on May 26th. The headline is which companies won. The story for supply chain leaders is the procurement architecture behind the awards. [Paywall]

Venturi Astrolab received a contract to produce its FLEX rover. Lunar Outpost received a contract for its MAPP rover. Both awards fall under NASA’s Artemis campaign. Combined, they represent approximately $440 million in potential contract value.

Neither award is a single-delivery purchase order. Both were structured as indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts meaning NASA retains the right to issue task orders across a defined ordering period, with total contract value contingent on task order activity rather than fixed at award. That IDIQ structure signals NASA is building a recurring acquisition framework for sustained lunar surface capability, not issuing a one-time purchase.

The rover contracts are one procurement layer in a five-domain architecture. NASA currently has active procurement activity or announced intent across surface mobility, surface power, surface communications, in-situ resource utilization, and surface habitat. Of those five domains, only surface mobility has named prime awards fully in place as of June 2026.

The Fission Surface Power program co-developed with the Department of Energy is the most time-urgent open window. Phase 1 design contracts went to Battelle Energy Alliance, IX, a joint venture between X-energy and Intuitive Machines, and Lockheed Martin in June 2023. Phase 2 awards for flight hardware have not been announced. The sub-tier qualification window for flight-rated fission power components, shielding materials, and heat rejection systems is open now.

There is also a timing issue for the LTV program specifically. Venturi Astrolab and Lunar Outpost have each disclosed technical partnerships and supply relationships in filings dating 18 to 24 months before the May 26th announcement. The propulsion, power storage, mobility actuation, and avionics sub-tiers for those vehicles are substantially determined. New entrants positioning for the rover supply chain are not competing for the current award cycle. They are positioning for the next one and the procurement horizon for LTV-2 has not been publicly announced.

Supply chain leaders who treat the May 26th announcement as the signal to begin qualification are, by definition, already behind.

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Defense buyers are no longer writing Earth observation contracts around best-efforts delivery. Guaranteed cadence is now a contract requirement, and that shift carries direct consequences for every tier of the EO supply chain. [Paywall]

On May 26th, Satellogic announced an $18 million contract with an international defense customer for persistent, high-frequency Earth observation monitoring. The contract runs one year. The meaningful detail isn’t the dollar value. It’s what the customer required: a collection frequency obligation written directly into the contract. Satellogic’s constellation architecture, downlink infrastructure, and processing throughput are now contractual commitments.

And that award isn’t an outlier. In February, the National Reconnaissance Office confirmed the first tranche of contracts under its Strategic Commercial Enhancements Commercial Solutions Opening program, selecting HEO, SatVu, and Sierra Nevada Corporation to supply non-Earth-imaging, medium-wave infrared, and radio frequency sensing capabilities. In May, the NRO added ICEYE US to that panel under a subsequent award, expanding qualified suppliers to include synthetic aperture radar imaging.

Together, those awards establish something more significant than individual contract values: defense buyers are broadening the phenomenology set they procure commercially. A persistent intelligence delivery contract now routinely bundles optical, infrared, RF, and SAR sensing into a single program architecture. The prime contractor that wins such a contract needs a credible subcontract structure behind it for every sensor type.

That sub-tier architecture is where the current sourcing whitespace lives.

The ground segment is the layer that is neither disqualified nor confirmed across any of these award structures. Downlink throughput, antenna access schedules, and processing pipeline capacity are structural requirements in a persistent delivery contract. Providers including Leaf Space, Atlas Space Operations, and Amazon Web Services Ground Station, represent the mapped starting point for ground-segment dependencies. But contractors building teams for persistent EO awards who have not pre-qualified a ground-segment partner are building an incomplete proposal.

The NRO has indicated additional 2026 award tranches are anticipated. The window to build the program office relationships that convert a panel qualification into delivery orders closes before a solicitation is formally posted.

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In what appears to be a major change in direction, a NASA spokesperson said the agency will be pulling back from the CLD Core Module approach to developing a replacement for the International Space Station.

Details are still thin, but NASA spokesperson Bethany Stevens posted recently on X that the agency was going to re-think the strategy.

“In the spirit of learning from past programmatic challenges and ensuring a responsible transition from the International Space Station, NASA evaluated both the current commercial space station approach and alternative pathways,” the post on X said.

“Industry has provided extensive feedback making the case for a sustainable commercial market in which NASA is one customer among many, along with assurances regarding available transportation capabilities. The industry position will now shape the path forward as NASA proceeds with the original commercial strategy.

“Over the coming weeks, NASA will work with stakeholders and industry to refine flexible requirements and acquisition plans, with a draft RFP expected later this month.”

While NASA has informally reversed its proposed overhaul of the CLD program, the change has not yet been reflected in acquisition actions, with the Phase 2 contract still on hold and no RFP issued.

This is a developing story, and we will bring you more details as they become available. It also fundamentally changes information we published in several articles this week that were researched prior to the shift. We apologize for the error.

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Voyager Technologies has signed an agreement to acquire Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technology for up to approximately $300 million in a combination of cash and stock, including contingent consideration.

The deal joins a defense technology and space solutions company with a commercial lunar delivery operation that Astrobotic has built over nearly two decades. Astrobotic operates from facilities in Pittsburgh and Mojave, California, and holds contracts under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. The combined portfolio spans mission management, communications, propulsion, surface delivery via the Peregrine and Griffin landers, surface power through LunaGrid, and habitation through Max Space. The transaction requires customary regulatory approvals and is expected to close by early July 2026.

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NASA has awarded contracts to two companies to build and deliver crewed lunar rovers to the Moon’s south pole by 2028.

Venturi Astrolab received a $219 million task order, and Lunar Outpost received $220 million — both under Phase 1 High Achievability Mission task orders of the Lunar Terrain Vehicle Services contract. Astrolab’s entry, the Crewed Lunar Vehicle-1, is adapted from the company’s FLEX rover architecture. Lunar Outpost delivers the Pegasus rover, a lighter evolution of its Eagle platform built specifically to meet NASA’s updated requirements. Both rovers reach the lunar surface through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative.

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Apogee has been awarded a five-year, $103.6 million task order to provide positioning, navigation, and timing — or PNT — contractor support services for the Department of War.

The contract targets modernization of Global Positioning System capabilities essential to U.S. military operations, allied forces, and critical infrastructure worldwide. Under the agreement, Apogee will support modernization, acquisition, and sustainment planning for GPS-based technologies. The award comes as the Department of War refines its GPS acquisition strategy with an emphasis on delivering capabilities more rapidly to operational users.

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The F-C-C made two significant moves in last month, and together they set a procurement clock that supply chain leaders may not yet recognize is running. [Paywall]

The first was FCC Order 26-26, released May 1st. The order eliminated mandatory Equivalent Power Flux Density limits — constraints that had governed non-geostationary orbit satellite operators since the late 1990s. In their place, the FCC established voluntary coordination agreements between N-G-S-O and geostationary operators. The Commission estimated the shift delivers up to seven times more usable spectrum capacity and more than $2 billion in economic benefits — without a single additional launch.

Twelve days later, the FCC approved SpaceX’s acquisition of approximately 65 megahertz of mid-band spectrum from EchoStar Corporation — AWS-4, AWS H-Block, and unpaired AWS-3 licenses — in a $17 billion transaction. That spectrum underpins SpaceX’s next-generation Direct-to-Device network. Final consummation is expected by November 30, 2027, with interim buildout milestones spanning nine years.

The FCC also granted AST SpaceMobile commercial authorization in April 2026 to deploy 248 satellites providing Supplemental Coverage from Space — SCS — using low-band 700 and 800 MHz spectrum in coordination with Verizon, A-T-&-T, and FirstNet. Half that constellation — 124 satellites — must be in orbit by August 2030.

AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon have since announced a joint venture to build a technology-neutral satellite D2D platform targeting unserved and underserved areas. Those carriers are not simply customers. They are setting the technical interface standards every hardware supplier will need to meet.

The supply chain pressure point is certification. D2D services at commercial scale require chipsets, modems, and radio frequency front-end components that do not yet exist in sufficient commercial volume. The FCC issued a one-year waiver allowing a broader range of end-user devices to connect to SCS services while equipment certification requirements are finalized. That waiver has a hard clock. Procurement programs that wait for an extension rather than plan to the stated deadline are carrying schedule exposure they do not need.

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The United States Space Force’s Future Operating Environment 2040 report places supply chain disruption inside its darkest operational scenario — not as a footnote, but as a named gray-zone instrument alongside jamming, spoofing, and cyber intrusion. [Paywall]

The FOE’s “Dark Horizons” scenario describes a 2040 environment of continuous, hard-to-attribute conflict below the level of declared war. Within that environment, the document explicitly identifies “targeted micro-supply chain disruptions framed as product recalls” as a tool China could use to gradually weaken adversary capability while staying below the threshold of open conflict. The core of the tactic is the disguise: a supply disruption that arrives as a quality issue, a safety notice, or a routine recall — and routes through commercial processes rather than military channels.

The FOE cites Russia’s Sfera (sf-ER-ah) constellation as a concrete reference point. That program was cut from 600 to 360 satellites due to component shortages — demonstrating that even a major spacefaring nation can be bottlenecked by fragility in key inputs.

The document identifies three supply chain categories with elevated exposure: radiation-hardened microelectronics, rare-earth magnets, and ammonium perchlorate. Program managers and executives at commercial space companies and defense primes relying on single-source suppliers in any of those categories now have the Space Force’s own risk framework to reference when making the case internally for supply chain diversification.

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A recent Blue Origin New Glenn launch anomaly and ongoing Starship booster incidents have put a spotlight on something the space industry has been slow to treat as a core competency: crisis communications. [Paywall]

Within minutes of each event, video clips flooded social media. Analysts speculated. Investors watched. Competitors observed. And customers began asking questions behind closed doors. That is the reality of today’s space economy. A launch anomaly is no longer simply an engineering event. It’s a communications event with potential impacts on a company’s reputation and brand.

Michael Daily, President of NewSpace Brand Builders and Ex Terra Media contributor, argues that most space supply chain firms still treat crisis communications as a contingency plan sitting in a binder — and that approach belongs to a previous era. In today’s commercial space environment, Daily contends that crisis communications is brand strategy. Launch providers, propulsion firms, avionics manufacturers, software developers, component suppliers, and systems integrators all operate inside a tightly connected ecosystem. When a high-profile failure occurs, the ripple effects move rapidly across the entire network.

Daily’s core argument: organizations that have inte grated crisis preparation into their broader brand strategy project leadership during turbulence, while those that haven’t project uncertainty. Silence becomes noticeable. Contradictory messaging damages confidence. The companies that handle crises best rarely improvise — they prepare, build communications protocols, train executives, and align legal, engineering, operations, and communications teams before the first emergency ever occurs.

For supply chain companies, that preparation shifts from optional overhead to operational resilience. It is competitive positioning. And in the modern space industry, it’s trust preservation.

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Amazon’s $11.57 billion acquisition of Globalstar, announced in April 2026, marks a structural turning point for the commercial space industry — and the implications run well beyond two companies striking a deal. [Paywall]

Amazon is not a space investor. It’s a logistics, retail, and cloud infrastructure company that has concluded satellite connectivity is too strategically important to source from a competitor. The buyer acquired Globalstar’s licensed spectrum bands and global network infrastructure. Based on the stated strategic rationale and deal structure, spectrum scarcity — not operating cash flow — appears to be the primary valuation driver. The $11.57 billion price represents a significant premium to Globalstar’s pre-announcement market capitalization.

Three other capital events in the past 60 days fill out the picture. Vast Space closed a $250 million funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz at a reported $5.5 billion valuation. K2 Space raised $120 million to advance large-format satellite manufacturing. And SpaceX filed a confidential S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission, with trade press reporting a target valuation ranging from about $1.75 trillion to possibly in excess of $2 trillion — though the company has not yet disclosed final pricing in its SEC filing.

What the data shows, taken together, is two stories running side by side. Early-stage capital is still flowing into launch and orbital infrastructure. Consolidation-stage capital is flowing to companies with spectrum assets, existing customer bases, and near-term revenue visibility. The asset profile of the capital magnet has shifted.

For supply chain executives and business development professionals, the strategic read is this: when a public SpaceX creates a liquid benchmark that institutional fund managers can hold directly, capital that currently sits in private space companies will have a new home. Sub-scale operators without a clear path to strategic relevance face a narrowing window to negotiate from strength. The question is no longer whether consolidation will reshape the sector — which companies get acquired on their own terms, and which get absorbed at distressed prices.

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NASA is reshaping its leadership structure in what Administrator Jared Isaacman is calling a realignment to accelerate mission delivery.

Under the reorganization announced last week, the agency is consolidating its five mission directorates into three. The ‘Exploration Systems Development’ mission directorate and the ‘Space Operations’ mission directorate are merging into a new ‘Human Spaceflight’ mission directorate. On the technology side, the ‘Aeronautics Research’ and ‘Space Technology’ directorates will combine into a new ‘Research and Technology’ mission directorate, which will also take on nuclear power and propulsion development. The ‘Science Mission Directorate’ remains unchanged.

One of the more significant structural shifts: all directorate leaders will now report directly to the Administrator, rather than through layers of management. Isaacman says the goal is to cut bureaucratic drag and focus the agency’s talent on its top priorities, returning humans to the Moon, building a sustainable lunar base, and expanding the commercial economy in low Earth orbit.

The reorganization also brings new leadership to three field centers, Goddard, Glenn, and Kennedy, and sets up a competition for the contract to manage the Jet Propulsion Laboratory when Caltech’s current agreement expires in 2028.

For the commercial space industry, the realignment signals where NASA is directing its institutional weight. A leaner, more mission-focused NASA, with directorates reporting directly to the top, could mean faster decisions on commercial partnerships, procurement actions, and program commitments. That matters for anyone in the supply chain waiting on a government signal to move.

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Blue Origin is making one of the largest single manufacturing investments in Florida’s space history.

The Jeff Bezos-founded rocket company announced a 600-million-dollar expansion of its Rocket Park campus at Cape Canaveral, a project the company is calling Project Horizon. The centerpiece is an 830-thousand-square-foot upper stage manufacturing facility designed to increase the volume and mass Blue Origin can deliver to orbit from Florida.

The project is expected to generate 500 aerospace jobs, with average salaries topping 98-thousand dollars a year.

For the Space Coast, this is more than a construction announcement. Upper stage manufacturing is a high-precision, high-skill segment of the launch supply chain, the kind of facility that anchors a regional industrial base and draws sub-tier suppliers into the area. Blue Origin’s investment is a long-term signal that it intends to compete aggressively in the launch market from Florida. And the ripple effects on local suppliers, workforce pipelines, and adjacent infrastructure could be substantial.

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Meanwhile, about 1,000 miles to the west, Firefly Aerospace is executing a different kind of manufacturing buildout, one focused on turning spacecraft production from a one-at-a-time process into a repeatable assembly line.

The Cedar Park, Texas company has moved into a new headquarters campus, adding two new buildings to its existing spacecraft facility. Put together, the new buildings give Firefly roughly 144-thousand square feet of unified space — double what it had before. That campus sits less than 30 miles from the Rocket Ranch in Briggs, Texas, a 200-acre complex with six test stands dedicated to launch vehicle development.

The centerpiece of the expansion is a new cleanroom ... four times larger than Firefly’s existing one and funded by a Texas Space Commission grant ... designed to support dedicated assembly lines for Blue Ghost lunar landers and Elytra orbital vehicles. Running multiple vehicles through integration concurrently is a direct answer to the production bottlenecks that have slowed spacecraft manufacturers trying to scale.

Firefly has also established an in-house innovation lab called Gloworks, bringing propulsion, carbon composites, robotics, and 3-D printing capabilities under one roof. The idea is to compress lead times and keep critical intellectual property inside the company rather than farming it out to external suppliers.

The company says the Cedar Park investments allow Firefly to template its Blue Ghost lunar lander into a production line capable of supporting multiple lunar missions per year. For a commercial space industrial base that is still largely built around one-off fabrication, that kind of throughput ambition is worth watching closely.

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A new report released at the 2026 ASCEND Conference is putting hard numbers on a concern that has been building quietly in the launch industry: the United States may not have enough capacity to handle what’s coming.

The report is titled “SCRUBBED: America’s Launch Capacity Challenge”. It was produced by Rational Futures in partnership with the Commercial Space Federation using FCC regulatory filings, government budget data, and orbital mechanics modeling to map three demand scenarios against existing U.S. launch infrastructure.

The numbers are significant. With more than 180 launches conducted from U.S. soil in 2025, the report finds that demand could require up to 7,000 launches per year depending on which satellite constellations move to full operation. Annual spacecraft demand could range from 6,000 to as many as 230,000 satellites.

The report identifies two categories of concern. At traditional launch sites like Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg, the primary obstacle isn’t physical space, it’s coordination. The report calls for a central management authority to handle zoning, shared infrastructure scheduling, and a reduction of evacuation zones through improved analysis of methane explosive yield.

For newer and non-traditional inland spaceports, the challenge is economics. Standing up a site capable of supporting 10 to 20 orbital launches per year costs roughly 200-million dollars, a figure that market activity alone is unlikely to recover. The report identifies federal tools that could bridge the gap, including anchor tenancy arrangements and direct capital funding.

The findings are landing at a policy-active moment. The Trump Administration is currently revising the National Space Transportation Policy, and the report’s authors are explicit: waiting for market forces to solve this problem on their own is not a viable approach.

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Every time a rocket lifts off, the camera follows the name on the side of the vehicle. The prime contractor gets the headline, the press release, and the investor call. The hundreds of suppliers who built the guidance system, the valves, the thermal protection, the power electronics, they get nothing but a purchase order. [Paywall]

That gap between visibility and contribution has a name. Michael Daily, president of NewSpace Brand Builders and Ex Terra Media contributor, calls it the Integration Illusion, and he argues it isn’t just a communications problem. It’s a strategic market power problem with consequences that run through the entire space industrial base.

Here’s how it works. System primes capture nearly all market visibility, investor attention, political prestige, and public brand authority. The component suppliers who enable mission success remain commercially anonymous, even when their technology is the actual source of mission differentiation. A propulsion supplier may solve an historic efficiency problem. A sensor company may create breakthrough imaging capability. A materials firm may engineer survivability essential for deep space. But the market only remembers the name painted on the spacecraft exterior.

Daily identifies four downstream effects that should concern anyone tracking the health of the space industrial base.

First, invisibility weakens supplier pricing power. When buyers treat subsystem providers as interchangeable, procurement gets driven by cost pressure alone. That compresses margins across the supply chain and discourages long-term innovation investment.

Second, it damages capital formation. Investors gravitate toward companies with visible market narratives. Suppliers without strategic brand presence often struggle to communicate their relevance beyond technical specs, and their innovations end up hidden inside someone else’s story.

Third, invisible suppliers lose the talent competition. The next generation of engineers increasingly wants to work for companies associated with purpose and recognition. Technical excellence isn’t enough if nobody knows you exist.

Fourth, and this is the one that should keep program managers up at night, invisibility increases systemic industrial fragility. If critical suppliers can’t sustain profitability, attract investment, or recruit expertise, the broader ecosystem becomes structurally vulnerable. Large primes may appear stable while the niche suppliers beneath them are quietly undercapitalized and at risk.

Daily’s prescription isn’t louder marketing. It’s repositioning. Suppliers need to stop describing themselves through technical specifications and start communicating strategic consequence. Not “we manufacture radiation-hardened electronics.” But rather: mission survivability and national space resilience depend on our capability.

That’s the kind of narrative that changes a procurement conversation.

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The regulatory door for commercial on-orbit refueling has officially opened, and the suppliers who were already positioning themselves are pulling ahead. [Paywall]

On March 24th of this year, the Office of Space Commerce released its proposal for a voluntary Space Commerce Certification process. The framework creates a consolidated interagency review pathway for commercial activities that fall outside existing regulatory regimes, explicitly including satellite servicing, on-orbit refueling, proximity operations, and orbital computing.

The certification process is opt-in, not mandatory. But it provides something more valuable than a mandate: a predictable approval process that institutional customers, including the Department of War, can point to when justifying commercial service contracts. That’s the bridge between demonstration missions and recurring revenue.

And the demonstrations are coming fast. Four U.S. government missions in 2026 represent the most concentrated refueling test push the industry has ever seen.

Astroscale U.S. is the highest-profile. Funded by the Space Force’s Space Systems Command, its refueler is manifested for a summer 2026 launch. It will attempt the first-ever hydrazine refueling operations above geosynchronous Earth orbit, targeting Space Force Tetra-5 satellites. This is a live operational mission, not a lab experiment.

Orbit Fab is pursuing a parallel commercial track. Its Rapid Attachable Fluid Transfer Interface, known as RAFTI, was approved by the Defense Innovation Unit as an accepted standard in 2024 and is already embedded in government procurement language. Orbit Fab has signed the first government and commercial fuel delivery agreements in geosynchronous orbit. The company holds a European Space Agency contract worth approximately 830-thousand dollars to work with telecom primes on integrating xenon refueling technology into commercial satellites.

The standardization angle is critical. RAFTI is positioning itself the way USB-C positioned itself in consumer electronics, a single interface that makes every compatible satellite a potential refueling customer. Every GEO satellite launched without that interface is a satellite that cannot access Orbit Fab’s service. That’s a supply chain dependency that satellite manufacturers, operators, and investors need to be mapping right now.

The commercial refueling market entered 2026 with analyst estimates in the range of $1.65-billion. The question isn’t whether the market is real. The question is whether your supply chain is positioned to capture the first contract cycle, or whether you’ll be watching someone else walk through the door.

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A geopolitical sorting mechanism is quietly restructuring the technology supply chains behind commercial space hardware, and it’s moving faster than most vendor qualification timelines. [Paywall]

In December 2025, the United States launched the Pax Silica Initiative, aligning twelve nations around a shared trusted-vendor framework for semiconductors, artificial intelligence hardware, critical mineral refining, and advanced manufacturing. The founding coalition includes Japan, South Korea, the Netherlands, Israel, Australia, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, India, and Qatar.

Under-Secretary of State Jacob Helberg described the coalition as equivalent to what the G7 was to the industrial age. U.S. diplomats have been directed globally to use Pax Silica to identify infrastructure projects and coordinate economic security practices. Export controls, foreign investment screening, and anti-dumping enforcement are being coordinated across member nations.

Those input categories; semiconductors, AI hardware, critical minerals, and advanced manufacturing, run through virtually every satellite, launch vehicle, and space-services platform in commercial production today.

The companies with the most immediate exposure share two characteristics: significant revenue from U.S. government or allied-nation primes, and a production or sourcing base concentrated in China. In the commercial space sector, that describes a meaningful slice of the hardware ecosystem. Firms supplying radio-frequency systems, printed circuit board assemblies, power electronics, and electro-optical sensors frequently source sub-tier inputs from Chinese manufacturers. The same applies to launch vehicle suppliers sourcing carbon fiber composites, precision-machined aluminum structures, and rare-earth permanent magnets used in actuators and reaction wheels.

The practical deadline is Q3 2026. Coalition members are actively identifying supply chain chokepoints and designing joint ventures to displace them. Suppliers whose sourcing remains China-anchored, without a documented diversification plan, are accumulating qualification exposure that will surface as program award risk before the end of this year.

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NASA’s own watchdog is raising serious concerns about the agency’s commercial lunar lander programs, and the findings touch everything from cost controls to crew safety.

The agency’s Office of Inspector General has issued audits covering both the Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, known as C-L-P-S, and the Human Landing Systems program, or H-L-S, which is developing crewed landers for the Artemis campaign.

On the C-L-P-S side, auditors found that costs had risen by more than 208 million dollars across the portfolio, with average schedule delays reaching at least 14 months per task order. NASA’s original delivery timelines were based on overly optimistic assumptions about the commercial market, assumptions that failed to account for supply chain constraints and technical development challenges. The average time from contract award to launch was running 44 months, compared to the 30-month target NASA originally set.

The firm-fixed-price contracting model NASA uses, which puts financial risk squarely on vendors, created enough pressure that one C-L-P-S contractor went bankrupt. Others continue to operate under financial strain.

The Human Landing Systems program tells a more nuanced story. Auditors found that contracting costs had been largely controlled, the SpaceX H-L-S contract increased by just six percent, and the Blue Origin contract by less than one percent. But technical and integration hurdles remain, and the crew safety picture is incomplete.

Specifically, auditors found gaps in NASA’s testing posture and said crew survival analyses were not finished. And there is a live disagreement between NASA and SpaceX over whether the company is meeting the requirement for manual astronaut control during lunar descent, a potentially critical safety issue if something goes wrong during final approach.

NASA has confirmed that Artemis Three will include critical on-orbit tests, rendezvous and docking with one or both landers, as a precursor to Artemis Four, which would return humans to the lunar surface for the first time in more than 50 years.

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The aerospace industry has raised the bar for satellite operations, releasing what may be the most comprehensive orbital safety document yet published, and the timing is deliberate.

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics published Version 3-point-0 of its Orbital Safety Best Practices for Satellite Operators this week. The document carries signatures from Amazon, Eutelsat, Iridium Communications, and SpaceX, a cross-section of the industry that reflects both the document’s reach and its ambition.

The release coincides with ASCEND 2026, the A-I-A-A’s flagship conference running through this week in Washington, where orbital traffic management and space sustainability are front-and-center topics.

The document covers the full lifecycle of a satellite, from design through disposal, and is written for global applicability. It is not a government regulation. It is a voluntary framework, and the authors are explicit about why: technology evolves faster than rulemaking, and guidelines built around goals are more durable than rigid rules that can’t keep pace.

Some of the specific standards are worth noting. Satellites must be designed with reliable maneuvering capability and a radar cross-section large enough for tracking authorities to catalog them. Operators are expected to achieve a greater-than-90-percent probability of completing planned disposal. On orbit, operators are required to submit predicted position and velocity data to conjunction assessment authorities at least three times daily for low Earth orbit satellites.

The standard threshold for a required collision avoidance maneuver remains one-in-ten-thousand, but when a potential collision could produce more than 50 debris fragments, the recommended threshold tightens to one-in-one-hundred-thousand.

The disposal rule is direct: L-E-O satellites that cannot naturally decay within five years must be actively deorbited.

And the document takes a firm position on pre-launch transparency, requiring operators to publicly share planned orbits, launch cadences, and satellite counts before launch. The governing principle is this: if something is discoverable after launch, it should be shared before.

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A Jacksonville, FL company just closed a major funding round to build what it’s calling the first power grid in space.

Star Catcher Industries has raised 65 million dollars in a Series A round — bringing total capital raised to 88 million dollars. The company uses optical power beaming to deliver electricity on demand to satellites in orbit, with no retrofit or custom hardware required on the receiving spacecraft. The first-ever space-based demonstration of that technology is scheduled to launch later this year.

I spoke with Star Catcher co-founder and C-E-O Andrew Rush about what this raise means for the program and what comes next.

(See Interview Transcript)

Andrew Rush is co-founder and C-E-O of Star Catcher Industries. Joining the board as part of the Series A round is General John “Jay” Raymond, the first Chief of Space Operations of the United States Space Force.

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The satellite broadband race has a real second competitor now, and the stakes are significant. (Paywall)

Amazon Leo, the low Earth orbit broadband service formerly known as Project Kuiper, is moving toward a mid-2026 commercial launch. Amazon rebranded the initiative last November, retiring the Project Kuiper name in favor of Amazon Leo. The company currently has more than 240 satellites in space and is working toward a constellation of more than 3-thousand, authorized by the F-C-C and planned across five deployment phases.

The performance targets are competitive. Amazon Leo’s enterprise-grade terminal is designed to deliver up to one gigabit per second on downloads. Its standard residential terminal targets up to 400 megabits per second. Latency is expected in the 30-to-50 millisecond range, comparable to what Starlink delivers today.

But scale is the key variable. Starlink currently operates roughly nine-thousand active satellites and has years of operational head start. Amazon Leo is just entering the market.

Where Amazon may have its most meaningful edge is not in raw satellite count, it’s in ecosystem. Amazon Leo is being built with deep integration into Amazon Web Services, making it a natural connectivity layer for enterprises already running A-W-S cloud workloads. That positioning moves this competition out of a simple speed-and-price fight and into the enterprise infrastructure market, which is a very different battleground.

Amazon C-E-O Andy Jassy recently described the service as “on the verge of launching,” noting the company has already secured revenue commitments from enterprises and governments. The broader commercial rollout is expected throughout the rest of 2026.

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The in-space mobility sector keeps attracting serious capital, and the latest raise carries signals that go well beyond the headline number. (Paywall)

Portal Space Systems, based in Bothell, Washington, closed a 50-million-dollar Series A in April, valuing the company at 250 million dollars. The round was led by Geodesic Capital and Mach33, with participation from Booz Allen Ventures, ARK Invest, AlleyCorp, and FUSE. It follows a 17-and-a-half-million-dollar seed round, one of the largest publicly disclosed seed financings in the sector at the time.

The company was founded in 2021 by Jeff Thornburg, a former SpaceX engineer who helped develop the Merlin engine program. Its core technology is solar thermal propulsion, a system that concentrates sunlight directly to heat ammonia-based propellant, generating specific impulse approaching nuclear thermal performance levels, without a reactor and without the regulatory burden that comes with one.

Portal’s Supernova spacecraft is designed to deliver up to 6 kilometers per second of delta-v across orbital regimes from low Earth orbit all the way to cislunar space. Orbital maneuvers that currently take weeks using conventional propulsion can be executed in hours or days.

The investor mix tells the real story here. Booz Allen Ventures does not back science projects. Its director Travis Bales stated directly that the investment was made to, and this is a quote, “advance orbital warfare through the development of rapidly maneuverable spacecraft, something we know our customers need.” That is not investor relations language. That is a requirements statement delivered in a press release.

Portal also carries a 45-million-dollar Strategic Funding Increase award, known as a S-T-R-A-T-F-I, from the U.S. Space Force’s SpaceWERX program. That award preceded the Series A close. When the Space Force backstops a commercial round before private capital comes in, that sequencing is a procurement signal, not a coincidence.

The near-term proof point is Starburst-1, a smaller demonstration vehicle manifested on a SpaceX rideshare mission in the fourth quarter of 2026, designed to demonstrate rendezvous, proximity operations, and rapid orbital retasking. Eighty-one percent of Starburst and Supernova components are shared, a deliberate design decision that builds flight heritage for the full solar thermal system while generating near-term program revenue.

The supply chain risk is real and worth noting. Portal’s production depends on additive manufacturing vendors capable of working with advanced thermal materials to tolerances that legacy aerospace manufacturing does not routinely hold. That sub-tier supplier base is small and not yet publicly mapped. The company has a C-E-O-stated target of four spacecraft per month by end of 2027, a production rate that has not been verified against confirmed facility capacity or supplier commitments. That is where the program risk concentrates, and it is the detail that procurement and program management professionals should be tracking.

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The commercial space station race is further along than most people realize, and a close look at Starlab’s production architecture reveals both how far the program has come, and where the risks are hiding. (Paywall)

On February 23rd, Starlab Space completed its Commercial Critical Design Review with NASA in attendance, the 28th milestone under its NASA Space Act Agreement. That review transitions the program from design into manufacturing and systems integration, and it positions Starlab for a milestone payment from NASA.

The hardware is already being built. Vivace Corporation, a New Orleans-based manufacturer, was under contract before the review closed. It was awarded the job in September 2025 to build Starlab’s primary aluminum structure, one of the largest single spaceflight structures developed for launch in the commercial station era. Production is underway at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in Louisiana, the same facility that built the core stage for the Space Launch System.

The supply chain architecture is what the industry calls a best-of-class assembly, a deliberate strategy to use proven aerospace integrators for each major component. But that strategy creates a specific risk profile.

Vivace is a single-source contract for the primary structure. There is no publicly disclosed backup manufacturer. Leidos has been named as the sole assembly, integration, and testing provider, all at a single Alabama facility. And Airbus Defense and Space is not a minor partner in this program. It is the exclusive provider of technical design and engineering services, and co-owner of the European Starlab subsidiary.

Three single-source dependencies, primary structure, integration, and design authority, in a program targeting a 2029 launch. The NASA Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destinations Phase 2 award decision, which shapes the funding future of this program, remains in open flux as of this week.

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On May first, the Commission released a landmark Report and Order replacing decades-old energy caps with a performance-based spectrum sharing framework. The ruling is designed to sharpen competition between satellite, cable, and terrestrial wireless providers. And then, on May twelfth, the F-C-C issued a separate approval for SpaceX to acquire approximately 65 megahertz of mid-band spectrum from EchoStar Corporation -- in a 17-billion-dollar transaction.

That spectrum -- covering AWS-4, AWS H-Block, and unpaired AWS-3 licenses -- is the foundational layer SpaceX needs for its next-generation Direct-to-Device network. Commercial D-2-D services could begin as early as late 2026 for initial messaging and emergency alerts, with full constellation buildout extending through the next several years.

Layer on top of that what the F-C-C had already done in April for AST SpaceMobile. The Commission granted AST commercial authorization to deploy a constellation of 248 satellites providing supplemental coverage from space -- using low-band 700 and 800 megahertz spectrum in coordination with Verizon, AT&T, and FirstNet. Half the constellation -- 124 satellites -- must be in orbit by August of 2030.

And then this week, the story got even bigger. AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon announced plans for a joint venture to expand satellite-based direct-to-device connectivity across the United States -- specifically targeting unserved and underserved areas. The joint venture would pool spectrum, create common technical standards, and build what the carriers are calling a technology-neutral platform that any qualified satellite operator can plug into.

The three carriers aren’t just customers here. They are becoming the infrastructure layer that determines which satellite operators succeed at commercial scale. For investors and supply chain managers watching the D-2-D market -- the regulatory and commercial framework just got a lot more real.

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NASA has proposed a CLPS 2-point-0 procurement -- a competitive follow-on to its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program -- and the agency intends to launch monthly uncrewed missions to the Moon beginning next year. To support that cadence, NASA moved to raise the CLPS contract ceiling to 4-point-2 billion dollars. (Paywall)

The most recent award went to Intuitive Machines -- a 180-point-4-million-dollar contract to deliver seven science and technology payloads to the Lunar South Pole region. That’s Intuitive Machines’ fifth CLPS task order. For context -- this is the company that successfully landed the first commercial spacecraft on the Moon in 2024.

On the private side, Lunar Outpost just closed a 30-million-dollar Series B -- oversubscribed -- led by Industrious Ventures. The company now has eight fully contracted lunar and cislunar missions on its manifest before 2030, more than any other commercial surface-mobility provider. Revenue has doubled each year for four consecutive years.

The White House is leaning in as well. The Trump administration’s commercial-first architecture is explicitly targeting lunar surface presence by 2028, framing satellite connectivity and lunar logistics as critical national infrastructure.

The question worth tracking is not whether the lunar market is real. It is. The question is whether the supply chain serving it can scale fast enough. Component lead times, launch cadence, and ground infrastructure are the binding constraints -- and those are exactly the kinds of gaps that create near-term opportunities for suppliers who move early.

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The GEO-to-LEO transition has stopped being a debate. It is now an operating reality -- and the numbers from early 2026 earnings make that clear. (Paywall)

Eutelsat Group’s early-2026 results showed LEO revenues surging nearly 60 percent year-over-year, while GEO revenues declined 4-point-5 percent. For the first time, the growth curve of the new business visibly outpaced the decline of the old one. Eutelsat followed that with a contract with Airbus valued at between $2.34 and $2.57 billion dollars for 340 additional LEO satellites -- backed by a $1.75 billion capital increase supported by the French and British governments. Those governments aren’t just writing checks. They’re treating satellite connectivity as critical national infrastructure, and they want sovereign capacity that Starlink cannot provide.

Telesat Canada tells a different version of the same story -- and a more turbulent one. The company faces a 1-point-7-billion-dollar debt maturity wall in December 2026, and creditor litigation alleging it moved its LEO constellation assets beyond the reach of GEO-linked lenders. Telesat has dismissed the suits. Its prime contractor MDA Space is completing a high-volume manufacturing facility in Quebec aimed at a full launch cadence of 156 Lightspeed satellites by end of 2027.

SES and Intelsat merged for 3-point-1 billion dollars, creating a combined fleet of 120 satellites and projecting free cash flow above $1.17 billion annually by 2027 and 2028. The merged entity’s highest-growth segments now account for roughly 60 percent of combined revenue -- including medium-Earth-orbit capacity serving NATO and defense clients.

The through-line: the concept of multi-orbit has moved from conference keynote buzzword to core operating model. Companies that couldn’t afford to make this transition aren’t around to talk about it anymore. The ones still standing -- Eutelsat, SES-Intelsat, Viasat -- are building hybrid architectures that neither orbit can serve alone. The hard part isn’t the boardroom decision. It’s the engineering: creating a system that will enable seamless handovers between disparate orbits for a passenger mid-flight or a naval vessel mid-maneuver. None of the major operators have demonstrated that at commercial scale. That is the milestone the industry’s credibility depends on.

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SpaceX has confidentially filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and is targeting a late June initial public offering. The numbers being discussed are unlike anything the public markets have ever processed. (Paywall)

The most recent reporting puts the target valuation between 1-point-5 and 1-point-75 trillion dollars, with a fundraising goal between 50 and 75 billion dollars. Either figure would shatter the record set by Saudi Aramco’s 29-billion-dollar offering in 2019. At 1-point-75 trillion, SpaceX would enter the public market in the same bracket as Alphabet and Amazon. Prediction markets as of this week placed the probability of a June 30th listing at around 72 percent.

SpaceX is essentially three businesses operating in parallel: Starlink, which generates the bulk of current revenue growth; the launch business, which has no close competitor on cost or cadence; and a nascent space infrastructure and A-I platform play that Elon Musk has described as Space A-I Data Centers.

For space commerce investors and analysts -- the I-P-O matters beyond the price. A public SpaceX will file quarterly reports. For the first time, the market will have standardized financial visibility into the company that now controls a dominant share of global launch capacity, the world’s largest satellite constellation, and the regulatory approvals shaping the entire direct-to-device market. The information environment around space commerce changes materially the day that S-1 becomes public.

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A new analysis published this week by the Journal of Space Commerce maps a supply chain constraint that most constellation programs haven’t fully priced in: space-grade solar cells. (Paywall)

Novaspace’s latest market report projects 16-thousand-900 small satellites launching between 2026 and 2035 -- roughly 1,400 pounds of hardware delivered to orbit every single day. But that headline number actually understates the pressure on the solar cell supply chain. In April, Space Systems Command awarded 20 Other Transaction Authority contracts worth up to 3-point-2 billion dollars to 12 companies prototyping orbital Space-Based Interceptors for the Golden Dome missile defense architecture -- including Anduril, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, SpaceX, and Raytheon. Each of those prototype satellites carries power requirements that must be met by space-qualified solar cells from the same supplier base already serving the commercial constellation market. None of that demand appears in the commercial procurement pipelines.

The qualified supplier base for space-grade gallium arsenide solar cells comes down to two dominant players: Spectrolab -- a Boeing subsidiary in California -- and AZUR SPACE Solar Power, based in Germany. AZUR has been expanding aggressively -- up 35 percent in 2024, 30 percent in 2025, another 25 percent expansion announced in February for second-half 2026. Over three years, that’s roughly a 118 percent capacity increase.

The problem is the baseline those percentages are measured against. It was already considered a bottleneck before the 2026 demand acceleration. And the binding constraint in that particular solar cell supply chain isn’t cell assembly -- it’s germanium wafers, the semiconductor substrate on which every triple-junction cell is built. The global germanium wafer market for space solar applications had a total value of approximately 125 million dollars in 2024. That is a small market to underpin 16-thousand-900 satellites, a proliferated interceptor constellation, and multiple sovereign programs.

That germanium market is dominated by two players: Umicore, a Belgian materials company -- and China Germanium, a state-linked Chinese enterprise. China accounts for roughly 60 percent of global refined germanium output. In a scenario where export controls tighten or U-S-China trade tensions escalate further, a germanium supply disruption would propagate through the entire Ga-As cell production base.

The downstream signal is already visible. Satellite integrators and mission designers have reported significant delays in solar cell procurement, with lead times lengthening and costs rising. For small satellite programs on fixed-price contracts, this is an active schedule and margin threat. For supply chain leaders -- the window to lock in 2027 and 2028 production slots is closing faster than most forward procurement schedules assume.

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The Satellite Industry Association has released its 29th Annual State of the Satellite Industry Report, and Ex Terra Media sat down with SIA President Tom Stroup to discuss the findings.

The commercial satellite industry wrapped up 2025 with records across the board -- more launches, more satellites, and more subscribers than ever before. Stroup says two forces are behind the surge.

“I think it’s a combination of both demand and the ability to be able to manufacture and launch much more cost effectively than in the past. The vast majority of those satellites that were launched last year were for communications purposes. We’ve seen that access to broadband is considered essential across the globe,” Stroup said. “The demand is there for more and more connectivity and it doesn’t matter whether it’s consumers at home or whether it’s on board airplanes or maritime vessels. There’s an expectation that people are going to have access to the broadband service no matter where they are.”

The price drop is just as significant as the technology leap. Stroup says satellite broadband is now competing directly with cable and fiber on cost.

“The service starts at about fifty dollars a month. The cost of terminals is continuing to decrease. I think that the typical cost now is fifty dollars or less. So the ability to be able to manufacture and launch them and be cost effective is really the other major aspect of it.”

Satellite broadband subscribers topped 10 million in 2025 -- a 62 percent jump in a single year. Stroup calls it a milestone -- but says the industry is just getting started.

“I think it’s a very important milestone. But in some ways I’m just going to say it’s another number because we’re going to see 15 million, 20 million. The number is just going to continue to increase as more and more people who have not had access to broadband services are able to be served because of the ubiquitous coverage that the industry provides,” Stroup said.

That growth is already rattling the competition on the ground. According to Stroup, those cable companies, those fiber companies that are in areas where they’ve been operating as monopolies are going to have to deal with competition from satellite companies that are providing very high speeds, high capacity, at very competitive prices. Meanwhile, manufacturing the satellites driving that growth is a massive undertaking -- and not without bottlenecks. Stroup says the supply chain is under strain.

“We end up having to compete for chips as an example with other technology industries. But ours have the additional need of being radiation resistant,” Stroup said. “And there are other components -- just nozzles would be one example, the fuel containers that are used for launch -- those are still relatively small numbers. So those are some of the areas where we’re encountering supply chain issues.”

One of the industry’s most-watched emerging sectors is Direct-to-Device -- the ability to connect a standard smartphone directly to a satellite. Stroup says it has moved from science fiction to shop floor. “The systems are being deployed. It’s just been a fascinating transition because we’ve gone from 10 years ago, people saying there’s no way you could make this work, to basically most satellite operators having a strategy in place and feeling that they need to have either partnerships or deployment plans,” he said. “We’ve already seen lives saved as a result of some of the emergency capabilities.”

And mainstream consumers are already hearing about it.

“Last year for the first time we saw mobile companies advertising their satellite capability -- whether it was at the Super Bowl or award ceremonies,” he continued. “It was the mobile companies who were making the announcements of that capability, because they see it as very important to their ability to compete with other mobile companies.”

On Capitol Hill, Stroup says SIA’s top priority is securing U-S influence at the next World Radiocommunication Conference -- known as WRC-27 -- where global spectrum policy will be set. “Over 80 percent of the issues at WRC-27 are going to be related to satellites. I would say that congressional support for the U.S. naming the head of the delegation and then making sure that they’re encouraging the administration to move forward with positions that are supportive of the industry.”

Stroup also sees China as the defining competitive threat -- and draws a cautionary parallel to the wireless infrastructure wars of the last decade. “One of the best examples would be Huawei. What they did with respect to infrastructure, especially for the wireless industry -- they were a very effective competitor, offering subsidized equipment that had a very negative impact on other manufacturers, both in the United States and in Europe,” he said. “We’re quite positive that Chinese companies that are going to be providing satellite-based services are going to do so at subsidized rates. So to the extent that they’re offering subsidized services in developing areas of the world, there’s a great risk to the United States.

“The good news is we’ve got a lot of innovation capital coming into the industry, supportive government. But that needs to continue to make sure that we maintain our leadership position,” Stroup said

The full State of the Satellite Industry Report is available through the Satellite Industry Association’s website.

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The Federal Communications Commission has updated the rules governing how geostationary and non-geostationary satellite systems share spectrum. The Commission voted 3-0 on April 30 to approve a Report and Order that replaces a framework dating back to the late 1990s. That old framework was known as Equivalent Power Flux Density, or EPFD.

The problem is that the satellite market no longer looks like it did in the 1990s.

Modern broadband constellations can change signal behavior in real time, based on link conditions. The FCC’s new approach moves toward performance-based protection criteria, rather than fixed limits built for an earlier technical era.

The Commission says the change could unlock as much as seven times more capacity for space-based broadband and generate more than 2 billion dollars in economic benefits.

But the regulatory point is only half the story. The commercial point is that the FCC is clearing more operating room for satellite broadband to compete directly with cable, wireless and other terrestrial providers. FCC Chairman Branden Carr said at the April 30th meeting that the new rules will benefit consumers.

“Today’s FCC decision will help supercharge that competition while expanding our country’s technological leadership,” Carr said. “Even though high-speed next-gen satellite services provide essential connectivity across the country already, Americans are now about to see a big upgrade. With today’s decision, Consumers could see a seven-fold increase in capacity for these high-speed satellite offerings.”

The decision keeps pressure on private agreements and good-faith spectrum sharing. But it moves the center of gravity away from old technical caps and toward actual performance outcomes.

For executives, investors and program managers, that is the signal to watch. Spectrum policy is now a direct driver of capacity, pricing and market entry.

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Two new market reports this week tell the same broad story from different ends of the satellite business.

One looks downstream, at satellite-based Earth observation. The other looks upstream, at propulsion. Together, they show where demand is growing and where the supply chain may come under stress.

First, Earth observation. According to Allied Market Research, the global satellite-based Earth observation market is projected to grow from $3.5 billion in 2022 to $6.4 billion by 2032. That is a compound annual growth rate of 6.6 percent.

The demand drivers are familiar, but stronger: agriculture, urban planning, disaster management, climate monitoring and defense. Government procurement is still doing a lot of the heavy lifting, with NASA, NOAA and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency all buying more commercial data and analytics.

The market is also shifting from raw imagery toward services. Observation-as-a-service, subscription imagery, on-demand tasking and AI-assisted analytics are becoming the more valuable layers.

That is the downstream signal.

The upstream signal is propulsion. A MarketsandMarkets analysis projects the global satellite propulsion market will grow from a tweak over $2 billion in 2026 to $4.66 billion by 2031. That is a 17.6 percent compound annual growth rate.

The reason is simple. Satellites are not passive hardware once they reach orbit. They need propulsion for orbit raising, station keeping, collision avoidance, repositioning and controlled deorbiting. Electric propulsion is expected to be one of the strongest growth areas because it lowers propellant mass and fits constellation economics.

But there is a caution inside the growth number. Market size does not equal supplier depth. A market can grow quickly and still be constrained by manufacturing capacity, qualification timelines and a limited base of flight-proven providers.

That is why these two reports should be read together. Earth observation growth means more demand for analytics and more government reliance on commercial data. Propulsion growth means more demand for the hardware that keeps satellites maneuverable.

All of that points to value moving toward companies that can connect data, hardware, operations and procurement into something customers can use.

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Next, we turn from market reports to the organizations that help hold the industry together.

Space Foundation was established in 1983, and for more than 40 years it has played the role of convener across the global space community.

It does not build rockets. It does not operate constellations. Its job is to build the ecosystem around the companies, agencies, investors and international partners that do.

That role is easy to understate until the industry gets complicated.

Right now, the industry is dealing with Artemis, Golden Dome, national security space, commercial stations, proliferated constellations and harder questions about international partnerships.

Rich Cooper, vice president of Strategic Communications and Outreach at Space Foundation, made that point in a conversation on The Journal of Space Commerce podcast.

“I will say the state of relationships between international partners, who can do what, who is prepared to do what. Obviously, there’s a lot of challenge that’s going on in the world and lots of debate and discussion about what those alliances are and what they may look like in the future,” Cooper said. “But what you also, I would say, saw is relationships that have been built over decades. literally decades of collaboration and cooperation on countless numbers of missions. Those relationships remain as strong today as they were before. And that’s what gives, I would say, a great deal of energy to this community that we know we can do hard things. We know it’s going to take some challenge. We know that there are going to be some obstacles, but we know together we can get there. Artemis II proved that when you have all of the various pieces that came together and it all worked perfectly.”

The point being that Space commerce is not just a collection of contracts. It is also a relationship network. It depends on which agencies trust which suppliers, and which international partners can still coordinate when politics get hard.

The launch vehicles, the spacecraft and the payloads are visible. The trust network is more behind the scenes. But when programs become multinational and span multiple decades, the trust network becomes a very important part of the operating infrastructure.

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A piece of the American launch stack is changing hands again. AE Industrial Partners is taking a majority stake in Rocketdyne’s upper-stage propulsion assets from L3Harris Technologies in an 845 million dollar carve-out. AE Industrial Partners will acquire 60 percent. L3Harris will retain roughly 40 percent. (Paywall)

AE Industrial Partners Managing Partner Kirk Konert told Ex Terra Media just after the acquisition was announced that the company was proud to be restoring a legacy name to the rocket propulsion market.

“It’s been part of every lunar mission since the US started going to the moon and bringing humans to the moon and coming back to the moon this year. We’re really excited to be part of part of that in partnership with NASA and national security programs. And it’s I think it’s a really interesting model as we think about what’s happened with consolidation of all their aerospace and space companies over the last a few decades,” Konert said. “And now what we’re seeing is more of a deconsolidation and new entrants being being introduced into the market. This is part of part of that theme in a new way, which where L3 a prime has been part of the consolidation over the last couple of decades is now partnering with a specialized investor like AE industrial to reinvigorate and standalone a new platform in Rocketdyne, which includes some of the key workhorses of propulsion for our space and national security programs in the U.S.”

The assets include the RL10 upper-stage engine, in-space propulsion systems, nuclear power assets for exploration missions and launch avionics. The RS-25 engine business is not part of the deal.

The RL10 is the center of this story. It powers the Centaur V upper stage on United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur. That vehicle is tied to National Security Space Launch missions, including payloads for the National Reconnaissance Office, GPS Block III and Wideband Global SATCOM.

That means this is not just another aerospace carve-out. It touches national security launch and the long-term industrial base behind upper-stage propulsion.

AE Industrial Partners has said it wants to apply modern manufacturing discipline to the RL10 production line. That could mean additive manufacturing, better throughput and relief for a constrained supplier base.

But the ownership question matters.

Private equity operates on return horizons. National security launch programs operate on long-term infrastructure commitments. Those timelines can coexist, but they are not the same.

And engine substitution is not easy.

Upper-stage engines are tightly integrated into vehicle architectures. Qualifying an alternative engine for Centaur V could take two to three years of testing and integration work.

If RL10 production improves, the deal could strengthen a critical piece of launch infrastructure.

If ownership incentives or exit timing create disruption, customers do not have a simple procurement detour.

For program offices, investors and primes, the question is whether the owner can steward an engine line that national security customers still depend on.

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Previously, we talked about a satellite propulsion market forecast showing growth from just over $2 billion in 2026 to $4.66 billion by 2031. Those numbers sound healthy. But a separate supply-chain analysis asks a harder question: who is actually going to build all the thrusters the market assumes will be available? (Paywall)

The answer may be thinner than the growth charts suggest.

Novaspace has forecast 16,900 small satellite launches through 2035. Analysys Mason has projected more than 36,000 constellation satellites launching between now and 2034.

But according to the analysis, fewer than a dozen manufacturers can deliver radiation-tested, low Earth orbit-qualified thrusters at the scale implied by that demand.

That is the gap.

Demand is rising. The supplier map says the open-market base may not be deep enough. And that base is getting narrower as constellation operators buy propulsion companies for internal use.

Muon Space acquired Starlight Engines in April. For Muon, that may be a smart hedge. For everyone else, it removes one more independent propulsion supplier from the open market.

This is how supply-chain pressure often shows up before it becomes obvious. The first sign is not always a failed program. Sometimes it is vertical integration. Sometimes it is a supplier that used to be available to the market becoming captive to one customer.

Golden Dome adds another layer. The 2028 demonstration deadline will increase demand for hardware that can survive low Earth orbit radiation environments and fit constellation production schedules.

For program managers, the action item is straightforward: validate secondary sourcing before the bottleneck becomes a schedule problem.

For investors, aggregate market growth is useful, but supplier concentration is where the risk and opportunity sit.

This is why the propulsion story is not only a market-size story. It is a capacity story, a qualification story and a make-or-buy story.

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Finally this week, another supply-chain map has changed, this time in optical intersatellite links. (Paywall)

Rocket Lab closed its $155.3 million acquisition of Mynaric AG on April 14. That deal brought Mynaric’s Munich-based CONDOR Mk3 and HAWK terminal lines into Rocket Lab’s space systems portfolio.

The acquisition matters because optical intersatellite link terminals are not a broad, commodity supplier market. They are a narrow, program-critical piece of the Space Development Agency’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture.

As SDA demand accelerates toward Tranche 2 and Tranche 3 deployments, the supplier map matters. The publicly documented SDA-qualified terminal base runs through four named providers: Mynaric, now under Rocket Lab; Tesat-Spacecom U.S.; Skyloom; and CACI.

That is a short list.

Mynaric began volume production of the CONDOR Mk3 in the first quarter of 2024, but production was not clean. Rocket Lab says it plans to expand capacity, but the public details remain limited.

That means if your program, investment thesis or supplier strategy still treats Mynaric as a standalone company, your map is out of date.

Rocket Lab is now a more vertically integrated space systems company with a meaningful position in optical terminals. That may improve scale over time. It may also change how customers view dependency risk.

This is the same pattern we saw in propulsion. Narrow supplier base. Rising government demand. Vertical integration. Capacity plans that need to be tested against production history.

The market headline is consolidation. The operating question is whether the remaining supplier base can scale quickly enough.

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The Federal Communications Commission made two significant moves this week that together paint a clear picture: the agency is on a mission to make America the global leader in direct-to-device satellite connectivity.

First, the big-picture move. The FCC’s Space Bureau released a decision reaffirming exclusive spectrum rights for existing licensees in key direct-to-device frequency bands — and dismissed multiple requests from rival operators to enter those same bands. The Bureau also rejected two petitions that sought to rewrite the agency’s longstanding spectrum rules.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr called direct-to-device connectivity — meaning fast, broadband service delivered directly from a satellite to your standard smartphone — one of the most exciting frontiers in wireless communications. He said the FCC is laser-focused on making its rules as friendly as possible for investment and innovation in this space, and promised more actions to come.

In the 18 months leading up to this week, there’s been more than 28 billion dollars in deal flow across at least 130 megahertz of spectrum intended for direct-to-device services. Chairman Carr called consumers the big winners as competition in this market intensifies.

The second and more specific action directly benefited AST SpaceMobile, a company based in Midland, Texas. The FCC granted AST a permanent commercial license — formally clearing a 248-satellite constellation in low Earth orbit to deliver cellular broadband coverage directly to unmodified smartphones across the United States.

This isn’t a minor update. The FCC order substantially expands AST’s previously authorized constellation from 25 satellites to 248, using premium low-band spectrum — 700 megahertz and 800 megahertz — frequencies known for superior signal penetration and coverage range, especially in rural and underserved areas. The service is designed to work with existing phones through AST’s partnerships with Verizon, AT&T, and FirstNet — the national public safety broadband network. No new device. No new plan. Your current phone would simply connect to space when you’re outside terrestrial range.

Deployment milestones are binding: AST must get at least 124 satellites into orbit by August 2nd, 2030, and have the full 248-satellite system operational by August 2nd, 2033.

The company isn’t without challenges. Its seventh operational broadband satellite — BlueBird 7 — ended up in a lower-than-planned orbit following a Blue Origin New Glenn launch from Kennedy Space Center on April 19th. The company is assessing its options. But the regulatory win is substantial. AST reported nearly $71 million in full-year 2025 revenue, and is targeting between 45 and 60 new satellite launches this year alone. Direct-to-device service in initial U.S. markets is the near-term goal.

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The IPO pipeline for commercial space is getting busier. HawkEye 360 — a radio frequency intelligence and geospatial analytics company — has officially launched its roadshow for a proposed initial public offering.

The company is offering 16 million shares of common stock, with an initial price expected to land between 24 and 26 dollars per share. The underwriters also have a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 2.4 million shares at the offering price. HawkEye 360 plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol HAWK.

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are leading the offering as joint book-running managers, with RBC Capital Markets, Jefferies, and BofA Securities serving as additional managers. Baird, Raymond James, and William Blair round out the bookrunner team.

A registration statement has been filed with the SEC, but has not yet been declared effective. HawkEye 360 uses a constellation of satellites to detect and geolocate radio frequency signals — a capability with broad applications across maritime monitoring, national security, and commercial intelligence. This IPO, if priced at the midpoint, would value the offering at approximately 400 million dollars.

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There was a moment, not long ago, when space tourism felt like a billionaire’s novelty. A new market report suggests the business case has matured well beyond that.

According to a new analysis from HTF Market Intelligence Consulting, the global space exploration and tourism market is forecast to grow from $8.6 billion in 2025 to $35.9 billion by 2033 — a compound annual growth rate of 19.5 percent.

The report credits reusable rocket technology as the primary driver — the same innovation that made SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic viable — for dramatically lowering the cost of access to space. The market now encompasses suborbital civilian flights, private research missions, and longer-term concepts like orbital hotels and lunar stays.

Regionally, North America dominates — the U.S. leads the world in reusable rockets and crewed spacecraft. But Asia-Pacific is the fastest-growing region, with China, India, and Japan all expanding their space programs and commercial partnerships. Europe holds a significant share, backed by collaborative programs and strong government funding.

The regulatory environment is also evolving rapidly, with governments worldwide introducing licensing systems, safety standards, and liability frameworks to govern commercial human spaceflight. The analysts see space hotels, orbital stations, and lunar missions as the long-term opportunities that will carry this market well into the next decade.

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The small satellite market is heading into what analysts are calling its most consequential decade yet — and the numbers are staggering.

Space analytics firm Novaspace has released the 11th edition of its Prospects for the Small Satellite Market report, covering 2026 through 2035 — and the headline figure is nearly 16,900 small satellites projected to reach orbit over that period. That’s an average of about 1,410 pounds of hardware lifted to space every single day.

The report defines small satellites as spacecraft weighing under approximately 1,100 pounds — a category expected to account for one-third of all satellites launched in the period, though only 6 percent of total launch mass. Private investment in the sector reached about $11.5 billion in 2025 alone.

The big story isn’t just the volume — it’s the diversification. While SpaceX’s Starlink has historically dominated near-term smallsat demand, Novaspace sees national space programs increasingly stepping in. Sovereign governments are building their own constellations for security, communications resilience, and Earth observation, which distributes market demand across a wider, more stable customer base.

But the competitive picture is tightening. Novaspace highlights accelerating vertical integration among constellation operators — meaning the big players are building more of their own components in-house — which is squeezing the market for independent suppliers. The report noted that the smallsat market is entering a more mature phase, where industrial maturity, production readiness, and secure access to demand will determine who succeeds. The key question is no longer who has a concept, but who can execute at scale.

This is an industry in transition — from innovation to execution. The companies with established manufacturing, proven supply chains, and contracted customers are positioned to consolidate. Those still scaling face real headwinds.

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An investigation is complete — and we now know what brought down Australia’s first homegrown orbital rocket last summer.

Gilmour Space Technologies has released the findings from its investigation into the July 2025 in-flight failure of the Eris TestFlight1 rocket. The conclusion: electrical and thermal faults in the oxidizer pump system of two first-stage motors caused the loss of the vehicle.

The Eris rocket lifted off from the Bowen Orbital Spaceport in Queensland on July 30th, 2025 — the nation’s first orbital launch attempt in more than 50 years. The vehicle climbed briefly before losing control and came down in the designated safety area approximately 14 seconds after liftoff.

According to the investigation, one of the four first-stage hybrid rocket motors lost thrust about nine seconds after ignition. A second motor followed at around 17 seconds. Together, the failures ended the mission before it ever had a chance.

Gilmour Space said in a statement — quote — “Analysis identified two independent failure modes originating from the oxidizer pump subsystem. Electrical and thermal faults were observed in the electric pump motors and associated inverters, including components sourced from an external supplier.”

Design, qualification, and process improvements are now underway. The company notes this test flight was always designed to generate data under real flight conditions — and they say that data is already informing updates to vehicle design and operations. A final report has been submitted to the Australian Space Agency.

CEO and co-founder Adam Gilmour said the next Eris rocket test is still planned for later this year. The company has since opened a representative office in South Australia and selected new laser communications technology for future missions. Additional launch attempts are planned for the latter portions of 2026.

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In-depth this week — we’re looking at something that didn’t make many headlines coming out of the 41st Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, but probably should have. [Paywall]

While the big crowds gathered around commercial space station displays and AI panels, two exhibits near the back of the hall at The Broadmoor quietly told a more commercially important story. And our in-depth analysis this week argues those two booths contained more actionable supply chain intelligence than most of the post-Symposium coverage combined.

Here’s the core argument: the space industry covers missions. Supply chains are harder to frame as a press moment. So they go unreported — and the commercial window they represent stays open longer for the people who are paying attention.

Signal One: Lunar Mobility. Bridgestone — yes, the tire company — had a display of next-generation lunar rover elastic wheel prototypes. No press release. No contract announcement. Just the wheels. And almost no one stopped.

That’s a mistake. Lunar surface mobility is one of the least-capitalized and most structurally necessary segments of the emerging lunar economy. Apollo-era wire-mesh wheels won’t cut it for Artemis. Polar terrain, abrasive regolith that’s never been weathered by wind or water, thermal swings of 300 degrees Celsius — those conditions require something categorically different. Bridgestone’s elastic wheel architecture uses thin metal spokes engineered to flex over obstacles without pressurized air — and the company has been developing it with JAXA since 2019. They’ve since signed joint development agreements with Astrobotic and ispace. Almost no one else is working at equivalent technical depth. That’s either a program resilience risk for NASA — or an investment thesis. Depending on which chair you’re sitting in.

Signal Two: Debris Detection. The Naval Research Laboratory showed a concept called LARADO — designed to detect small orbital debris objects too small for ground-based radar to track. Objects below ten centimeters. Objects that can still kill a satellite at orbital velocities. No production contract exists yet — but the policy environment around commercial space situational awareness is accelerating rapidly. The Space Domain Awareness market is estimated at $1.7 to $2.2 billion in 2025, growing toward 5 billion by the early 2030s. USSPACECOM has formally named SDA as a commercial procurement priority. A commercial operator that can build a LARADO-class debris sensing capability — and sell it as a subscription data product — is sitting in front of a government customer that has already pre-validated demand through official doctrine.

Signal Three: Proximity Operations. The Naval Research Lab also showcased a detailed model of its 45-by-100-foot Proximity Operations Laboratory — a simulation facility for rendezvous, docking, and robotic satellite grappling. On-orbit servicing is real and growing. Northrop Grumman has completed commercial life-extension missions. Astroscale has demonstrated debris inspection operations. The global on-orbit satellite servicing market is estimated at up to $4.7 billion today, with projections above 12 billion by 2034.

What the NRL exhibit made visible is that government still holds most of the foundational engineering knowledge — and translating it into a commercial supply chain is an unsolved industrial problem. Three chokepoints stand out: force-torque sensors and robotic actuators rated for vacuum and cryogenic conditions; proximity navigation guidance and control systems; and standardized grapple fixtures. That last one is the most urgent. When grapple fixture standards lock — expected within two to three years — qualified suppliers who moved early will have a structural moat. The window to influence the standard, or at least begin qualification against the leading design, is closing now.

The bottom line from all three signals: qualification timelines are long. Government-commercial data relationships are forming now. And early movers in each of these supply chain categories will be dramatically better positioned when procurement catches up to the opportunity — and it will.

Paid subscribers can read the full analysis on The Journal of Space Commerce under the Supply Chain tab. They’ll also find additional exclusive in-depth coverage of the issues of interest at Space Symposium. And next week on The Journal of Space Commerce Podcast, I’ll be talking with Rich Cooper, vice president of Strategic Communications & Outreach at Space Foundation.

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The House Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Communications and Technology has taken up the Satellite and Telecommunications Streamlining -- or SAT Streamlining Act.

The bill is aimed at modernizing how the Federal Communications Commission licenses satellite operators -- a process that industry witnesses say hasn’t kept pace with the realities of today’s market.

Tom Stroup, president of the Satellite Industry Association, told the subcommittee that the pace of satellite deployment has outstripped the regulatory framework designed to govern it.

“The current licensing regime was not designed for a world in which thousands of satellites are launched in a single year and constellations are replenished on multi-year cycles,” Stroup said. “SIA applauds the FCC’s creation of the Space Bureau to provide additional resources and focus in our industry, as well as its ongoing space modernization for the 21st century proceeding, which proposes to replace the legacy satellite rules with a new framework.”

One of the bill’s key provisions is a shot clock -- a deadline for the FCC to act on license applications. But that provision drew scrutiny. Kara Azokar, vice president of regulatory and public policy at Iridium, said that speed must be paired with deliberation.

“Shot clocks or deemed granted provisions are key to speeding up the process, but without a tolling provision that enables additional analysis in complex situations that require additional technical analysis, it could result in what Shiva mentioned, which is a rubber stamp,” she said. “And when an application is rubber stamped, it results in petitions for reconsideration, which results in uncertainty for licensees that have licenses that may conflict with the application, and the applicants that just got a grant can’t rely upon it. So a tolling provision, like what is in the bill, enables the FCC additional consideration to ensure regulatory certainty for all because technical considerations have been fully developed and decided upon.”

The stakes are particularly high for smaller operators. Shiva Goel, a partner at Wiley Rein, and former NTIA spectrum official and FCC advisor, told the subcommittee that delays hit emerging companies hardest.

“Smaller companies in particular have much more to lose and are much more vulnerable from delay. They don’t have war chests. They need to show their investors and customer base that they have a license and that they’re ready to go,” Goel said. “And they also need predictability and certainty about when they’re actually going to be able to operate.”

No vote has been scheduled. The subcommittee’s examination signals growing congressional interest in reshaping the regulatory environment for commercial space -- a dynamic worth watching for anyone with a satellite program in the pipeline.

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NASA is facing a potential spacesuit gap -- and the agency’s own inspector general is raising the alarm.

A new report from NASA’s Office of Inspector General finds the agency may not have flight-ready extravehicular activity suits in time to support planned lunar surface operations under the Artemis program.

The report identifies the Axiom Space suit -- developed under a NASA contract -- as the primary option for early Artemis lunar surface missions. But the OIG found development timelines are tight, testing milestones have slipped, and NASA lacks sufficient backup options if Axiom’s suit encounters further delays.

The report also flags the aging Extravehicular Mobility Units -- the suits currently used on the International Space Station -- as a near-term risk. The existing ISS suit inventory is limited, and production of replacement units has not kept pace with operational demand.

The inspector general’s recommendations center on NASA accelerating its suit certification milestones, establishing clearer contingency plans, and improving oversight of contractor performance. NASA management agreed with the recommendations but did not commit to specific corrective timelines in its formal response.

For the JSC audience, the supply chain dimension here is significant. Suit development draws on a narrow base of qualified fabricators for pressure garments, life support hardware, and thermal protection systems. Any slip in suit availability doesn’t just affect an astronaut’s schedule -- it can hold up an entire mission.

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The satellite communications market is on track for substantial long-term growth -- and a new market analysis puts a number on it.

According to a recent projection from Roots Analysis, the global satellite communications market is expected to top $391.45 billion by 2040. The growth is being driven by expanding broadband demand in underserved regions, the proliferation of low Earth orbit constellations, and increasing reliance on satellite connectivity for defense and government applications.

The analysis points to several demand drivers converging at once: growing maritime and aviation connectivity requirements, the buildout of direct-to-device services, and continued investment in national security communications infrastructure.

For context, that projected figure represents a market roughly two-and-a-half times the size of today’s satellite communications revenue base -- which means the infrastructure, manufacturing, and services needed to support it don’t fully exist yet. That gap is where the supply chain story lives.

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A new electric propulsion thruster has entered the commercial satellite market -- and its introduction comes at a moment when demand for in-space propulsion is accelerating.

The new thruster is designed for small to mid-sized satellites operating in low Earth orbit -- the same size class driving constellation buildout across both commercial and government programs. The system uses Hall-effect thruster technology, which ionizes and accelerates propellant using electromagnetic fields to generate thrust -- a well-established approach that trades raw power for efficiency and longevity.

The manufacturer says the new unit targets a market segment currently underserved by qualified, flight-heritage propulsion options. That’s a pointed commercial claim in an environment where supply chain leads for propulsion components have stretched to 12-to-18 months in some categories.

For program managers sourcing propulsion for constellation applications, new entrants with qualified hardware expand options at a moment when the incumbent supplier base is under strain. The question -- as with any new propulsion system -- is how quickly the thruster can accumulate the flight heritage that government and prime customers require before committing to a new vendor.

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This week on The Journal of Space Commerce podcast ... the space supply chain is under pressure, and the stress points are becoming harder to ignore.

Across propulsion, satellite manufacturing, and ground systems, lead times are stretching. Component shortages are cascading into integration delays. And demand -- as we just heard -- is not slowing down.

The core problem is structural. The commercial space market has scaled faster than the industrial base supporting it. Constellation operators are placing orders for hundreds of satellites. Defense programs are adding to that queue. And the supplier ecosystem -- particularly at the sub-tier level -- has not added capacity at the same pace.

The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) released a white paper last month focused on the supply chain for the commercial space industry, and the findings may have been something of a wake-up call for the industry.

Steve Jordan Tomaszewski, vice president of Space Systems for AIA, told me on the podcast that the pressure is coming largely from the increasing demand for spacecraft and components for a variety of missions.

“Overall, that is a good problem to have. It means that space is being more and more useful in our everyday lives all around the world. And especially if we look for applications like using satellites for national security purposes,” Tomaszewski sadi. “If we’re looking at using satellites for exploration, for communications and more of commercial applications, there is just more and more demand happening today. However, we don’t see capacity and the manufacturing base able to keep up with that demand.”

That mismatch has a direct cost. Delayed deliveries push out revenue. Program slips create downstream schedule conflicts. And in a market where launch windows are finite, a supply chain miss can mean a missed orbit.

You can find The Journal of Space Commerce podcast on Substack, or wherever you download your multi-media content

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In Depth this week,

NASA’s Space Reactor One -- called SR-1 Freedom -- is the agency’s plan to launch the first fission-powered spacecraft in American history. The target launch date: December 2028. The destination: Mars orbit. [Paywall]

The hardware architecture combines a closed Brayton cycle fission reactor -- generating more than 20 kilowatts of electrical power -- with the Power and Propulsion Element previously built for the now-canceled Lunar Gateway space station. That reuse strategy is deliberate: NASA is engineering for speed, not maximum performance, and the use of previously qualified hardware reduces development risk. The reactor will be fueled by high-assay low-enriched uranium -- known as HALEU -- and will drive ion thrusters that propel the spacecraft to Mars. It would be the first time fission-generated electricity has been used for interplanetary propulsion.

The mission’s payload is called Skyfall -- a suite of Ingenuity-class helicopters designed to operate on the Martian surface.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has described the reactor as “mostly built.” But the primary schedule risks are not in the hardware -- they’re in system integration, HALEU fuel delivery, and a four-layer regulatory authorization process that includes Presidential-level sign-off.

That fuel dependency is worth underscoring. HALEU -- enriched to between five and twenty percent U-235 -- is currently produced at commercial scale by exactly one U.S. facility: Centrus Energy’s American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio. SR-1’s fuel needs are manageable. But the signal SR-1’s success sends -- to NASA, to the Department of Defense, and to commercial operators -- will accelerate follow-on demand that the current enrichment base may not be able to meet.

The competitive context is also explicit. China has identified nuclear propulsion as a strategic priority. The National Space Technology and Management directive issued earlier this month frames American leadership in space nuclear power as a national objective -- not just an R-and-D ambition.

The industrial base companies positioned in this supply chain include BWX Technologies -- the only publicly traded, pure-play space nuclear contractor with demonstrated flight hardware capability -- as well as the IX joint venture between Intuitive Machines and X-energy, and Westinghouse, which is developing HALEU transport infrastructure through a January 2026 agreement with Nuclear Transport Solutions.

No prime integrator for SR-1’s reactor system has been publicly named as of this week.

Steve Sinacore, NASA’s program executive for Fission Surface Power, explained during the NASA Ignition event what nuclear power will mean for the future of the space program.

“Nuclear power in space does not just enhance deep space exploration, it enables it. Through increased energy density, nuclear power will keep lunar bases operating through the 14-day, 354-hour night. It will power the missions on the surface of Mars, where without it, the alternative is football fields of solar panels that will be ineffective during dust storms,” Sinacor said. “And nuclear power provides the continuous, reliable, and plentiful energy that will enable surface manufacturing and the ability to make propellant on Mars that brings crews home. Future sustained robotic or human presence missions will require the energy density that nuclear power provides.”

Sinacore said that SR-1 Freedom will be a physical manifestation of American leadership in space.

“Space Reactor One Freedom will unleash American ingenuity to get America underway in space on nuclear power, enable extraordinary science on Mars with the delivery of Skyfall, and set a precedent for all future space nuclear endeavors. SR-1 Freedom will put the United States of America in the driver’s seat of this enabling technology.”

The full SR-1 Freedom supply chain analysis -- including named companies, the HALEU chokepoint, and the four regulatory hurdles before launch -- is available now for paid subscribers at exterrajsc.com under the Market Insights tab.

Other premium articles this week include what the SATELLITE 2026 hype left out, a look at the Artemis cadence math, and columnist Mike Daily explores the Mahanian Lesson in orbit.

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The Federal Communications Commission is on the verge of a major overhaul in how satellites share spectrum — and the economic stakes are enormous.

F-C-C Chairman Brendan Carr announced the Commission will vote on a new order to modernize its satellite spectrum-sharing rules. If adopted, the changes could unlock more than two billion dollars in economic benefits and enable up to seven times more capacity for space-based broadband services.

At the heart of the order is a proposal to replace the decades-old Equivalent Power Flux Density framework — known as EPFD — with modern, performance-based rules that account for today’s satellite technology, including adaptive coding and modulation.

Under the new approach, non-geostationary and geostationary orbit operators would be encouraged to negotiate voluntary, private agreements for interference protections — a shift the F-C-C says builds on its time-tested framework for good-faith coordination.

In a news release posted online, Carr said “The FCC is moving fast to unleash affordable, high-speed Internet.”

The public draft was released ahead of the Commission’s next monthly open meeting scheduled for April 30th.

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Amazon is making its most significant move yet in the satellite connectivity market — agreeing to acquire Globalstar in a deal that would dramatically expand its Amazon Leo network and add direct-to-device service to its growing low Earth orbit system.

Under the terms of the merger agreement, Globalstar stockholders will receive either 90 dollars per share in cash or Amazon stock of equivalent value. The transaction is expected to close in 2027, pending regulatory approvals and certain satellite deployment milestones.

The deal brings together Globalstar’s mobile satellite service spectrum licenses — which carry global authorizations — with Amazon Leo’s broadband infrastructure. That combination would allow Amazon to deliver continuous connectivity for consumer, enterprise, and government customers well beyond the reach of traditional cellular networks.

The acquisition also carries strategic urgency for Amazon. The company faces an F-C-C deadline to have 1,616 Leo satellites in orbit by July 30th of this year — a threshold that determines whether it retains full licensed spectrum rights. Acquiring Globalstar’s existing fleet and spectrum gives Amazon a significant shortcut.

Alongside the merger, Amazon and Apple announced a separate agreement for Amazon Leo to power satellite services for iPhone and Apple Watch — including Emergency S-O-S via satellite — building on the partnership Apple currently holds with Globalstar.

Beginning in 2028, Amazon Leo plans to deploy its own next-generation direct-to-device satellite system, offering voice, data, and messaging to mobile phones and cellular devices.

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A spacecraft manufacturer building rapidly maneuverable vehicles for operations across and between orbital regimes has closed a 50-million-dollar Series A round.

Portal Space Systems says the financing was led by Geodesic Capital and Mach33, with participation from Booz Allen Ventures, ARK Invest, AlleyCorp, and FUSE. The round follows a $17.5 million seed round in 2025 — one of the largest publicly disclosed seed financings in the sector at the time.

The investment reflects a growing recognition across both commercial and defense markets that access to orbit is no longer enough. Most satellites today are designed for fixed mission profiles with limited maneuverability — a liability as space becomes more congested, contested, and operationally complex.

The participation of Booz Allen Ventures would appear to signal particular interest from the national security community.

Portal C-E-O Jeff Thornburg said in a news release that ‘the systems that succeed in this next phase of space exploration will be those that can move quickly, deliberately, and repeatedly across and between orbits.”

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As the number of objects in orbit continues to grow, one company is betting that operators need a single platform that takes them from detection all the way to decision — without ever switching screens.

Slingshot Aerospace this week introduced Slingshot Portal — an A-I-native platform built to support mission-ready space operations across defense, civil, and commercial sectors. The company calls it the first platform purpose-built to operationalize what it terms Space Operations Intelligence and Autonomy in live mission environments.

For more on what Slingshot Portal means for space domain awareness, I recently spoke with Erik Ekwurzel — Chief Data and Information Officer at Slingshot Aerospace.

(See Transcript Provided with Podcast)

Slingshot demonstrated the technology this week at Space Symposium, with additional capabilities — including advanced maneuver intelligence and predictive analytics — rolling out throughout 2026.

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Defense and space technology company Voyager Technologies says it has doubled satellite propulsion production capacity at its Denver-area facility over the past year — and is already planning to double it again.

The Voyager Littleton, Colorado facility has grown from 8,000 to 40,000 square feet following its October 2025 acquisition of ExoTerra Resource, a developer of electric propulsion systems. The expansion added workforce, test equipment, and training — and has enabled full vertical integration of mission-critical propulsion technologies.

Each propulsion module integrates a propellant tank, electronics controller, thruster, and distribution system into a compact unit engineered for precise orbital maneuvering, threat avoidance, and sustained mission effectiveness.

Matt Magaña, Voyager’s president of Space, Defense and National Security, tied the expansion directly to the current national security environment, citing programs like Golden Dome.

Voyager says it holds propulsion module contracts across both commercial and government customers and is targeting quadruple its year-ago capacity.

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And finally — what happens when a government program doesn’t get cancelled, but doesn’t move forward either?

In Depth this week, for dozens of companies deep in the supply chain behind NASA’s Commercial LEO Destinations program — known as C-L-D — that question is no longer hypothetical. [Paywall]

On January 28th, NASA’s Johnson Space Center posted a short notice to the federal contracting database S-A-M-dot-gov, which said “This modification is to notify industry that the Commercial Low-Earth Orbit Destination Contract acquisition is on hold until further notice.”

Five words: “On hold until further notice.”

That language does not trigger a termination settlement. It does not create a formal recovery pathway. And it does not release suppliers from program commitments their prime contractors still expect them to honor if Phase 2 restarts.

The hold did not come without warning. In August 2025, NASA had already restructured the entire Phase 2 acquisition — shifting from a firm-fixed-price federal contract to Funded Space Act Agreements — citing a four-billion-dollar budget shortfall. The procurement pause arrived before any of that could be executed.

Then came March 24th. During a House Science Committee hearing, NASA officials unveiled a new concept called “Ignition” — a government-owned core module attached to the I-S-S, with private companies docking commercial add-ons before eventually separating into free-flying stations. NASA signaled it could afford only a single commercial provider. Commercial Space Federation President Dave Cavossa testified it was, quote, “sowing concern and, really, sowing confusion.”

For tier-2 and tier-3 suppliers — the companies building life-support systems, solar arrays, propulsion hardware, and pressurized module structures — pipeline commitments built around a specific station configuration could now be stranded in a competition that selects only one winner.

There is a critical legal distinction: a formal cancellation triggers defined settlement protections. A procurement hold that arrives before contract execution does not. Most suppliers who aligned capacity to C-L-D hold only teaming agreements or verbal commitments — instruments with zero formal cost-recovery protection.

The question for every supplier in this pipeline is not whether Phase 2 will restart. It is what legal instrument you hold today — and whether your committed costs have any recovery pathway if it doesn’t.

Paid subscribers can read the full analysis on The Journal of Space Commerce under the Supply Chain tab. Other premium articles this week include The Space Commerce Cycle in 2026, how SpaceX’s engine production rate became the invisible chokepoint in NASA’s lunar architecture, and columnist Mike Daily explores why NASA and DoD approvals have become vendor selection tools for enterprise customers.

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The European Union is pressing ahead with its landmark EU Space Act — even as the regulation faces mounting legal questions from its own advisers and a sharp rebuke from the United States government.

The Council of the EU circulated a Presidency compromise text this spring, with a key negotiating session scheduled for April 21st. But the road to final agreement is getting more complicated by the week.

Here’s the backdrop: the EU Space Act is designed to replace a patchwork of national licensing regimes. Thirteen EU member states have enacted their own space laws — often with conflicting standards. The act would create one unified framework covering safety, resilience and environmental sustainability, and it would establish a new certification system called the EU Space Authorization — or EUSA — for satellite operators, launch providers and related space services companies.

But the Council’s own Legal Service raised red flags in a January opinion, concluding that while the act’s core provisions are legally sound, its reach into the downstream data economy is questionable. Specifically, the legal advisers warned that requiring so-called “primary providers” — satellite communications and Earth observation companies that act as data intermediaries — to verify that all their data comes from EUSA-compliant satellites may be disproportionate. The opinion stated, quote, “In the absence of adequate evidence and explanation, it is questionable whether this approach is proportionate and remains within the limits of the proposed legal basis,” end quote.

And that’s not the only pressure point.

The United States government formally objected to the draft regulation in November 2025, with the State Department submitting comments calling several provisions, quote, “unacceptable regulatory burdens” on American companies doing business in Europe.

The Office of Space Commerce coordinated the U.S. response — working with more than 70 American companies and multiple trade associations. Washington’s position: the EU Space Act contradicts commitments made under a U.S.-EU framework agreement signed in August 2025 aimed at reducing non-tariff trade barriers.

The U.S. is asking Brussels to align the act with internationally agreed guidelines rather than writing new unilateral standards, to create clear equivalency pathways for non-EU operators, and to publish key implementation details directly in the regulation text — rather than leaving them to be filled in later by Commission officials.

The anti-circumvention provisions targeting so-called “gatekeeper” entities in the data market remain the most contested elements. Those provisions drew both the legal proportionality concerns from the EU’s own lawyers and the trade objections from Washington. The April 21st working party session will be a critical test of whether negotiators can resolve those issues — or whether this landmark regulation hits another wall.

All delegations currently have scrutiny reservations on the text. In plain language: nobody has signed off yet.

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A new report from Stratview Research projects the global satellite communications market will reach $50.86 billion by 2032, growing at a compound annual rate of 9.2 percent.

The headline driver: rising demand for connectivity in remote and underserved areas. Satellite systems are filling a gap that ground-based infrastructure simply cannot reach — and that gap, by the numbers, is enormous.

A few details worth noting from the report:

Broadcast services are expected to hold the largest market share across the forecast period. The demand for high-quality, uninterrupted digital content delivery is a key factor, and satellite broadcasting has a reliable infrastructure edge over terrestrial networks in wide-area coverage.

On the consumer side, Direct-to-Home — or DTH — service is projected to remain the dominant application segment. That’s driven by strong subscriber demand for personalized, high-quality content delivered directly to households, including in markets where traditional cable or fiber infrastructure doesn’t reach.

The fastest-growing end-user category is the enterprise segment. Industries like mining, oil and gas, aviation, telecom and defense are all leaning harder on satellite communications for reliable connectivity in environments where no terrestrial option exists.

And geographically, North America is expected to be both the leading and fastest-growing region over the forecast period — driven by government investment, mature technology capabilities and the presence of major industry players. The integration of 5G, artificial intelligence and cloud-based satellite systems is accelerating real-time connectivity and expanding application areas. Defense communication and secure data transmission are also strengthening demand.

So — just shy of 51 billion dollars by 2032, growing at better than nine percent a year. Those are the numbers shaping where investment, competition and regulatory attention in this space are headed.

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Rocket Lab’s acquisition of German laser communications company Mynaric (mun-AHR-ic) has cleared a significant regulatory hurdle — and it brings a critical satellite technology in-house for one of the industry’s most aggressive vertical integrators.

Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy has reviewed and approved the deal. The transaction is not yet closed, but regulatory approval in Germany is a major milestone.

So why does this matter?

Laser communications — also called optical inter-satellite links — represent a fundamental shift in how satellite constellations talk to each other and relay data to the ground. Compared to traditional radio frequency systems, laser comm offers higher data rates, better security, greater scalability and more efficient use of spectrum. The problem has been supply. For constellation operators trying to build at scale, laser comm terminals have been a persistent bottleneck — hard to source in volume, expensive, and often delayed.

Rocket Lab CEO Sir Peter Beck put it plainly. Quote: “Laser communications are a critical enabler for the constellations of today and tomorrow, and Rocket Lab is going to make them available at scale.” End quote.

The acquisition follows a pattern Rocket Lab has executed before. The company has a track record of identifying satellite subsystems that are only available in small quantities and at high prices — and then scaling production to serve the broader market. From solar panels to reaction wheels and star trackers — Rocket Lab has done this across multiple components. The pitch with Mynaric is the same playbook applied to optical terminals.

There’s already an existing relationship here. Mynaric is a subcontractor to Rocket Lab, providing CONDOR Mk3 optical terminals for Rocket Lab’s 1.3-billion-dollar prime contracts with the Space Development Agency — covering 36 satellites across the Transport Layer-Beta Tranche 2 and Tracking Layer Tranche 3 programs. Mynaric also supplies other SDA contracts, and the two companies share a significant customer overlap across commercial constellation operators and defense agencies.

After closing, Mynaric will remain headquartered in Munich, Germany — establishing Rocket Lab’s first European footprint and expanding its ability to serve German and broader European space programs.

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Planet Labs has announced what it’s calling a landmark technical achievement — and it’s a genuine one. The company successfully deployed and ran artificial intelligence object detection directly onboard its Pelican-4 satellite. No downlink. No waiting. The analysis happened in orbit.

Here’s the specifics: On March 25th, Planet’s Pelican-4 satellite was flying approximately 500 kilometers — about 310 miles — over Alice Springs, Australia. The satellite captured an image of an airport and then used its onboard NVIDIA Jetson Orin module to run an AI model that detected airplanes in the image — in moments.

Planet describes this as one of the first times an Earth imaging satellite has moved beyond simple data capture to actual onboard AI inference. The company calls this vision “Planetary Intelligence.”

Why does it matter? Because the traditional model in satellite Earth observation has been: capture an image, downlink it to a ground station, process it on the ground, then get the result to the customer. That pipeline can take hours. Moving AI to the edge — to the satellite itself — collapses that window to minutes.

Planet CEO Will Marshall added that the company is, quote, “moving AI from the internet into the physical realm — effectively connecting the ‘eyes’ of our satellites with an onboard ‘brain’ to create a nervous system for the planet.”

The practical applications here are immediate: disaster response, security monitoring, logistics — any scenario where minutes matter. The end-to-end process, from image capture to AI analysis to geo-rectified output, is designed to happen entirely in orbit, producing usable intelligence files — GeoTIFF and GeoJSON formats — without touching the ground.

Planet says this technology will scale across its Pelican and forthcoming Owl constellations, building toward what the company describes as a near-real-time global intelligence network.

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The FCC has a proposal on the table that commissioners themselves are calling “Weird Space Stuff” — and that name tells you something about how fast the space industry has moved beyond what regulators were originally built to handle.

At its March meeting, the FCC unanimously approved a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking — an NPRM — seeking public comment on a proposal to make additional spectrum available for the command and control of spacecraft that support emergent space operations but don’t use spectrum as part of any radiocommunications services provided to the public. Think commercial lunar missions. Think novel orbital platforms that don’t fit neatly into the old geostationary or LEO categories.

This week, I sat down with FCC Space Bureau Chief Jay Schwarz to talk through the proposal — and to take a broader look at how the bureau is trying to keep pace with an industry that is moving faster than any regulatory framework was designed to handle.

Schwatz explained that the “Weird Space Stuff” NPRM and the agency’s broader “licensing assembly line” initiative aren’t separate ideas — they’re two parts of the same agenda.

“We as a government, we as Space Bureau, need to scale our operations to match the speed and innovation cycles of what we’re seeing in the industry. So we got to reflect that in government. And so the licensing assembly line is meant to do that, to provide greater speed, greater predictability, and greater flexibility for the industry so that they can get their licenses. We can still do our regulatory duties, but we can do it in a much, much faster and efficient way. And so that’s the part 100 licensing assembly line,” Schwarz said. “The weird space stuff is kind of another piece on this innovation agenda of making sure there’s enough spectrum. Now, where they come together is we did propose in our licensing assembly line something which we call a VTSS or a variable trajectory spacecraft system. And what we’re trying to do here is we’re trying to recognize that as these new activities that we’ve been talking about in this call, as these new activities get out there, we need to make sure that there’s a way to license them clearly.”

A variable trajectory spacecraft system — V-T-S-S — is essentially a new licensing category designed to accommodate missions that don’t follow a fixed, predictable orbit. The kind of mission profile that simply didn’t exist in meaningful numbers when the current rules were written, but that is showing up in application queues with increasing regularity.

The NPRM is open for public comment following publication in the Federal Register. The full interview is available now on The Journal of Space Commerce podcast — which you can find on on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Rumble, and many other multimedia platforms.

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The FCC Space Bureau chief described the demand for spectrum as, quote, “enormous” — driven by the enormous prosperity that commercial space activities promise to deliver. That spectrum scarcity is precisely what is driving the biggest consolidation story in the commercial satellite sector right now: Amazon’s reported nine-billion-dollar play for Globalstar. [Paywall]

On April 1st — and yes, it was April Fool’s Day, but this was no joke — Globalstar’s stock surged more than 24 percent to an 18-year high on reports that Amazon was in advanced talks to acquire the satellite operator for approximately nine billion dollars. The deal was first reported by the Financial Times and confirmed by Reuters.

This is not, at its core, a satellite story. It is a spectrum story.

Here’s why: Amazon’s LEO broadband constellation — known as Amazon Leo — had approximately 241 satellites in orbit as of early April, following a launch on April 4th that added 29 more spacecraft. Amazon officially operates the third-largest satellite system in orbit and has committed approximately 17 billion dollars in total constellation capital expenditure. But the company faces a hard deadline: the FCC has set a milestone requiring 1,616 satellites in orbit by July 30, 2026. As of right now, that’s roughly 1,375 more satellites in under four months. That gap is the number sitting on every serious Amazon Leo watcher’s desk.

And Amazon cannot buy its way out of that deployment challenge with the Globalstar deal. But what it can buy is something arguably more valuable on a longer timeline: Band n53 spectrum — spectrum that is already internationally coordinated, already commercially deployed, and already generating revenue through a landmark partnership with Apple. Every newer iPhone with emergency SOS capability runs on Globalstar’s spectrum. Amazon would not just be acquiring a satellite company. It would be acquiring a direct-to-device distribution channel already embedded in hundreds of millions of consumer devices.

The acquisition thesis has three legs. First, spectrum that cannot be manufactured or replicated on any short timeline — the FCC’s own spectrum abundance rulemaking proposes 20,000-plus megahertz of new allocations across four bands, but those are years from commercial deployment. Globalstar’s Band n53 is available today. Second, the Apple relationship — though that comes with significant complexity, since Apple holds roughly 20 percent of Globalstar’s equity and has presumptive change-of-control rights. And third, an existing, revenue-generating satellite network: Globalstar turned profitable in 2025 with approximately 273 million dollars in revenue — a real income statement, not a projection.

But there are real risks here, and they deserve the same attention as the strategic rationale.

First, the valuation gap. At nine billion dollars, Amazon is paying a significant premium. Stripped of the Apple contract, the spectrum strategic premium and the acquisition halo, Globalstar’s underlying asset base does not obviously justify that price. And the Apple contract terms — renewal conditions, exclusivity provisions, change-of-control rights — are not publicly disclosed.

Second, the regulatory timeline. Any acquisition of Globalstar requires FCC approval of the spectrum license transfer. As Jay Schwarz noted in our podcast conversation this week, the FCC is navigating competing priorities: promoting competition, supporting the space economy, and managing a regulatory calendar that does not bend to deal timelines. A review measured in quarters rather than weeks creates real execution risk for Amazon — particularly against that July 30th deployment milestone.

Third, the integration architecture problem. Globalstar’s existing constellation runs on fundamentally different orbital parameters, ground infrastructure and spectrum coordination frameworks than Amazon Leo’s purpose-built design. Companies that have navigated similar integration challenges have consistently reported that the timeline exceeded the deal timeline. For Amazon, which is already running hard against an FCC clock, that is a risk that doesn’t appear in any of the headline deal rationale.

One more dimension worth watching: SpaceX. MarketWatch reported on April 2nd that SpaceX may also have interest in Globalstar. If SpaceX is circling this asset, it’s not for the legacy constellation — it’s for Band n53 and the Apple pipeline. A competitive bid from SpaceX would not just raise the price. It would reprice the standalone spectrum valuation of every direct-to-device-adjacent asset in the satellite broadband sector.

The next hard data point arrives soon. AWS first-quarter 2026 earnings are expected in April or May. Watch the AWS segment reporting carefully. Any revenue language referencing connectivity services, satellite broadband or external commercial infrastructure licensing will be the earliest quantitative signal of Amazon Leo’s commercial traction — and the earliest read on what a nine-billion-dollar spectrum acquisition might actually be worth.

You can read the full analysis on The Journal of Space Commerce under the “In Depth” tab. Premium articles this week include a look at one critical factor defining commercial space economics through 2028, and yes Starship is involved, what the 30-moon-landing target actually signals for the Commercial Lunar Payload industry, and why the headline figure of NASA’s DOGE contract cancellations understates the real exposure.

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Here’s a number that would have seemed like science fiction three years ago — one-hundred-and-seventy million dollars for a Series A round. That’s what Starcloud just pulled in — and they plan to use it to put data centers in orbit.

The company closed a $170 million Series A at a $1.1 billion valuation — making it a unicorn just seventeen months after its Y Combinator demo day. According to Starcloud, that makes it the fastest unicorn in Y Combinator history. The round is also more than double the size of the next largest YC Series A, bringing the company’s total capital raised to $200 million.

So what does Starcloud actually do? CEO Philip Johnston framed it this way — and I’m quoting here — “The AI revolution is colliding with the physical limits of our terrestrial energy grid. We are quickly running out of places to build new energy projects for data centers on Earth.”

His answer? Go up. Starcloud is building data centers in low Earth orbit, where solar energy is effectively unlimited and the permitting headaches that can add five years to an earthbound data center project simply don’t exist.

And they’re not just talking about it. With only $3 million in pre-seed funding, the company designed, built, and launched its first satellite — Starcloud-1 — in 21 months. That mission flew the first NVIDIA H100 GPU to orbit, performed the first orbital AI training run, and ran a version of Gemini — the Google AI model — from space. That’s a serious set of technical milestones for a company that didn’t exist two years ago.

The round was co-led by Benchmark and EQT — that’s the world’s second-largest private equity firm, with more than 100 billion dollars in assets under management and a portfolio of more than 70 data centers on the ground.

Later this year, Starcloud-2 launches — featuring what the company calls the largest commercial deployable radiator ever sent to space, and 100 times the power generation of Starcloud-1. The company says it will be its first satellite running commercial workloads for paying customers.

Bottom line: orbital AI compute is no longer a think-piece concept. Starcloud is building it, and some of the biggest names in venture and infrastructure just bet $170 million that it’s real.

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Sidus Space reported its full-year 2025 financial results this week, and there are two stories inside those numbers.

First, the challenging headline: revenue came in at approximately $3.4 million for the year — that’s a decline of about 28 percent compared to 2024. Cost of revenue increased 48 percent to roughly $9.1 million, driven largely by higher depreciation tied to the company’s expanding satellite fleet. Net loss for the year totaled $29.5 million, up from $17.5 million in 2024 — and that includes a $4.5 million non-cash impairment charge related to LizzieSat-1.

On the company earnings call posted online, CEO and founder Carol Craig described 2025 as a, quote, “pivotal year” — framing the losses as investment, not failure. The company launched LizzieSat-3 in March of last year, demonstrated on-orbit AI processing through its Orlaith AI ecosystem, and validated sub-5-meter imagery resolution with a partner payload.

“An important part of our strategy is that our satellites are company-owned and company-funded, with multiple customers contributing revenue before and after launch. Unlike others that may depend primarily on government contracts to finance and build their satellites, we made a deliberate decision to create a Sidus-owned platform, including the underlying intellectual property that can support commercial, civil space, and defense customers on a single satellite,” Craig said during the company earnings call. “This dual-use multi-mission model creates diversified revenue streams, broadens customer opportunities, and supports a more resilient business model in an increasingly dynamic geopolitical environment. Another important differentiator is that we intentionally designed our satellites to serve as both development and production platforms. From the beginning, our goal was to build a robust, redundant satellite architecture capable of testing and maturing technologies while simultaneously supporting customer missions.”

But here’s the other story: the balance sheet. As of December 31st, Sidus had $43.2 million in cash — up from $15.7 million at the end of 2024. That’s a $27.5 million increase, driven by equity capital raises in the back half of last year. Working capital jumped from $8 million to nearly $35.7 million.

They also expanded their contract portfolio significantly. Among the highlights — a ten-year IDIQ contract under the Missile Defense Agency’s SHIELD program, which carries a potential ceiling of $151 billion. They expanded their manufacturing agreement with Lonestar Data Holdings for lunar satellite work to $120 million total contract value. And post-year-end, they announced that Maris-Tech’s AI-based edge computing payload is scheduled to fly on a Sidus mission in Q4 of this year.

The company now holds 15 issued patents and has designs underway for multiple next-generation platforms, including a cislunar and lunar satellite called LunarLizzie — an 800-plus kilogram platform.

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From Florida’s Space Coast to Silicon Valley — Momentus Space has completed its move into a new 61,100-square-foot research, development, and manufacturing facility in San Jose, California.

The headline number here is the clean room. Momentus has gone from 4,500 square feet of clean room manufacturing to 16,000 square feet — nearly four times the capacity. The new facility also includes a machine shop, a dedicated mission operations center for monitoring and controlling spacecraft in orbit, and — notably — it comes with lower monthly operating costs than the company’s previous lease.

CEO John Rood said the move positions Momentus to meet rising demand across the national security and commercial space sectors. The company has specifically called out Golden Dome and the MDA SHIELD program as programs it intends to support from the new facility.

The San Jose location also puts Momentus closer to its supply chain, key industry partners, and the talent base in the Silicon Valley ecosystem — which matters when you’re scaling manufacturing operations.

Momentus has had a complicated few years on the public markets, but this move signals a company focused on operational scale and execution. More clean room, lower overhead, and a mission control capability under one roof. That’s a meaningful infrastructure upgrade.

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For the first time in more than fifty years, human beings are flying to the Moon.

NASA’s SLS rocket lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday evening carrying four astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft, which the crew has named “Integrity.” The crew includes NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch — and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

The main event comes tomorrow in the form of a planned multi-hour lunar flyby. The crew will photograph and observe parts of the Moon’s far side that have never been seen by human eyes in person. Total mission duration is approximately ten days, ending with a Pacific Ocean splashdown.

This mission is not a lunar landing — it is a crewed test flight. But the objectives are foundational: validate life support systems with crew aboard, test Orion’s handling in deep space, and lay the groundwork for future surface missions.

The commercial space implications here are significant. A sustained crewed lunar presence — which is the stated goal of the broader Artemis program — will require commercial logistics, commercial habitation, commercial surface systems, and commercial data services. What’s happening in orbit right now is the beginning of that pipeline.

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From the Moon to the International Space Station — this next story is about a robotics startup with big ambitions and a mission manager with deep roots.

Icarus Robotics, a New York City-based company co-founded by Ethan Barajas and Jamie Palmer, has awarded a contract to Voyager Technologies to support the in-orbit demonstration of its free-flying robotics platform — called Joyride. The demonstration is targeted for early 2027 aboard a space station.

Under the agreement, Voyager will handle payload integration, safety certification, launch coordination, and real-time mission execution support. That’s what Voyager calls “mission management as a service” — and with more than 1,400 missions managed across its career supporting the ISS, the company has a well-established track record for getting payloads to orbit and operating them when they get there.

Voyager president Matt Magaña called the Icarus contract exactly the kind of work the service was designed for — helping companies, quote, “move from ideas to proven flight heritage.”

But what makes this story a little more than a straightforward contract announcement is the personal connection. Icarus co-founder Barajas participated in Voyager’s NASA HUNCH program as a high school student — a program that gives students hands-on experience building hardware for the space station. That early exposure to spaceflight shaped his path. Now his robotics company is coming back to the station — this time as a customer.

The Joyride platform is designed for autonomous navigation and operations inside and around space stations — working in environments where human presence is difficult or costly. As commercial stations like Starlab move toward operations, the demand for capable autonomous robotics platforms in orbit is only going to grow. Icarus is early, but this demonstration could be a meaningful step toward a very large market.

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Coming up this week on The Journal of Space Commerce Podcast, I talk with FCC Space Bureau Chief Jay Schwartz about the mission of the Space Bureau and the recently approved Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on spectrum for “Weird Space Stuff”.

Schwartz explained that the FCC’s spectrum licensing dance card has been growing exponentially, and for more exotic missions.

“There’s also been a significant change in the types of applications in terms of the complexity that we’ve gotten. So a decade ago, about 80% of the applications were geostationary applications, relatively straightforward to license. And typically you’re dealing with just one satellite, right? What we’re seeing today is we’re seeing that flipped and something on the order of about 80% are your NGSO or your LEO constellations,” Schwartz said. “So more complex, larger, obviously, in terms of the number of satellites, more complex interference environments. And then actually, we’re also getting a number of things, we might touch on this a little bit later, that don’t even fall into that traditional NGSO or GSO category. So we’ve licensed a few commercial lunar missions, for instance, and I think we’ll continue to see more and more of those type of emerging space activities.”

Later this month, a deep dive on the recent Space Supply Chain report with Steve Jordan Tomaszewski and Doug Anderson ... on the Journal of Space Commerce Podcast.

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In depth this week, there may be no single event with more potential consequence for the commercial space industry in 2026 than what’s coming out SpaceX — and it has nothing to do with a rocket launch. (Paywall)

SpaceX is reportedly preparing to file a confidential IPO prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission, targeting a June 2026 stock listing. And the valuation being attached to this offering? One point seven five trillion dollars — with a raise target above $75 billion.

Let that number sink in. Seventy-five billion dollars raised in a single public offering would nearly triple the $29.4 billion raised by Saudi Aramco in 2019 — the previous record for the largest public offering in history.

At $1.75 trillion, SpaceX would sit above every company in the S&P 500 except Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon. That means the moment it lists, it becomes one of the most valuable companies in the world — full stop.

So how did we get here? The valuation isn’t just about rockets. SpaceX has been building value across multiple vectors simultaneously. There’s the launch business — a near-monopoly on heavy lift capability. There’s Starlink — a global satellite internet constellation with a growing subscriber base across consumer, maritime, enterprise, and government segments. There’s a substantial government contract portfolio spanning NASA, the Space Force, and the NRO. And then, as of February of this year, there’s the wild card: SpaceX completed an all-stock merger with xAI — Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company — creating what the market is now pricing as an AI-plus-space platform at a combined level that justified pushing the pre-IPO valuation from roughly $1.25 trillion after the merger to the current $1.75 trillion target.

The implied revenue multiple here — at roughly 113 times projected 2025 revenues — is well above any comparable public space company. Rocket Lab, for context, trades at 15 to 20 times forward revenue.

Now let’s talk about what this means for the rest of the sector — because there are three distinct dynamics at work here, and every investor in commercial space needs to understand all three.

The first is the capital absorption problem. A $75 billion raise is not a typical IPO. It will pull from the same investor pool that currently holds Rocket Lab, AST SpaceMobile, Intuitive Machines, Voyager Technologies, and every other public space name. Institutional allocators who want space exposure may simply shift that allocation into a more liquid, better-researched SpaceX position. Smaller names — particularly those whose business lines overlap most directly with SpaceX — face meaningful crowding-out risk during the second quarter of this year as attention and capital concentrate ahead of the listing.

There’s an offsetting argument: SpaceX’s roadshow may bring generalist institutional investors into the sector for the first time, expanding the total pool of capital available to space companies over the medium term. The xAI angle in particular will draw AI and technology investors who might never have engaged with aerospace. But in the short term, the bandwidth compression effect is real.

The second is the benchmark dislocation problem. Once SpaceX trades publicly with audited financials, every investment committee in the world has a reference point it didn’t have before. That’s a double-edged sword. Companies with genuinely differentiated models — Rocket Lab’s vertical integration, AST SpaceMobile’s direct-to-device architecture, Intuitive Machines’ lunar services play — should benefit from clarified differentiation. The risk is concentrated in companies whose revenue base overlaps with SpaceX in launch services or satellite manufacturing. And for pre-IPO companies like Voyager Technologies and Karman Holdings — both of which have confidential IPO filings expected this year — every valuation conversation will now happen in the shadow of that $1.75 trillion benchmark.

The third dynamic is actually positive for the broader sector — and it’s the one that doesn’t get talked about enough. The SpaceX S-1 will be the most consequential piece of financial disclosure the commercial space industry has ever produced. For the first time, investors will see audited Starlink subscriber counts and revenue-per-user figures. They’ll see SpaceX’s defense revenue broken out — contracts with the Space Force, NRO, NASA — and they’ll see the actual cost structure behind Falcon 9 and Starship launches. That information doesn’t just price SpaceX. It reprices the entire sector, with real data instead of estimates.

Defense-aligned space companies in particular may benefit from the investor education effect. If SpaceX’s government revenue proves to be as large and as recurring as the market expects — and the USSF budget alone is running at roughly $40 billion for FY2026 — it validates the investment thesis for every company in the sector that carries government contracts as a primary revenue driver.

The S-1, under standard SEC timelines, is expected to become public in late May or early June. From that moment, the commercial space industry will be playing in a fundamentally different information environment.

This is not just the biggest IPO in space history. It is, potentially, the biggest public offering in the history of global capital markets. And it’s happening right now.

Paid subscribers can read the full analysis on The Journal of Space Commerce under the Capital and Investment tab. Other premium articles this week include a look at the ramifications of the Gateway program pause on the space supply chain, and the hidden chokepoints in the “Golden Dome”.

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NASA is not tiptoeing into the future. It is sprinting, and using nuclear power.

NASA this week unveiled a sweeping set of initiatives at its recent “Ignition” event, doubling down on its ambitions to return Americans to the Moon — and this time, to stay.​

At the heart of the announcement is an accelerated Artemis program. NASA aims to land astronauts on the lunar surface by 2027, with missions launching at least once a year after that, and eventually every six months. But this isn’t just about planting a flag. NASA is laying out a three-phase roadmap to build a permanent Moon base — starting with robotic deliveries and technology tests, moving toward semi-habitable infrastructure supported by international partners like Japan, Italy, and Canada, and ultimately establishing a continuous human presence on the lunar surface.

​Administrator Jared Isaacman explained some of the steps the agency is taking to meet those goals.

“We are standardizing the SLS architecture with the Centaur 5 upper stage. We’re rebuilding and focusing expertise on ML1 pad turnaround and establishing the muscle memory required to support a higher launch cadence. The programs we left behind in this effort were not success stories. NASA takes ownership for the shortcomings, but contributing billions more and time that we do not have was not a pathway to success,” Isaacman said. “On that note, I welcome the interest from industry to make use of these capabilities in furtherance of our shared priorities. As we move forward, we intend to launch Artemis 3 in 2027 to test the integrated operations of Orion and one or both lunar landers in Earth orbit. What we learn from that mission will ideally give us the confidence to begin lunar landing attempts starting with Artemis 4 in 2028.”

​In low Earth orbit, NASA is rethinking the future of the International Space Station. Rather than abruptly handing operations over to private companies, the agency is exploring a phased transition — potentially attaching a government-owned module to the ISS, then gradually spinning off commercial stations — all to avoid any gap in America’s presence in orbit.

​On the science front, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is set to launch as early as this fall, and NASA is targeting up to 30 robotic lunar landings beginning in 2027.

​But perhaps the boldest announcement is this: NASA will launch Space Reactor-1 Freedom — the world’s first nuclear-powered interplanetary spacecraft — to Mars before the end of 2028, marking a historic leap in deep-space propulsion.

​Steve Sinacore is NASA’s program executive for Fission Surface Power.

“Nuclear power also unlocks deep space. Past Jupiter, the sun is just another star. Solar cell efficiency drops to 4% at Jupiter, requiring extremely large solar panels, and it’s effectively 0 beyond that. And for deep space missions, chemical propulsion cannot escape its own mass fraction. These are not engineering problems. They are physics constraints, and nuclear power is the answer,” Sinacore said. “Additionally, nuclear-powered electric propulsion spacecraft will move cargo in space like railroads move freight on Earth, with incredibly high efficiency compared to chemical propulsion. And nuclear also brings more innovation to the game, allowing for higher power, more thrust, and eventually exotic propulsion concepts that will open up the art of the possible for future exploration missions.”

​To support all of this, NASA says it’s investing heavily in its workforce — converting contractor roles to civil service positions and opening new pathways for early-career talent.

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We turn now to the quarterly earnings front, where several commercial space companies wrapped up 2025 with results that tell very different stories — but point toward the same direction: growth.

Start with York Space Systems. The Denver-based company closed 2025 with revenue up 52 percent to $386 million, powered largely by work on Space Development Agency Transport Layer Tranche 2 contracts. Gross margin expanded by nearly seven percentage points to 19-and-a-half percent, lifting gross profit 133 percent. York’s net loss is narrowing — down 15 percent to $84.5 million — and adjusted EBITDA losses shrank 81 percent to just $8.3 million.

​CEO Dirk Wallinger called 2025 the year York defined what a modern mission prime looks like. The company delivered 21 Tranche 1 Transport Layer satellites — the first prime to complete an on-orbit delivery under that program — and turned around the Dragoon mission from contract to orbit in just seven months. That is roughly 75 percent faster than the traditional 30-month timeline.

York completed its IPO in January, raising more than $580 million in net proceeds. Combined with existing liquidity, the company entered 2026 with nearly $900 million available. Management is guiding for full-year 2026 revenue of $545 to $595 million — and says more than 70 percent of the midpoint is already covered by existing backlog.

​Now to Planet Labs. The Earth imaging company posted record results for its most recent fiscal year. Planet CEO Will Marshall outlined the top line numbers to open his earnings call.

“We generated a record $308 million in revenue, representing approximately 26% year-over-year growth. Non-GAAP gross margin was 59% for the year. Adjusted EBITDA profit came in at $15.5 million, and free cash flow was $53 million, representing our first full fiscal year of non-GAAP profitability, an excellent milestone for the team as we strike a balance between profit and growth,” he said. “Q4 was also a record for revenue, representing 41% year-over-year growth and our fifth consecutive quarter of adjusted EBITDA profitability. For the second sequential quarter, we achieved Rule of 40, which is our revenue growth plus adjusted EBITDA margin. And on an annual basis, we achieved Rule of 30, a full year earlier than we anticipated. “

​Fourth-quarter revenue came in at $86.8 million — a 41 percent jump year over year.

The headline GAAP losses look severe — a full-year net loss of nearly $247 million — but most of that stems from non-cash accounting charges tied to warrant revaluations connected to a rising share price. Adjusted EBITDA for the year was a positive $15.5 million, a sharp swing from a loss of more than $10 million the year before.

Planet ended the year with a backlog of more than $900 million — 79 percent growth year over year — and nearly $640 million in cash.

​And then there’s Spire Global, which reported full-year 2025 revenue of $71.6 million — right at the midpoint of its guidance — but those numbers require context. Spire sold its maritime division in April 2025, which pulled down the top-line comparison. Strip out the maritime business, and revenue actually grew 44 percent in the fourth quarter.

Spire CEO Theresa Condor explained some of the dynamics that led to these results.

“The global demand environment for space-based intelligence has fundamentally shifted in SPIRE’s favor, and we are uniquely positioned to capture it. Three forces are converging. First, defense and intelligence spending on space is surging, not just in the United States, where the administration has targeted a $1.5 trillion defense budget for fiscal year 2027,” she said, “but across Europe, where nations are making historic investments in strategic autonomy. Second, civil agencies like NOAA and NASA are shifting decisively toward commercial data procurement, with NOAA projecting billions of dollars in commercial weather data purchases over the next decade. And third, commercial industries from agriculture to aviation are adopting space-based intelligence at an accelerating pace. driven by AI and the operational advantages our data provides.”

​The company narrowed its net loss nearly in half year over year in Q4, and ended the year with more than $81 million in cash with no debt. Looking ahead, Spire is projecting full-year 2026 revenue — excluding maritime — of between $71 and $81 million, representing 41 to 61 percent growth over its remaining core business.

The space industry has spent years building better eyes. Slingshot Aerospace says it’s time to build a better brain.

The Austin-based company is introducing a framework it calls Space Operations Intelligence and Autonomy — or SOIA — which it describes as a new market category designed to move the industry beyond simply observing the space domain toward actively operating within it.

I talked with Slingshot CEO Tim Solms about the development and what it means for Space Domain Awareness.

(See audio transcript)

Tim Solms is the CEO of Slingshot Aerospace

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The Federal Communications Commission has voted to start a proceeding to bring greater spectrum abundance to cutting-edge, emergent ventures in space, namely supporting telemetry, tracking, and command (TT&C) for on-the-horizon endeavors like orbital laboratories, satellite repairs, and private inhabitable spacecraft. The new “Weird Space Stuff” proceeding looks to address shortages of available, reliable spectrum for such operations. The Commission will seek comment on ways to expand access, modernize the FCC’s rules, and give America’s space activities the predictable spectrum environment they need to thrive.

The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) looks to find ways to use market-based principles to see spectrum resources put to more intensive use in the service of the space economy. The NPRM seeks to clarify and expand the FCC’s traditional regulatory classifications so that emergent operations have more predictable spectrum access. The proceeding will also explore new spectrum bands that could support new use cases on a dedicated basis to provide a clear, reliable, and expeditious path to support the groundbreaking technologies and services that companies are developing in space.

In their March meeting, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said that everything in space needs spectrum.

“Spectrum provides the necessary link for safety and control operations, or what we call TT&C. Unfortunately, next-gen missions have been constrained by a shortage of predictable commercial spectrum for this type of operation. It’s proven to be a real limit on the ability to launch and deploy unconventional services. Today, we tackled that challenge head on,” Carr said. “We propose to clarify for good when cutting-edge missions can use commercial spectrum for TTNC. We explore market-based approaches that can put existing spectrum bands to more intensive use for these purposes. And we examine new spectrum bands that could support cutting-edge missions on a dedicated basis. America’s spectrum companies, even the weird ones and the cool ones, need plentiful access to spectrum. With today’s action, we continue our spectrum abundance agenda to support our builders in space.”

We’ll explore this topic more in depth on an upcoming edition of The Journal of Space Commerce podcast with FCC Space Bureau Chief Jay Schwartz.

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In Depth this week — a growing disconnect between what advanced manufacturing shops can build and what aerospace primes are legally allowed to buy from them is emerging as one of the most significant bottlenecks in commercial space. (Paywall)

This matters if you are anywhere in the space supply chain.

​Three recent developments have brought the issue into sharp focus. In January, spacecraft company Momentus and metal 3-D printing firm Velo3D announced flight testing of an additively manufactured fuel tank aboard Momentus’s Vigoride-7 orbital vehicle — a supply chain move as much as a technology milestone. Last August, NASA and industrial 3-D printing company EOS signed a formal agreement to launch a hands-on training program for manufacturers seeking to qualify hardware under NASA flight standards. And this month, industry consortium America Makes issued a funding call specifically aimed at developing manufacturers capable of meeting prime contractor quality requirements.

​Taken together, the signals point to a system under pressure. To win a spot on a prime contractor’s approved supplier list, an additive manufacturing shop must navigate four layers of requirements — federal standards, mandatory aerospace quality certifications, prime-specific procurement rules, and a formal qualification process that can stretch well beyond a year. Most shops stall somewhere in the middle.

​The consequences are real. Single-source dependence on legacy suppliers remains common across critical space hardware categories. Standards bodies are still catching up to hardware that’s already flying. And quality flow-down requirements in supplier contracts from companies like Redwire and L3Harris mean that gaps anywhere in a shop’s supply chain can surface — often at the worst possible moment.

​The stakes are climbing fast. Department of War spending on additive manufacturing is projected to grow from roughly 800 million dollars in 2024 to 2-point-6 billion dollars by 2030. Programs including the Space Development Agency’s Tranche 2 satellite constellation and NASA’s Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destinations initiative are building procurement pipelines that will require flight-qualified suppliers — and qualification timelines don’t compress just because a program schedule demands it.

​Paid subscribers can read the full analysis on The Journal of Space Commerce under the Supply Chain tab. Other premium articles this week include how AT&T and Verizon may be funding their own displacement, how to build trust with terrestrial industries that don’t speak space, and what dual-use space funds like NATO’s Innovation Fund actually cost institutional limited partners.

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UK Space Supply Chain Strength Demonstrated in ForgeStar-1 Mission

NASA CLPS Award Expands Lunar Operations

NASA Selects Contractor for HelioSwarm Spacecraft

The Fork in the Cap Table (Paywall)

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America’s space industry is booming — but the supply chain keeping it aloft is buckling under the pressure.

A new report from the Aerospace Industries Association and PricewaterhouseCoopers is sounding the alarm: the U.S. space industrial base was built for a different era, and it’s struggling to keep pace with explosive demand.

Consider this — more than 3,400 U.S. space objects were launched in 2025 alone, nearly ten times the volume seen back in 2019. But the factories, suppliers, and testing facilities needed to sustain that growth? They haven’t scaled with it.

The report finds that many critical components are supported by just three or fewer qualified domestic suppliers — and those suppliers are competing against larger industries for the same limited parts. The result: delays across major programs, rising costs, and fragility across the entire chain. AIA Vice President for Space Steven Jordan Tomaszewski said during a webinar discussing the report that there is no silver bullet for solving the supply chain issues.

“It is a number of consistent lines of effort that a lot of times require government and industry to work together on. And not just, but there are some things industry can do on their own, certain things that government can do to have better visibility and to kind of work and help make strategic investments at time or modify policies and regulations,” Tomaszewski said. “So it’s not going to be a fully comprehensive list of all the things that we can do, but hopefully this will be a good roll up for folks just to understand where those pain points are, but then also how we can fix it working together.”

Budget instability and inconsistent government demand signals are also discouraging the private investment needed to expand capacity. Smaller firms are being squeezed by regulatory and cybersecurity burdens they can barely afford to meet.

The fix, according to the report, requires action on multiple fronts — better coordination between government and industry on long-term planning, easing outdated qualification requirements, expanding shared testing infrastructure, and creating financial incentives to bring more suppliers online. Tomaszewski said that 2026 will be the ‘year of the supply chain’

“There’s a lot of government and commercial interest of looking at what the problems are and how do we kind of make things better, which is great. And I think this study really is getting out to some of those specifics,” he said. “What’s that next level down? Okay, we can’t scale up production because these are kind of some of the bottlenecks right now. And then, you know, how do we start getting into the implementation phase of some of these recommendations?”

Eric Fanning, AIA president and CEO said that a resilient space supply chain isn’t optional — it’s a national imperative. The question now is whether Washington and the industry will act before today’s bottlenecks become tomorrow’s crisis.

Steve Tomaszaewski is scheduled to be a guest on a future episode of The Journal of Space Commerce podcast.

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The Federal Aviation Administration has now fully consolidated commercial launch and reentry licensing under Part 450, retiring four older rule sets and moving operators onto a single performance-based framework. The agency’s aim is fewer duplicative approvals, more flexibility in how companies demonstrate safety, and less administrative burden on both industry and government.

Part 450 allows a single license to cover multiple vehicle configurations, different mission profiles and operations from multiple launch and reentry sites all under one authorization, rather than a patchwork of separate approvals. Operators like Blue Origin, Firefly, SpaceX, Rocket Lab, and United Launch Alliance have now transitioned existing licenses ahead of a March 2026 deadline.

For launch providers, the shift has two big consequences. First, it can materially shorten the time from contract signature to first launch, assuming internal teams can keep pace with more compressed data requests from the FAA. Second, it gives operators more room to iterate on vehicles and mission profiles without going back to square one on licensing every time they tweak a configuration.

For satellite operators and investors, the message is that regulatory friction is less likely to be the pacing item than hardware and integration. If launch licensing uncertainty had been a reason to hold back on certain business models, this rule set removes at least part of that excuse.

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York Space Systems has agreed to acquire Orbion Space Technology, a Michigan-based manufacturer of Hall-effect electric propulsion systems designed for constellation-scale missions. Orbion’s Aurora thrusters are already flying on York-built spacecraft, including platforms that support U.S. national security missions.

On the surface, it is a classic supply-chain move: lock in a critical vendor by bringing it in-house.

The deal reduces York’s exposure to external propulsion delays at the very moment that demand for maneuverable LEO spacecraft is accelerating.

Orbion will operate as a wholly owned U.S. subsidiary, continuing to serve a broader set of customers while giving York preferred access and tighter design integration.

But the timing matters. The acquisition comes only weeks after York’s initial public offering, which raised hundreds of millions of dollars and positioned the company more explicitly as a Tier 1 defense and commercial prime. Analysts project rapid revenue growth, and integrating propulsion directly into York’s platform roadmap is a way to support that scale without getting trapped in the same long lead times that are hitting other primes.

For the rest of the ecosystem, this is part of a broader pattern. Prime contractors are using balance-sheet capital to secure scarce capabilities, from propulsion to optics. Smaller operators that once counted on shared suppliers may now find those vendors sitting behind a prime’s firewall or booked out by long-term framework agreements.

Propulsion capacity is migrating from open market to captive asset faster than many business plans assumed. That makes early, durable relationships with remaining independent suppliers more important—and raises the odds that additional consolidation is on the way.

​

Orbit is not just getting crowded with spacecraft—it is getting cluttered with retired hardware. That is opening the door for orbital debris removal as a commercial service, not just a policy talking point.

Astroscale’s planned ELSA‑M in‑orbit demonstration is a good example. Under a new launch agreement with Isar Aerospace, Astroscale will fly a roughly 520‑kilogram servicer designed to rendezvous with and remove an end‑of‑life Eutelsat OneWeb satellite. The mission is majority self‑funded, with additional backing from the UK Space Agency through ESA’s ARTES program as part of the Sunrise public–private partnership with Eutelsat.

Isar will launch ELSA‑M on its Spectrum vehicle from a dedicated pad at Andøya Space in Norway, showcasing both launch flexibility and the orbital precision needed for close‑proximity operations. Spectrum is designed, built, and operated in‑house with a high degree of automation, giving Isar a path to scale production as demand for targeted missions—including debris removal—grows.

For Astroscale, ELSA‑M is the next step on a roadmap that includes earlier missions like ELSA‑d and ADRAS‑J, which demonstrated key skills such as safe approaches, robust relative navigation, and controlled operations near uncooperative objects. ELSA‑M aims to become the world’s first commercial end‑of‑life service for “prepared” satellites, meaning spacecraft designed with interfaces that support docking and removal.

From a space‑commerce standpoint, several points matter:

Debris removal is moving from technology demo to revenue‑generating service tied directly to operators’ lifecycle plans. Launch providers see this as a growth market, building manifest flexibility and orbital targeting into their value proposition for rendezvous missions, and regulators and insurers are watching closely, because routine end‑of‑life services could eventually influence licensing terms, collision‑risk assessments, and premiums for high‑value constellations.

The practical question is whether your satellites are being designed as “customers” for this emerging service layer. If interfaces and end‑of‑life concepts are not being baked into current programs, you could be closing off future options to mitigate debris risk and differentiate on sustainability.

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There are start-ups looking to rethink what “infrastructure” means in orbit, and one of the more speculative ideas gaining attention is the concept of delivering sunlight to shaded or energy-constrained locations on Earth using space-based reflectors or power systems. Among those companies is Mantis Space, which just emerged from stealth with an oversubscribed seed round of more than $10 million. The concept is to place controllable platforms in orbit that can redirect solar energy on demand, extending productive hours for agriculture, industrial operations, or disaster response.

For now, it is early-stage and high-risk.

These concepts run into tough questions around launch and deployment costs, even under a streamlined licensing regime, precision station-keeping and attitude control to keep beams or reflections where they are supposed to be and regulatory and public acceptance, given concerns about light pollution, safety, and potential dual-use implications

But from a supply-chain standpoint, they point in a consistent direction. More complex, persistent infrastructure in orbit increases demand for high-efficiency propulsion to maintain precise orbits, robust optical systems to control and monitor power delivery and reliable, radiation-hardened electronics to manage autonomy at scale.

Those are the same categories already showing stress in today’s supply chain surveys. If even a fraction of these orbital power and sunlight concepts move from pitch deck to deployment, they will amplify the competition for components that defense and commercial operators already struggle to secure.

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In Depth this week, the “orbital optical gap” that sits between what next‑generation constellations will need from their optical components, and what the current supplier base can realistically deliver from Earth. (Paywall)

Most procurement teams keep a tidy list of approved optical vendors—domestic specialists, a few European houses, and lead times that look uncomfortable but accepted. What almost none of those lists include is an orbital address, even as governments and defense agencies start placing directional bets on optical manufacturing in microgravity.

In February, the UK Space Agency awarded about 295,000 pounds to British start‑up OrbiSky to design a payload for producing ZBLAN fluoride glass optical fiber in low Earth orbit. That follows ESA’s decision to name ZBLAN a priority in its Advanced Materials and In‑Orbit Manufacturing program, Varda Space Industries returning a U.S. Navy research payload on its W‑5 mission, and the Air Force Research Laboratory’s continued work with Redwire on in‑space manufacturing. Taken together, those moves signal that orbital optical production is no longer a lab curiosity—it is becoming a capability governments expect to use.

The physics are what make this different.

ZBLAN fiber can, in theory, deliver 10 to 100 times lower signal loss than silica over key portions of the spectrum, which is a system‑level advantage for high‑bandwidth optical intersatellite links. On Earth, gravity-driven convection and sedimentation create microcrystals during fiber drawing, scattering light and destroying that performance; experiments dating back to NASA parabolic flights in the 1990s showed that even brief microgravity reduces crystal formation, and sustained orbit is where ZBLAN can approach its theoretical best. That means terrestrial process improvement cannot fully substitute for making this material in space.

So what does the orbital optical supply chain actually look like today?

The ISS model: Redwire, through its Enhanced In‑Space Manufacturing facility, has been producing optical crystals and fiber commercially on the International Space Station and reported the first sale of a space‑manufactured optical crystal in 2022. Flawless Photonics has run an autonomous ZBLAN platform on ISS, delivering nearly 12 kilometers of fiber to the University of Adelaide by early 2025, while earlier players like Physical Optics and FOMS demonstrated precursor hardware.

The free‑flyer model: Varda’s W‑series spacecraft use Rocket Lab’s Photon bus and a reentry capsule to process materials in orbit and bring them home, with the W‑5 mission under AFRL’s Prometheus program proving both cadence and reentry for defense customers ahead of crystal‑manufacturing payloads. Varda has also signed a joint development deal with United Semiconductors for orbital crystal production, signaling early commercial demand.

New entrants: OrbiSky’s UKSA‑funded SkyYield study, ESA’s ZBLAN prioritization, and Flawless Photonics’ expansion into Luxembourg all point to a growing European footprint, with implications for ITAR, export controls, and industrial policy.

The problem is scale and timing. Current orbital optical production is measured in kilograms per mission and kilometers of fiber per run, while large constellations are measured in thousands of components across multi‑year builds. ISS itself is on track for decommissioning around 2030, and the commercial LEO destinations meant to replace it do not yet have firm construction and operations timelines, leaving a transition risk for ISS‑dependent providers.​

Then there is the qualification gap. No major prime has publicly documented a supplier‑qualification process for in‑space‑manufactured optical components, and no government requirement set yet treats orbital manufacturing as a recognized production path for flight hardware. AFRL’s Prometheus program offers a partial pathway, but it is focused on reentry science and defense materials, not bulk component supply for broadband constellations.

For investors, this looks like a pre‑institutional market: verified government demand, early commercial customers, and no settled capital framework. Redwire reports a growing backlog including advanced manufacturing work, Varda is flying multiple missions under AFRL, and European agencies are backing multiple ZBLAN players with modest but strategic contracts. The satellite manufacturing market, meanwhile, is projected to expand sharply through the early 2030s, with demand for high‑performance optics tracking the shift to optical intersatellite links.

The orbital optical gap is real, the companies working to close it are already flying hardware, and the procurement window for programs that will eventually need their output is opening now.

Paid subscribers can read the full analysis on The Journal of Space Commerce under the Supply Chain tab. Other premium articles this week include an analysis of what the Stargaze from SpaceX signals for the future of orbital governance, and the five component sub-tiers that could define smallsat’s $30 billion decade.

Worth a Second Look

• Rising Demand for Geospatial Intelligence Drives Commercial Satellite Imagery Market

• Orbital Refueling Company Poised for Growth

• NASA Awards Additional Funding for Microgravity Drug Development

• Radar Tracking Experiment Completed by Aurora Spaceplane

• What the ISS Supply Chain Knows That Your CLD Proposal Doesn’t (Paywall)
  
  

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Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr is taking aim at one of the least-talked-about chokepoints in the commercial space industry — spectrum.

On Wednesday, Carr shared a draft Notice of Proposed Rulemaking with his fellow commissioners. If it clears a full Commission vote at the agency’s March monthly meeting, the FCC would open a formal proceeding to address what it calls an acute spectrum shortage for emergent space operations — things like orbital laboratories, satellite repair missions, and private habitable spacecraft.

The issue comes down to telemetry, tracking, and command — the radio signals that let operators control spacecraft in orbit. Even satellites that don’t offer public communications services need reliable access to that spectrum. Right now, the FCC says American innovators are facing a crunch that could delay, or in some cases prevent, the growth of domestic space technologies.

The proposed rulemaking would move in two directions. First, the FCC wants to clarify its existing rules so that cutting-edge space operations have more predictable access to the spectrum they already use. Second, it wants to identify entirely new spectrum bands dedicated to these emerging use cases — giving companies a clear, reliable path to support the technologies they’re developing.

Carr called the proposal the first step toward the spectrum abundance needed to give American space activities a predictable operating environment. It’s worth noting the FCC has already been active on this front. Earlier this year, the Commission launched a separate proceeding to release up to 20,000 megahertz of spectrum for high-speed broadband services from low-Earth orbit constellations, and it has begun a comprehensive review of its overall space licensing framework.

The bottom line: spectrum may not be the flashiest topic in commercial space, but for the companies actually trying to operate there, it is foundational. Watch for the Commission vote later this month.

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Voyager Technologies this week reported its financial results for the fourth quarter and full year 2025 — and paired that earnings release with a significant strategic investment that says a lot about where the company is heading.

On the financial side, Voyager delivered net sales of $46.7 million in the fourth quarter, a 24% increase year over year. For the full year, the company posted $166.4 million in net sales — up 15% from 2024. The standout number, though, is backlog. Voyager ended 2025 with total backlog of $265.6 million, a 33% increase over the prior year. That’s a record for the company, and it’s driving a bump in 2026 guidance — Voyager now expects full-year revenue between $225 million and $255 million, which would represent year-over-year growth of 35% to 53%.

The company’s Defense and National Security segment drove much of the momentum, with a 63% increase in fourth quarter sales to $35.7 million, led in part by progress on the Next Generation Interceptor program. The Space Solutions segment declined in the quarter, primarily because of the planned wind-down of a multi-year NASA services contract, which had been expected.

Voyager also completed five acquisitions during the year, including ExoTerra Resource and Estes Energetics in the fourth quarter, expanding its propulsion and energetics platform. The company’s Starlab commercial space station development achieved 10 NASA milestones in 2025, and received $56 million in NASA cash milestone proceeds during the year. Total liquidity ended 2025 at $704.7 million.

In an earnings call posted to the company website, CEO Dylan Taylor called 2025 a transformational year for the company, pointing to its completed IPO, record backlog, and what he described as accelerating demand across defense, national security, and space.

“Our defense and national security segment grew significantly, up 59% year over year, driven by execution on next generation interceptor and other classified programs. Our backlog increased 33% year over year, entering 2026 with $266 million to support our accelerating growth,” Taylor said. “During 2025, we raised over $1 billion, including and executing on a successful IPO and issuing a follow-on convertible note, all strengthening our liquidity to fund innovation and strategic growth initiatives. We completed and integrated several acquisitions, expanding our capabilities to meet growing customer demand, which we expect to remain strong in today’s geopolitical environment.”

Taylor was also bullish on the company’s Starlab private space station. “We anticipate NASA will soon release the RFP for the second phase of the Commercial LEO Development Program, or CLD, with a decision later in the year. We are highly confident in the modernized, cost-efficient, and commercially scalable solution that Starlab is delivering to NASA and other key stakeholders,” he said. “The architecture is designed to provide continuous U.S. presence in low-Earth orbit, while enabling a broader transition to commercially-led operations. As the program advances, we are expanding Starlab’s commercial ecosystem, building durable partnerships across mission logistics, life sciences, biopharma, advanced materials, and other high-growth verticals. The approach strengthens demand visibility and reinforces Starlab’s role as an ecosystem, not a single-use platform. “

But Voyager’s big news this week wasn’t just about financial results — it was also about where that capital is being directed. Along with its Low Earth Orbit plans, the company announced a multi-million-dollar strategic investment in Max Space, a startup developing expandable habitat technology for the Moon.

Max Space’s approach is to build habitats that launch compactly — then expand up to 20 times their stowed volume once they reach their destination. That dramatically increases usable floor area per kilogram delivered, which matters enormously when every pound launched to the lunar surface carries a price tag. The flexible geometry of the design also allows the habitat to adapt as missions evolve, from early surface operations to long-duration habitation.

Voyager says the investment is directly tied to its broader lunar roadmap, which spans cislunar mission management, surface logistics, propulsion, and power systems. It also aligns with NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman’s stated goal of establishing a permanent human presence on the Moon by 2028.

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Two companies from different sides of the Atlantic announced they are teaming up to explore satellite refueling — a technology that could fundamentally change the economics of operating spacecraft in orbit.

Orbit Fab and Airbus Defense and Space are working together under a project called RADICAL — part of the European Space Agency’s Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems program, funded by the UK Space Agency. The goal is to assess whether Orbit Fab’s RAFTI refueling valve can be integrated into future Airbus geostationary satellites.

The business case for refueling is straightforward: satellites are expensive to build and launch, and propellant is typically the limiting factor in a spacecraft’s operational life. If you can top off a satellite in orbit, you extend its mission lifetime, reduce the cost of replacing it, and gain the flexibility to reposition it as market conditions change. For defense operators in particular, that ability to maneuver — and the resilience it provides — is becoming a strategic priority.

The RADICAL project is designed to work through the practical engineering required: what changes to mission operations, system design, and platform architecture are needed to make refueling possible for a production Airbus satellite? Orbit Fab brings the refueling technology. Airbus brings deep knowledge of geostationary satellite platforms and propulsion systems.

Jacob Geer, Orbit Fab’s managing director in Europe, framed the collaboration as essential to enhancing European competitiveness in the telecom satellite market. The UK Space Agency’s head of telecommunications, Henny Sands, called it a great example of how adaptive the UK industry is to changing global requirements.

Two companies have announced new capital raises.

Sierra Space closed a $550 million Series C equity round led by LuminArx Capital Management. The financing values the company at $8 billion post-money and brings total capital investment in Sierra Space since 2021 to more than $2 billion. The company says the new funding will support expansion of production capacity and continued development of national security space solutions.

Sierra Space has been shifting its focus increasingly toward defense and intelligence customers. It holds contracts with essentially all eight space procurement agencies within the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community, including a $450 million award to build satellites for a national security customer and an SDA Tranche 2 contract worth up to $740 million for missile warning and tracking satellites. The company also completed all manufacturing and assembly milestones for its Dream Chaser spaceplane last year, with a demonstration flight planned for late 2026.

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Meanwhile, HawkEye 360 closed an additional Series E round, raising approximately $23 million in new capital. The round included new investors Ghisallo, Principia Growth, and Sixty Degree Capital, alongside continued participation from the Strategic Development Fund. HawkEye 360 provides radio frequency signals intelligence from orbit and is currently integrating its recently acquired Innovative Signal Analysis business. CEO John Serafini said the round reflects investor confidence in the company’s strategy and its progress scaling the business.

Two raises, two different chapters: Sierra Space is capitalizing for growth in the national security space; HawkEye 360 is strengthening its balance sheet as it integrates a new acquisition. Both are signals of continued private capital appetite for defense-adjacent space companies.

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In Depth this week, NASA has expanded its Private Astronaut Mission pool from one company to two. (Paywall)

On Feb. 11, NASA awarded Vast Space its first Private Astronaut Mission to the International Space Station. Vast has never flown a station. Its Haven-1 module isn’t in orbit — it’s targeting a launch no earlier than early 2027. And yet NASA gave the company what had, until that moment, belonged exclusively to Axiom Space across five consecutive mission awards. (Paywall)

If you read the press release and moved on, you missed the story.

The Vast award is a procurement signal. Understanding what it means requires understanding what the Private Astronaut Mission program actually is — and what it isn’t.

A PAM award is not NASA buying a seat on a commercial flight. It is a bilateral services exchange executed through a Space Act Agreement — a non-traditional procurement vehicle authorized under the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958. Under that structure, the commercial operator purchases NASA-provided services: consumables, cargo storage, crew time, life support, and ISS access. In return, NASA purchases services from the operator — research capacity, payload integration, sample return, or crewed access to commercial facilities. Both parties are delivering value, and both parties are receiving it.

That structure carries fundamentally different legal, accounting, and intellectual property implications than a standard government contract. Companies that arrive at the proposal stage with a Federal Acquisition Regulation-based cost structure and traditional deliverable frameworks are not just underprepared — they’re speaking the wrong language.

The Axiom record demonstrates how this works in practice. Axiom Mission 1 launched in April 2022 as the first fully private astronaut mission to the ISS. Missions 2 and 3 followed at roughly annual cadence. Axiom Mission 4 launched in June 2025, carrying the first astronauts from India, Poland, and Hungary to orbit before splashing down off the California coast in July after 18 days aboard the station. By the time Axiom Mission 5 was signed in January 2026, Axiom had accumulated a track record spanning 14 private and government astronauts and more than 160 science and research activities.

NASA’s Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destinations Phase 2 program is where that track record pays off. CLD Phase 2 is structured as Funded Space Act Agreements with an estimated $1 billion to $1.5 billion award envelope and a minimum of two providers. Selection criteria explicitly reward operators who can demonstrate operational execution, attract non-NASA customers, and present a credible path to financial sustainability. The PAM program, run repeatedly, generates evidence for all three.

The capital markets understood this before most procurement professionals did. On the same day NASA awarded Vast its first PAM, Axiom closed a $350 million hybrid financing round co-led by Qatar Investment Authority and Type One Ventures. Hybrid equity-plus-debt with a sovereign wealth co-lead is how infrastructure companies raise capital. Axiom’s cumulative financing now sits at approximately $2.55 billion.

Vast is not Axiom. The company has committed more than $1 billion to Haven-1 ahead of any CLD Phase 2 award — a significant forward bet. The PAM-6 award begins to close the credentialing gap. It gives Vast a bilateral exchange to execute, and a mission record for CLD Phase 2 evaluators to assess.

The broader CLD Phase 2 field also includes Starlab and Blue Origin’s collaboration with Sierra Space. Starlab completed its Commercial Critical Design Review in February 2026. NASA’s decision to award new PAM missions to both Axiom and Vast in the same month is not coincidental — it is deliberate program expansion.

CLD Phase 2 is formally on hold as of Jan. 28, 2026. But the underlying competitive dynamics are set. The hold creates a window, not a reprieve.

The larger implication extends beyond low-Earth orbit. NASA’s long-term commercial framework is built on the principle that the government should be one customer among several in commercially operated destinations — not the owner and operator of the infrastructure itself. That principle does not stop at LEO. Artemis gateway logistics, lunar surface operations, and eventually Mars-architecture support will all face the same design question: should NASA own the asset, or buy bilateral services from a commercial operator under a Space Act Agreement framework?

The PAM program is the answer to that question, demonstrated in practice. Four missions completed, a fifth awarded, a second operator now credentialed, and a legislative framework hardening around the model. The exploration era is not waiting for a new contract vehicle. It is inheriting one that has already been field-tested.

Paid subscribers can read the full analysis on The Journal of Space Commerce under the In Depth tab. Other premium articles this week include How HawkEye 360 Cornered the RF-Intelligence Supply Chain, What Starlab’s Institutional Investor Moment Really Signals, and a the first installment of a new column by space marketing professional Mike Daily about the importance, and best practices, of branding for the space industry.

Worth a Second Look

• SSTL Joins the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Observatory System’s Lazuli

• Companies Reach Agreement to Collaborate on Lunar Construction Technology

• Rapid Advances Reported for Hadley H13 Engine

• Advancing Propellant-Free In-Space Mobility and Deorbiting

• Bankable, But Not Yet Backstopped (Paywall)

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The bipartisan leadership of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee is pushing back hard on the Federal Communications Commission.

Committee Chairman Brian Babin and Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren have sent a letter to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr urging the Commission to withdraw — or substantially narrow — a proposed rulemaking titled “Space Modernization for the 21st Century.”

The committee leaders say several provisions of the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking go well beyond communications policy. Their letter warns that the NPRM would require satellite operators to, quote, take all possible steps to assess and mitigate collision risks and certify compliance with an FCC-established human casualty threshold — requirements they argue have nothing to do with spectrum management.

The letter is explicit on the legal question. Members write that the Communications Act of 1934 contains no clear congressional authorization empowering the FCC to regulate space safety, space traffic management, or broader non-communications space operations. They also cite recent Supreme Court decisions as reinforcing limits on federal agencies asserting authority Congress never granted.

And the stakes here are significant. The committee letter notes the proposed requirements would impact billions of dollars in commercial space activities and raise concerns under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and existing national space policy.

The members are asking the FCC to either rescind the NPRM outright — or issue a new, narrower proposal confined strictly to radiofrequency communications licensing. No timeline has been set for the Commission to respond.

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Rocket Lab is expanding again — and this time in two directions at once.

The company has announced the acquisitions of Optical Support Inc. — or OSI — based in Tucson, Arizona, and Precision Components Limited, known as PCL, based in Auckland, New Zealand.

OSI designs and manufactures custom high-precision optical and optomechanical instruments. Its systems are used in national security and commercial satellites, and the company’s resume includes contributions to NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and Sphere Las Vegas. Rocket Lab says OSI will strengthen its vertical integration for programs like the Space Development Agency’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, while also positioning the company for next-generation initiatives including the Golden Dome missile defense system and future Mars exploration missions.

This acquisition follows Rocket Lab’s 2025 purchase of Geost (GEE-uhst), which formed the core of what is now called Rocket Lab Optical Systems. OSI was already a key supplier to Geost, so the integration should move quickly.

On the manufacturing side, the acquisition of Precision Components Limited in Auckland creates what Rocket Lab is calling the Auckland Machine Complex — a dedicated facility for high-volume, high-tolerance machined components. PCL has been a Rocket Lab supplier for more than 15 years.

Together, the two deals deepen Rocket Lab’s position as a vertically integrated prime contractor. The company currently holds a total contract backlog of 1.85 billion dollars across its launch and space systems businesses.

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Redwire has released its fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 financial results — and the headline from the company’s leadership is that 2025 was, in their words, a transformational year.

Full-year revenue came in at $335.4 million dollars — a 10.3 percent increase over 2024. Fourth-quarter revenue was especially strong, jumping 56.4 percent year-over-year to $108.8 million dollars.

During the earnings call which was recorded and posted to the company website, Redwire Chairman and CEO Peter Cannito said the company is positioned well for the future.

“In 2025, Redwire transformed from a pure-play space provider to an agile, scaled, multi-domain space and defense tech company. We closed our transformational acquisition of Edge Autonomy in June 2025 and have been successfully executing on our integration plan to include the full assumption of Edge Autonomy into the Redwire brand,” Cannito said. “During 2025, Redwire moved up the value chain with five spacecraft platforms and multiple prime contracts in the US and Europe, and two mature combat-proven airborne platforms. We expanded our customer base to more than 170 civil, national security, and commercial space and defense tech customers, emphasizing our breadth and diversity. We added approximately 660 employees for an ending headcount of approximately 1,410 employees around the globe. We ended 2025 with record contracted backlog of $411.2 million, providing confidence as we move into 2026. And finally, strengthened our balance sheet and simplified our capital structure, ending with record year-end total liquidity of $130.2 million.

Along with that backlog, the company ended 2025 with a book-to-bill ratio of 1.52 for the fourth quarter — meaning it booked significantly more new business than it recognized in revenue during the period. Total liquidity at year-end was $130.2 million dollars, more than double where it stood at the end of 2024.

Among the highlights: Redwire landed a $44 million Phase 2 contract for DARPA’s Otter mission, which uses the company’s SabreSat platform in very low Earth orbit. The company also signed an eight-figure agreement to supply international berthing and docking mechanisms for The Exploration Company’s Nyx spacecraft, and delivered more than 100 uncrewed aerial systems to customers in seven countries following its June 2025 acquisition of Edge Autonomy.

Not everything was positive. Redwire posted a net loss of $226.6 million dollars for the full year, driven in large part by more than $130 million dollars in non-recurring charges. Adjusted EBITDA was also negative.

A piece of U.S. launch history has found a new home.

Phantom Space has acquired key assets and intellectual property from Vector Launch Inc. — including flight-proven design elements, engineering data, and proprietary technologies originally developed for Vector’s small-launch vehicle program.

Phantom plans to integrate those assets immediately into its Daytona launch vehicle — a two-stage, mass-manufactured rocket designed to deliver small satellites and spacecraft into orbit. Company officials say the acquisition reduces development risk and advances the path to orbital flight.

There is a personal dimension to this deal as well. Phantom Space was founded in 2019 by Jim Cantrell — who was also a co-founder of Vector Launch. So the acquisition, in a sense, brings these assets back to one of the people who helped create them.

The Daytona vehicle features a modular payload fairing capable of supporting a wide range of spacecraft — from CubeSats to ESPA-class payloads. The company says it has completed successful hot-fire tests of Daytona’s propulsion assemblies and plans to begin integration and qualification activities immediately, with stage-level testing and vehicle milestones scheduled throughout 2026.

Phantom was founded by two of the original five members who built SpaceX. The company’s broader vision includes launch, satellite production, and future orbital infrastructure through its Phantom Cloud constellation.

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There is a potential major shift reshaping the satellite connectivity market.

A new report from Novaspace — the eighth edition of its Capacity Pricing Trends analysis — concludes that the satellite industry has entered what analysts are calling a Post-Capacity Era. The core argument: bandwidth is no longer the basis of competitive differentiation in this market.

The driver of that shift is familiar. Starlink’s vertical integration and aggressive cost compression are resetting expectations across the sector. With global supply rising and cost bases falling, capacity pricing is now on a structural downward trajectory. Data-driven applications are experiencing the steepest price declines, due largely to low-cost non-geostationary orbit supply. Legacy video markets are facing their own structural pressures as viewing habits continue to evolve.

The defining metric in this environment, according to Novaspace, is now cost per gigabyte. Starlink’s pricing — currently below 30 cents per gigabyte — is setting new industry benchmarks and pushing operators toward regional pricing strategies, promotional tiers, and more flexible service offerings. As satellite broadband approaches cost parity with terrestrial service in rural and underserved areas, the competitive landscape is expanding well beyond the satellite sector itself.

The report concludes that in a world where bandwidth is a commodity, the competitive advantage moves downstream — to the terminal, the hardware ecosystem, and the service layer. Companies that can innovate at the device and user experience levels, Novaspace says, will be the ones that lead this next phase of the market.

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In Depth this week ... a $17 million funding round closed quietly in February, and on the surface, it looked like routine Series A news. But the details tell a different story — and if you work anywhere in the space supply chain, this one is worth paying attention to. (Paywall)

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The company is Agile Space Industries, based in Durango, Colorado. It builds chemical propulsion systems — the thrusters that keep satellites in orbit, execute on-orbit maneuvers, and power in-space servicing vehicles.

What makes the funding round notable is who is behind it: Lockheed Martin Ventures. And this is not Lockheed’s first check to Agile. It’s their third — seed round, bridge round, and now Series A. That pattern is not casual portfolio diversification. It is a prime defense contractor systematically positioning itself ahead of what appears to be a serious supply constraint.

Here is the core problem. The domestic supplier base for chemical propulsion has not kept pace with demand. Proliferated low Earth orbit constellations, missile defense programs, and on-orbit servicing platforms are multiplying. The number of suppliers capable of building for those platforms at production scale is not. Supply chain leads are now reporting component lead times of 12 to 18 months across multiple subsystem categories, with integration delays cascading six to nine months downstream. Private equity consolidation of legacy propulsion assets is making competition thinner — and pricing pressure lighter — for the remaining players.

Agile’s answer to that constraint is speed through manufacturing innovation. Using additive manufacturing, the company has compressed design-to-tested-hardware timelines to approximately 19 weeks. Traditional propulsion procurement has historically required 18 to 24 months for the same process. The result: revenue has more than tripled over three years. Bookings are up sixfold.

And here is the detail that matters most for anyone in procurement or program management: the Series A round was oversubscribed. Agile turned capital away. The company had been cash-positive for 18 months before this raise. It did not raise because it needed the money — it raised because contracted backlog now exceeds production capacity.

Lockheed identified that dynamic early and built a real relationship before the market got crowded. For constellation operators, integrators, and primes still on the outside of that relationship — the window to get on the right side of this constraint is narrowing, quarter by quarter.

Paid subscribers can read the full analysis on The Journal of Space Commerce under the Capital and Investment tab. Other premium articles this week include an in-depth look into the $6 billion aerospace project pipeline in Florida, why it will take more than legislation to fix satellite manufacturing vulnerabilities, and the realistic economics of the Haven-1 Space Station.

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Worth a Second Look

• NASA Makes Major Changes to Artemis Program

• Strategic Investment Will Advance Satellite Communications, In-Space Data Processing

• Space Force Awards Contract to Starfish Space

• Agreement Reached to Advance In-Space Semiconductor Manufacturing

• The $6 Billion Concentration (Paywall)

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We start with what may be the most closely watched accountability story in human spaceflight in years. NASA has officially released the findings of an independent Program Investigation Team that examined what went wrong during Boeing’s Starliner Crewed Flight Test back in 2024.

Starliner launched on June 5th, 2024, carrying NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station. The mission was supposed to last eight to fourteen days. Instead, propulsion system anomalies discovered while the spacecraft was in orbit stretched the mission to 93 days — and ultimately led NASA to make the extraordinary decision to bring the spacecraft home without its crew. Wilmore and Williams eventually returned to Earth in March 2025 aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon.

Now we know more about why. Investigators found what they describe as an interplay of combined hardware failures, qualification gaps, leadership missteps, and cultural breakdowns — all of which created risk conditions inconsistent with NASA’s human spaceflight safety standards.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said that NASA had allowed “overarching programmatic objectives.”

“Mistakes incurred from program’s inception and continued throughout execution, including contractual management, oversight posture, technical rigor, and leadership decision-making. Boeing built the spacecraft, and from the onset, NASA approved variances, and we agreed to fly it. As development progressed, design compromises and inadequate hardware qualification extended beyond NASA’s complete understanding,” Isaacman said. “Now, variances exist across all major aerospace programs and by themselves are not unusual. The engineering reality, however, is that Starliner, with its qualification deficiencies, is less reliable for crew survival than other crewed vehicles. And that was as noted by the report. But at NASA, we managed the contract. We accepted the vehicle. We launched the crew to space. We made decisions from docking through post-mission actions. A considerable portion of the responsibility and accountability rests here.”

As a result of the findings, NASA has formally classified the Starliner crewed flight test as a Type A mishap — the highest-level classification — citing potential for a significant mishap and the financial damages incurred. No astronauts were injured, and the mission did regain spacecraft control prior to docking. But the classification signals that NASA is treating this with full seriousness.

NASA says it will continue working with Boeing to address the technical challenges before flying Starliner again. The full report — with some redactions to protect Boeing’s proprietary information — is available on NASA’s website.

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Transportation is just one aspect of maintaining a sustained human presence in Low Earth Orbit ... one big question is where will that human presence be when the ISS is retired, possibly as early as 2030.

One of the possible replacement commercial stations is being developed by Starlab Space, and that company marked a significant milestone recently, completing its Commercial Critical Design Review, or CCDR, with NASA in attendance. This marks a decisive transition: the program is moving from the design phase into manufacturing and systems integration. In milestone terms, it satisfied the 28th checkpoint on Starlab’s NASA Commercial LEO Destinations Space Act Agreement — a mouthful, but what it means in plain English is that Starlab has demonstrated its design is technically mature, integrated, and ready to be built.

According to Starlab CEO Marshall Smith, the CCDR is a critical step toward delivering that continuous access to Low Earth Orbit with — his words — “no gap in capability to science, industry or national interests.” He also emphasized that the program’s business plan review was completed in parallel, validating what he called a diversified commercial market rather than a government-dependent model.

The Starlab program draws on a remarkable international coalition of partners, including Voyager Technologies, Airbus, Mitsubishi Corporation, MDA Space, Palantir Technologies, ESA, JAXA, and Space Applications Services.

This is a significant milestone. A lot of things have to go right for humanity to maintain an unbroken chain of human presence in orbit — and Starlab just demonstrated that its piece of the puzzle is executable.

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A new report from Verified Market Research finds that the global space robotics market — valued at 4.7 billion dollars in 2024 — is projected to grow to more than 7.3 billion dollars by 2032. That’s a compound annual growth rate of about 7.2 percent over the forecast period.

What’s driving this? A few key forces. First, the increasing complexity of orbital and deep-space missions is accelerating demand for autonomous systems that can perform inspection, assembly, repair, and exploration tasks with minimal human intervention. Second, satellite servicing — including refueling, debris management, and in-space infrastructure maintenance — is creating sustained demand for precision robotic platforms. Third, rapid advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and sensor fusion are expanding what robotic systems can actually do, and where they can do it — from low Earth orbit to the Moon to Mars.

The report notes that North America remains the dominant market, led by U.S. government funding, private sector innovation, and a mature aerospace industrial base. Europe is a strong secondary market. And Asia-Pacific is emerging quickly, with China, India, and Japan all expanding their space robotics capabilities.

There are challenges too. Space robotics systems require extensive testing, radiation hardening, and customization for specific missions — all of which drive up costs and development timelines. And robotic failures in space carry serious financial and reputational consequences, which means reliability and redundancy engineering remain critical and expensive.

The Commercial Space Federation has released a new study titled “Perfecting Public-Private Partnerships: The Future of Government Space Contracts,” authored by the policy consultancy Rational Futures. The report is a candid assessment of how NASA, the Department of Defense, and other space agencies structure their commercial relationships — and it argues that many of those agencies are getting it wrong in ways that lead to cost overruns, schedule delays, and missed opportunities.

The core argument is this: agencies too often conflate “public-private partnership” with specific contract mechanisms — particularly firm-fixed-price contracts — without thinking carefully about whether those mechanisms match the actual risk profile of what they’re buying. The report frames procurement on a spectrum from fully government-controlled programs, where the public sector holds all the risk, to fully commercial models, where a private company holds all the risk and sells services to anyone who will buy them. Most space programs sit somewhere in the middle, and the paper argues that matching the right contract type to the right program characteristics is essential.

The study holds up NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program — the original COTS effort that incubated SpaceX and Orbital Sciences — as the gold standard of what works: cost-sharing, multiple suppliers, stable requirements focused on outcomes rather than process, and large follow-on contracts that gave investors confidence. By contrast, it looks at the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program as a cautionary tale, citing overly optimistic demand projections, shifting requirements, and inconsistent oversight as contributors to delays and cost growth.

The recommendations span three levels. At the agency level: build internal capacity in finance, economics, legal, and procurement — not just engineering. At the program level: conduct rigorous independent market assessments, signal clear multi-year demand, and avoid over-relying on a single vendor. At the contract level: match the procurement vehicle to where the technology actually is, not where you wish it were.

The report’s authors sum it up this way: “Success requires careful planning, involvement of appropriate experts, and understanding of market conditions and program characteristics.” It sounds obvious. But based on recent history, it’s a lesson the industry apparently still needs to hear.

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This week on The Journal of Space Commerce Podcast, I talked with Dr. Belinda Marchand, the chief scientist at Slingshot Space.

Space has become a critical warfighting domain, requiring an approach to training that prepares warfighters to use new technology. AI is redefining space warfare training, and is becoming vital for deterrence and national security.

Slingshot Aerospace is a U.S.-based space data and analytics company focused on making space operations more safe, sustainable, and secure through satellite tracking, space traffic coordination, and high‑fidelity modeling and simulation tools.

Dr. Marchand said that using AI allows warfighters to train like they’ll fight. But she also said that the technology being used can be applied to commercial scenarios as well.

“I think the defense use case was a very valuable and timely example of a way to demonstrate the capabilities of the technology. But the technology itself that powers things like Talos, or even that powers our anomaly detection software like Agatha or anomalous actor detection, all those technologies can be used for other purposes as well, right?” Marchand said. “You can use them to... fly your fleet to control your fleet, to achieve your on-orbit servicing objectives, anything that involves rendezvous proximity operations. You could adapt. If you’re doing RPOs for intercepting something, that’s not that dissimilar from the type of activity you would do to go service something or refuel something, right? Or to do in-orbit manufacturing and things like that. So the actions have elements in common and the framework itself is agnostic to those actions.”

Slingshot recently achieved Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) Level 2, validating its ability to protect Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) in support of Department of Defense (DoD) missions.

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In Depth this week ... the space industry has a new cost of doing business — and it’s not coming from regulators. It’s coming from physics. (Paywall)

A January 2026 World Economic Forum report put a price tag on orbital debris: somewhere between $26 and $42 billion in projected losses over the next decade. No one sends you a bill. But insurance underwriters, propellant budgets, and procurement officials are quietly collecting anyway.

Here’s the situation: Low Earth orbit is crowded. Over 25,000 tracked objects are up there, plus millions of tiny fragments too small to see — but large enough to destroy a satellite. Mega-constellations from SpaceX, Amazon, and others have turned what was once open frontier into a congested operating environment. Satellites are now maneuvering daily to avoid collisions. Every maneuver burns fuel. Less fuel means shorter missions. Shorter missions mean less revenue.

On the regulatory side, the FCC’s new five-year deorbit rule kicked in last September, requiring satellite operators to bring their spacecraft down within five years of mission end. That sounds simple, but it forces a real tradeoff: every kilogram of propellant reserved for deorbit is fuel you can’t use to extend your operational life. And the rule hits smaller operators hardest — SpaceX already operates this way by design, giving them a quiet competitive advantage.

Meanwhile, the insurance market is repricing in real time. Premiums in high-traffic orbital zones are now eating five to ten percent of total mission budgets — and policies increasingly require operators to demonstrate active maneuverability and credible end-of-life plans just to get coverage.

In Congress, the ORBITS Act is pushing toward mandatory active debris removal — not just preventing new junk, but cleaning up what’s already there.

The bottom line for the industry: orbital sustainability has moved from an aspirational goal to a line item on the income statement. The debris tax is already collecting. The only question is whether your financial model accounts for it.

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Axiom Space Secures $350M in Financing for Spacesuits, Station

Wildfire Detection Application Onboard AI-enabled Satellite Demonstrated

Satellites Market worth $46.79 Billion by 2031: Report

LambdaVision Books Commercial Space in Low-Earth Orbit

From NASA Customer to Market Anchor (Paywall)

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The UK small launch sector is facing a rough moment. Orbex, one of Britain’s most prominent homegrown rocket companies, has filed a notice of intention to appoint administrators after its Series D fundraising round came up empty. Merger and acquisition talks also failed to produce a deal. With no funding lifeline in sight, the company is now formally exploring the sale of all or part of its business.

It’s a painful moment for a company that was genuinely close to something. Orbex had brought hundreds of skilled jobs to Scotland, had been at the vanguard of UK space ambitions, and was on the verge of test flights for its Prime microlauncher later this year. All of that is now in limbo.

But here’s where the story takes a turn. Skyrora — another UK launch company — has stepped forward with an interest in acquiring select Orbex assets, including the Sutherland Spaceport in northern Scotland. Skyrora says it’s prepared to invest up to ten million pounds — roughly thirteen-and-a-half million dollars — subject to due diligence and negotiations with the administrators.

The framing from Skyrora is explicitly nationalistic: keeping UK technology under UK ownership, protecting national infrastructure, and safeguarding the return on taxpayer investment that went into Orbex over the years.

Now, nothing is done yet. Administrators have only just been notified, and the legal process has to run its course. But if Skyrora does pull this off, it would be a remarkable consolidation story — one UK launch company absorbing the assets of another to create something more resilient. The Sutherland Spaceport alone would be a significant prize, as it’s one of the few licensed launch facilities in Europe capable of reaching polar and sun-synchronous orbits.

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A new wave of industrial connectivity could be about to reshape how industries operate in remote and underserved areas — and the timeline is tighter than you might expect.

New research from satellite company Viasat, based on a survey of 600 industrial decision-makers worldwide, finds that 91% plan to adopt direct-to-device satellite technology within the next 18 months. The sectors involved span agriculture, energy, mining, logistics, and utilities — industries where reliable connectivity has long been a limiting factor.

At the heart of this shift is a technology called Narrowband Non-Terrestrial Networks — or NB-NTN — a connectivity standard that allows IoT devices to maintain a satellite link when ground-based networks are unavailable or overstretched. Think of it as a seamless fallback that kicks in without any manual intervention.

The data suggests momentum is already building. 78% of respondents say their IoT deployments have accelerated over the past year — and among organizations already using hybrid satellite-terrestrial setups, that figure jumps to 86%.

Viasat frames this less as a performance upgrade and more as a pursuit of what the report calls “coverage certainty” — the ability to stay connected at scale, regardless of where you are or what the local infrastructure looks like.

The findings also carry a pointed message for mobile network operators: direct-to-device satellite capability shouldn’t be treated as a niche add-on. According to the report, it represents a genuine opportunity to expand into new enterprise revenue streams — without requiring significant reinvestment in existing networks.

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The Idaho National Laboratory just released a report called “Weighing the Future: Strategic Options for U.S. Space Nuclear Leadership”, and it lays out three distinct paths forward.

The first is what the report calls “Go Big or Go Home” — a large-scale, hundred-to-five-hundred kilowatt electric project led by NASA or the Department of Defense. But it’s high risk, high reward, and requires consistent top-level funding and political will.

The second option — dubbed the “Chessmaster’s Gambit” — splits the approach into two smaller public-private projects, both under a hundred kilowatts. One would put a reactor in lunar orbit or on the Moon’s surface. The other would be an in-space system. The appeal here is flexibility — private companies choose the technology, which distributes risk and keeps timelines more manageable.

The third path, “Light the Path,” is the most cautious — a small radioisotope demonstration under one kilowatt, designed mainly to build regulatory frameworks and institutional knowledge before committing to bigger bets.

For context on why this matters: NASA has already issued a directive to place a fission reactor on the Moon by fiscal year 2030. That’s four years away. The technology challenges are real — space reactors have to be lightweight, run at much higher temperatures than terrestrial units, and operate for a decade without maintenance. None of that is easy.

Sebastian Corbisiero, the Department of Energy’s Space Reactor Initiative national technical director, described the moment as potentially being on the cusp of a major step forward for nuclear power in space. And given that competitors — particularly China — are investing heavily in space nuclear capabilities, the pressure to act is real.

Which path the U.S. ultimately chooses will say a lot about its appetite for risk — and its confidence in the commercial sector to deliver.

NASA has selected Vast Space for the sixth private astronaut mission to the ISS. The flight is targeting no earlier than summer 2027, launching on a SpaceX Falcon 9 carrying a Dragon spacecraft. The crew will spend up to 14 days aboard the station.

This is a milestone for Vast, which is best known for its ambitions to build and operate its own commercial space station — the Haven-2 — as a successor to the ISS. A crewed mission to the station is exactly the kind of operational credibility the company needs to make that case.

Vast has framed the mission as part of the broader transition to commercial space stations, and fully unlocking the orbital economy. The science portfolio planned for the mission spans biology, biotechnology, physical sciences, human research, and technology demonstrations.

What’s interesting here is the strategic layering. Vast isn’t just flying to the ISS for the publicity — the company has a live call for research proposals open right now, meaning external researchers can submit experiments for consideration aboard this mission. That’s a signal that Vast is trying to build an actual customer base and research pipeline before its own station even exists.

The ISS is scheduled for deorbit in 2030. Between now and then, these private astronaut missions serve a dual purpose: they generate revenue for NASA and its partners, and they give commercial operators like Vast the hands-on experience they’ll need to run stations on their own.

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Analysts at MarketsandMarkets are projecting the global space situational awareness market — SSA, for short — will grow from about 1.7 billion dollars in 2025 to nearly 2.8 billion dollars by 2030. That’s a compound annual growth rate of ten percent over five years.

SSA, if you’re not familiar, is the business of tracking what’s in orbit: active satellites, spent rocket bodies, debris fragments, and everything in between. As constellations like Starlink and others pour thousands of satellites into low Earth orbit, the risk of collisions — and the cost of getting it wrong — increases dramatically.

The debris segment is expected to hold the largest share of the SSA market. That tracks. There are hundreds of thousands of debris objects in orbit too small to track reliably but large enough to be catastrophic. Even a centimeter-sized fragment at orbital velocity carries enormous kinetic energy.

Geopolitically, there’s another driver: governments want independent visibility into what’s happening in their orbital neighborhoods. That’s pushing investment in indigenous SSA infrastructure, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, where China, India, Japan, and South Korea are all expanding their space programs and their appetite for homegrown tracking capabilities.

The major players in this space currently include Lockheed Martin, L3Harris, Kratos, Parsons, and Peraton — all defense-adjacent firms with deep government relationships. But as the market grows, expect more commercial entrants chasing the non-government slice of that revenue. So the bottom line would appear to be that, if you’re operating in orbit, knowing where your spacecraft ... and everything else ... is has never been more important — or more valuable.

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In Depth this week ... The space economy is booming — but not in the way you might expect. Forget rockets and moonshots. The real action right now is in data. Earth observation satellites, geospatial intelligence platforms, and satellite communications networks are driving a steady wave of mergers and acquisitions, and investors are paying serious money to get in. (Paywall)

Deals in 2024 and 2025 are showing revenue multiples in the one-to-four-and-a-half times range, with EBITDA multiples stretching into the teens — healthy numbers that hold up well against broader aerospace benchmarks. The buyers range from defense giants filling gaps in their geospatial portfolios to private equity firms building roll-up platforms around recurring data revenue. The message from the deal tape is clear: space data is now considered core infrastructure, alongside defense, climate monitoring, and global connectivity.

But here’s where it gets complicated. Regulators are catching up — fast. The European Union is advancing a Space Act that would treat certain satellite-derived data much like personal data under GDPR. The OECD is raising red flags about high-resolution imagery being combined with AI to track individuals and sensitive facilities. And the UN’s space office is pushing new principles for responsible AI in Earth observation. The direction of travel is unmistakable: tighter rules on consent, data provenance, and how satellite analytics can be used and sold.

So the billion-dollar question for investors is this — do current valuations already price in the cost of compliance, or are buyers underwriting a more permissive world than regulators will actually allow?

The answer likely splits the market in two. Companies that build privacy and governance into their core architecture are positioned to command premium valuations. Those treating compliance as an afterthought may face multiple compression, heavier deal indemnities, and shrinking revenue streams.

In the space data economy, your data governance framework may soon matter as much as your satellite constellation.

Paid subscribers can read the full analysis on The Journal of Space Commerce under the In Depth tab. Other premium articles this week include how strategic communications will shape the future of the commercial space industry, and the hidden vulnerability in the U.S. space industrial base.

-Ends-

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Stoke Space Technologies Extends Previously Announced Series D Financing

Collaboration Aims to Accelerate Access to Space

Thunderbird Station Unveiled by Max Space

AT&T’s $15.6 Billion Satellite Bet (Paywall)

SpaceX has filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission seeking approval to launch up to one million satellites for what the company is calling an orbital data center system.

To put that number in perspective, that’s roughly a thousand times larger than SpaceX’s current Starlink internet constellation. The FCC’s Space Bureau accepted the application last week, setting the wheels in motion for what could become an unprecedented expansion of commercial space operations.

According to the filing, these satellites would operate at altitudes between 310 and 1,243 miles above Earth, organized in orbital shells spanning up to 30 miles each. The system would rely primarily on high-bandwidth optical links to communicate between satellites and connect with the existing Starlink network.

What’s particularly interesting here is the timing. This filing comes on the heels of SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company. In the application, SpaceX characterizes this orbital data center system as the first step toward becoming what’s called a Kardashev Type Two civilization—that’s a theoretical framework describing a civilization advanced enough to harness the full power of its host star.

SpaceX has requested several waivers from standard FCC regulations, including exemptions from typical deployment milestones and surety bond requirements. The commission has set March 6 as the deadline for public comments on the application.

If approved, this would represent a fundamental shift in how we think about computing infrastructure—moving massive data processing capabilities off Earth and into orbit.

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According to a new report from Verified Market Reports, the space robotics sector is positioned for robust expansion over the next decade. The market, valued at 5.1 billion dollars in 2024, is expected to reach 14.5 billion dollars by 2033—that’s a compound annual growth rate of 12.5 percent.

The drivers behind this growth are multifaceted. There’s accelerating demand for on-orbit servicing, satellite life extension, debris mitigation, and planetary exploration. But what’s really changing the game are advances in autonomy and artificial intelligence.

The report highlights how robotic systems are transitioning from government-led experimentation to commercially scalable deployment. We’re seeing robots designed for satellite servicing, refueling, inspection, and in-space assembly becoming integral to cost-optimization strategies for satellite operators. This directly supports longer satellite lifecycles, reduced launch frequency, and improved return on space infrastructure investments.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are redefining what’s operationally possible. Autonomous navigation, fault detection, and adaptive manipulation allow space robots to operate with minimal human intervention. This is crucial for mitigating communication latency and enabling deep-space and cislunar missions.

The growth isn’t limited to commercial applications either. Space robotics is emerging as a core enabler for defense applications—satellite inspection, threat monitoring, and orbital asset protection. Governments worldwide are prioritizing resilient and responsive space infrastructure, creating sustained demand for robotic platforms.

Looking ahead, robotic systems are foundational to lunar and Martian exploration strategies. They enable surface mobility, regolith handling, construction, and scientific experimentation while reducing human risk and establishing infrastructure for future crewed missions.

Despite the momentum, challenges remain. High upfront development costs, technical complexity, regulatory uncertainty, and mission risk continue to present obstacles. However, the industry is addressing these through modular design architectures, digital twins, and simulation-driven development. Public-private partnerships are also playing a critical role by sharing financial risk and accelerating validation through government-sponsored missions.

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Voyager Technologies and Max Space have announced a collaboration to advance expandable space habitat technology. This partnership brings together Voyager’s experience delivering mission-critical space systems with Max Space’s high-volume, low-mass expandable structure technology.

According to Voyager chairman and CEO Dylan Taylor, the Moon is no longer viewed as a single destination or a symbolic achievement. It’s becoming the next operational domain in a growing space economy that spans exploration, science, national security, and commercial development.

What makes expandable structures so significant? They offer a step change in how surface infrastructure can be delivered and deployed. Max Space’s technology is built on 40 years of on-orbit heritage and represents what the company says is a significant improvement over previous generations.

The development path is phased and methodical. Ground validation and in-space demonstrations are planned for later this decade, with operational lunar and Mars capabilities aligned with NASA’s exploration timelines on the horizon. The partnership emphasizes early risk retirement, interoperability, and commercial scalability as guiding principles.

This collaboration reflects a broader trend in the space industry—moving from short-duration missions to sustained operational presence beyond low Earth orbit. As the space economy expands, infrastructure designed for endurance and industrial-scale execution becomes increasingly important.

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NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate is inviting public feedback on its prioritization of technology shortfalls critical to civil space. The deadline for input is February 20, so if you’re listening to this and have expertise in the field, there’s still time to participate.

NASA has identified 32 technology shortfalls—these are technology areas requiring further development to meet future exploration, science, and mission needs. Each shortfall includes a subset of specific functions that must be achieved to overcome that particular challenge.

This represents a streamlined approach compared to NASA’s 2024 effort, which featured 187 shortfalls. The agency consolidated these into broader, integrated categories based on stakeholder feedback, making the process more efficient and accessible.

Why does this matter? This prioritization framework will guide NASA’s evaluation of current technology development efforts and may inspire new investments within the agency or spark innovative partnerships. Understanding and prioritizing the most impactful efforts allows NASA to appropriately direct available resources to best support mission needs.

The Space Technology Mission Directorate’s investment strategy is comprehensive. It aligns with the current Presidential Administration’s priorities and NASA’s Moon to Mars strategy. It focuses on science priorities identified in the Decadal Surveys. It fosters creation and growth of the space economy through industry partnerships and small business innovation.

NASA is encouraging all U.S. businesses, organizations, agencies, and individuals with a vested interest in space technology to review the shortfall list and submit feedback. This collaborative approach to identifying and addressing technology gaps represents a best practice in government-industry partnership.

The results will inform not just immediate investment decisions but also the development of long-term technology roadmaps.

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NASA and Momentus have signed a Space Act Agreement for a mission demonstrating rendezvous and proximity operations, as well as formation flying in low Earth orbit. At the center of this mission is NASA’s R5 Spacecraft 10, which will act as a free-flying imager for Momentus’ Vigoride 7 Orbital Service Vehicle.

The R5-S10 will assess spacecraft health and performance, marking a critical step in refining In-Space Assembly and Manufacturing capabilities—essential for future autonomous space operations. The mission is funded and managed by NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology program and the Engineering Directorate at Johnson Space Center.

There’s an additional military dimension to this mission. NASA is supporting Momentus in executing a rendezvous demonstration for the Air Force Research Lab’s SPACEWERX organization. The Low-Cost Multispectral Rendezvous and Proximity Operations Sensor suite will enhance spacecraft situational awareness and relative navigation—critical capabilities for satellite servicing and space debris management.

The mission will also demonstrate inter-satellite link technology using WiFi-based data transmission. The CubeSat will transfer large files to the Vigoride host platform, which will then downlink them to ground stations. This demonstrates the viability of real-time space communication for future missions.

Vigoride 7 is scheduled for launch no earlier than March 2026 aboard a SpaceX Transporter mission.

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In Depth this week ... the dream of space tourism is hitting turbulence. Just weeks ago, Blue Origin announced it’s grounding its New Shepard tourist flights for at least two years, marking a dramatic shift in an industry that once promised exponential growth. (Paywall)

The pause comes on the heels of Virgin Galactic’s suspension of operations back in June 2024. That means the suborbital space tourism market—the more affordable option for space travel—is effectively dormant through at least 2027.

So what happened? Industry analysts say the business model simply didn’t work. Despite ticket prices of up to $600,000, companies couldn’t turn a profit. Vehicles required weeks of refurbishment between flights. The rapid reusability that makes SpaceX profitable never materialized for suborbital tourism.

And demand fell short of projections. The initial wave of celebrity millionaires proved finite, and there wasn’t a second wave waiting. The gulf between $600,000 tickets and what middle-class space enthusiasts could afford—somewhere between $10,000 and $50,000—remains unbridgeable.

Meanwhile, orbital tourism is thriving. SpaceX and Axiom Space continue flying paying customers to the International Space Station at $55 million per seat. Paradoxically, this ultra-premium model proves more sustainable because expectations align with reality: a tiny market of ultra-wealthy individuals seeking transformative experiences.

Market forecasts have been slashed dramatically. Original projections of up to $10 billion by 2030 have been revised down to $2 to $4 billion. The vision of “space for everyone” is being pushed further into the 2030s.

For now, space tourism remains what it has always been: an exclusive experience for the ultra-wealthy, with orbital flights as its most viable expression. The democratization of space will have to wait.

Paid subscribers can read the full article on The Journal of Space Commerce under the Market Insights tab, where you can also find a deep dive on how space insurance brokers engineer risk. You can also check out our article on the microchip bottleneck under the Supply Chain tab.

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The House Science, Space and Technology Committee took its first look at the NASA 2026 Reauthorization bill in a markup hearing this week.

The full committee markup is the first opportunity for lawmakers to formally vote on the underlying bill, and offer amendments.

The bill brings a particular focus on the role the commercial space industry will play in future NASA missions. It explicitly empowers the NASA Administrator to enter into agreements and public–private partnerships with U.S. commercial providers to support human exploration of the Moon and cislunar space, expanding a model pioneered for cargo and crew to the International Space Station (ISS). The bill directs NASA to “support the development and demonstration of” human-rated lunar landing capabilities and, subject to funding, to procure those capabilities from “not fewer than two commercial providers,” effectively guaranteeing a multi‑vendor market for lunar landers and related services.

The legislation requires that any commercial provider supplying human lunar landing systems be a U.S. commercial provider, reinforcing a domestic industrial base for high‑end human‑spaceflight hardware and operations. By tying these systems directly to NASA’s Moon‑to‑Mars roadmap and Artemis missions, the bill signals steady demand for lunar transportation and surface operations that could anchor long‑term business plans in the commercial space sector.

Committee Chairman Brian Babin of Texas said that passing the reauthorization is essential to America’s future in space.

“The NASA Reauthorization Act of 2026 ensures that America does not merely participate in the next year of space exploration, but that we lead it. It strengthens our commitment to returning astronauts to the moon and building the capabilities needed to send humans onward to Mars,” Babin said. “It supports the systems, the technologies, and partnerships required for deep space missions, while also fueling a growing commercial economy and low Earth orbit that will sustain American leadership for many decades. With China nipping at our heels and investing heavily in its own ambitions beyond Earth, we cannot afford to drift without direction. This legislation ensures the United States sets the pace, establishes the standards, and carries forward the spirit of exploration that has long defined our nation.”

The bill positions commercial space stations and other private platforms as the backbone of U.S. low‑Earth orbit operations once the ISS is retired, directing NASA to spell out its research, development, and operational requirements in orbit and share them with U.S. industry.

Another section orders a report on the risks of any gap in U.S. access to low‑Earth orbit platforms, including the potential impact on “the development of the United States-based commercial space industry,” and explicitly lists “increasing investment in and accelerating development of commercial space stations” as one option to prevent such a gap. By writing commercial platforms into the strategy for replacing the ISS, the bill effectively treats private space stations as critical national infrastructure and a central pillar of the future orbital economy.

While the bill aims to expand commercial roles, it also tightens guardrails by requiring NASA to certify compliance with existing “commercial item” and competition statutes. Collectively, the provisions would entrench commercial companies as indispensable partners in NASA’s exploration, ISS transition, and low‑Earth orbit strategies.

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Blue Origin will pause its New Shepard flights for at least two years, and shift resources to further accelerate development of the company’s human lunar capabilities, the company announced late last week. Blue Origin says the decision reflects its commitment to the nation’s goal of returning to the Moon and establishing a permanent, sustained lunar presence.

New Shepard has flown 38 times and carried 98 humans above the Kármán line to date. New Shepard has also launched more than 200 scientific and research payloads from students, academia, research organizations, and NASA.

Blue Origin’s larger rocket, New Glenn, is slated to fly for the third time in late February, though a launch window has not been announced. That flight is scheduled to deploy the BlueBird 7 communications satellite for AST SpaceMobile.

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A Series C funding round has resulted in a $470 million growth capital raise for CesiumAstro, which the company says cements its position as a mission-critical provider of next-generation space and defense communications. The funding includes $270 million in equity, led by Trousdale Ventures.

The capital will fuel CesiumAstro’s rapid scale-up, including the build-out of a new 270,000-square-foot headquarters, expanded manufacturing capacity, and accelerated deployment of its software-defined, AI-enabled space communications platforms worldwide.

The funding comes amid strong operational execution, as CesiumAstro advances multiple government and commercial programs and expands its portfolio of software-defined communications systems.

Proceeds will support expanded manufacturing, accelerated AI-enabled communications development, scaled production of the company’s fully integrated Element LEO satellite, and growth of global technical and program teams.

A mission order for the fifth private astronaut mission (PAM) to the International Space Station has been signed by NASA and Axiom Space, the fifth consecutive such award granted by the agency.

Axiom Mission 5 (Ax-5) is targeted to launch no earlier than January 2027 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and is expected to spend up to 14 days docked to the space station. The crew complement is pending final agreements and agency and international approvals and will be announced at a future date.

As part of the NASA award, Axiom Space brings on Voyager Technologies as a teammate participating in payload integration.

In four years, Axiom Space has successfully executed four missions onboard the space station, flying 14 private and government astronauts, who conducted more than 160 science and research activities, and more than 100 outreach and media engagements while on orbit.

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The satellite propulsion market, which encompasses propulsion systems that enable satellites to maintain orbit, change trajectories, control orientation, prevent collisions, or deorbit at mission end, is on track for significant expansion over the coming decade. Stratview Research projects that the market will grow from $3.08 billion in 2024 to $7.82 billion by 2032, achieving a CAGR of 12.3 % during the forecast period (2025-2032).

The single most important growth driver is the expansion in satellite launches for communication and Earth observation services, as the proliferation of satellites-which require reliable and efficient propulsion for accurate orbital placement and station-keeping-boosts demand across commercial, government, and defense sectors.

The electric propulsion segment is expected to be the fastest-growing segment through 2032, propelled by its efficiency, extended mission durations, and lower propellant requirements compared to chemical systems. As satellite platforms-particularly small and medium satellites-prioritize weight and performance, manufacturers and developers are increasingly investing in electric propulsion technologies that support longer operational life and reduced mission costs.

Market drivers include an increasing number of satellite launches for communication and Earth observation services; the rising adoption of efficient electric propulsion systems for extended mission life and reduced propellant needs, and; growth in commercial space activities driving demand for satellite propulsion innovations.

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A stark divide is reshaping the space industry—and it comes down to a decision made back in late 2022.

In Depth this week, the industry split between adaptive commercial operators and constrained government programs. (Paywall)

When pandemic-era supply shortages hit satellite manufacturers, they faced a choice: wait for supply chains to recover, or rebuild them from scratch. Four years later, the companies that chose to rebuild are deploying satellite constellations on schedule. The ones that waited? They’re still waiting.

This isn’t just about pandemic recovery. An analysis published this week shows the space industry has fundamentally restructured into two tiers—where organizational agility matters more than component availability for well-funded operators, while material constraints continue to strangle everyone else.

Back in mid-2022, the crisis was severe. Semiconductor lead times stretched to 40 to 52 weeks—triple the pre-pandemic baseline. Optical terminals for satellites required 18 months. Radiation-hardened processors? Also 18 months. As one production manager told Via Satellite: “After COVID, there are no more miracles.”

Fast forward to 2026, and some constraints have actually worsened. Rare earth elements, critical for satellite control systems, still face 12 to 18 month delays. China controls up to 93 percent of global rare earth processing. Heat pipe manufacturers can produce 200 to 300 units annually, but constellation demand sits at 600 to 1,000 units. The math simply doesn’t work.

So how are some companies succeeding? Vertical integration. SpaceX, for example, now manufactures roughly 85 percent of its components in-house—from engines to satellite systems. The result? 62 Starlink launches in just the first half of 2025.

But this strategy requires massive capital most companies lack. And it doesn’t solve the geology problem—dysprosium deposits concentrate in China, and no amount of in-house manufacturing changes that reality.

Government programs face additional constraints. Procurement regulations prevent the rapid supplier switching that commercial operators employ. The Space Development Agency experienced 6 to 8 month delays on its Tranche 1 constellation, partially due to propulsion supply chain issues.

Meanwhile, China has commissioned 37 satellite manufacturing plants, with more under construction—creating competitive pressure through sheer manufacturing scale.

The analysis concludes that organizational structure now determines competitive positioning as much as technology capability. Market consolidation appears inevitable, with only vertically-integrated players able to maintain schedule reliability. For the rest of the industry, the constraints persist.

Paid subscribers can read the full analysis on The Journal of Space Commerce under the Supply Chain tab, where you can also find a report on how power system supply chains are constraining the mega-constellation era.

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The U.S. Space Force Space Development Agency (SDA) has awarded a $52.5 million contract to Starfish Space to provide Deorbit-as-a-Service (DaaS) for satellites within the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA). The award is the first such contracted mission for end-of-life satellite disposal service for any provider.

Under the contract, Starfish Space will build, launch, and operate an Otter spacecraft in low Earth orbit (LEO) to safely and efficiently dispose of SDA satellites at the end of their operational lives. The mission begins with an initial deorbit, with options for multiple additional deorbits, enabled by Otter’s significant capacity and ability to service several satellites in a single mission.

As LEO constellations continue to expand and require refresh cycles, operators must put more emphasis on managing end-of-life disposal safely, reliably, and at scale. Until now, operators have only had two options for managing end-of-life: actively deorbit satellites prematurely to mitigate risk of early failure and resulting operational hazards, or fly satellites for longer and contend with increasing debris and collision risks across their constellation. With Deorbit-as-a-Service, operators have a better alternative: maximize the operational life and value of their constellations and rely on vendors to dispose of any satellites which cannot dispose of themselves.

The mission, which is targeting a 2027 launch date, will demonstrate how commercial Deorbit-as-a-Service can support both government and commercial constellation operators, maximizing the value and capabilities LEO operators can derive from their constellations as they continue to scale.

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In a related development, the European Space Agency (ESA) has awarded a contract valued at more than $475,000 to Astroscale UK to lead the design of the In-Orbit Refurbishment and Upgrading Service (IRUS). The novel mission concept is designed to lead to technology that will enable satellites to be upgraded, repaired, and extended while in orbit. This initiative supports ESA’s Space Safety Program, reinforcing Europe’s commitment to reducing orbital risks and ensuring safe operations for future generations.

With the involvement of the spacecraft manufacturer and operator BAE Systems in the role of a future in-orbit servicing client, IRUS represents a major step towards a circular space economy, where satellites are maintained, repaired and enhanced in orbit rather than treated as single-use. Developing this new capability will pave the way for more complex In-Orbit Servicing, Assembly and Manufacturing (ISAM) capabilities – as refurbishment and upgrading are essential precursors to assembling and manufacturing platforms in space.

The eight-month Phase A study contract will develop the technical groundwork and commercial case for in-orbit refurbishment and upgrading services. The team will explore how robotic and servicing technologies can safely connect with and refurbish satellites already in orbit, assessing the technical feasibility and commercial viability of upgrading a satellite or extending its life through replacing degraded or out-of-date subsystems such as batteries, solar panels and on-board computers.

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The Optical (laser) Satellite Communication Market is projected to grow from $620 million in 2025 to $1.56 billion by 2030 at a CAGR of 20.4%, according to a new report from MarketsandMarkets. The market is growing steadily, driven by a growing need for secure, high-capacity data links across space missions, defense applications, and commercial satellite networks. Improvements in laser terminal pointing and tracking systems, along with AI-based link management, are making these systems more reliable and easier to operate.

The demand is rising for high-capacity inter-satellite links, secure data transmission, and low-latency connectivity across LEO and multi-orbit satellite constellations. The optical (laser) satellite communication market is driven by the need for high-throughput and secure data links to support growing satellite data traffic. There is an increase in the adoption of laser inter-satellite links in LEO constellations, and demand for low-latency connectivity across defense and commercial missions is a key growth factor.

By component, the Pointing, Acquisition, and Tracking (PAT) module segment is projected to account for the largest market share during the forecast period. By application, the network backbone and relay communications segment is expected to see the highest growth, driven by the use of optical intersatellite links to build space-based mesh networks that reduce dependence on ground stations.

North American accounted for a 67.9% market revenue share in 2024. However, the Asia Pacific region is expected to be the fastest-growing region during the forecast period.

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A milestone year has been reported by Astra, showing $45 million in revenue for 2025, breakeven EBITDA and 100% satellite engine mission reliability. The company says it has shipped 110 satellite engine systems in the past calendar year, surpassing a key operating milestone set when the company went private in 2024.

Astra shipped the 110 systems with a team of approximately 100 employees, reflecting operating leverage driven by tighter process gating, increased automation, and execution discipline across manufacturing, test, and their supply chain. All systems are designed, manufactured, and tested at Astra’s Alameda, California facility.

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A series F funding round coming in at just under $130 million has been closed by Interstellar Technologies through a third-party allotment of new shares. The round was completed with the investments from SBI Group, Nomura Real Estate Development, B Dash Venture, SMBC Edge, and existing shareholders, in addition to the previously announced investors, and represents one of the largest fundraising efforts to date by a privately held space startup in Japan.

The round, led by Woven by Toyota, raised $95.5 million through a third-party allotment of preferred shares in an up-round. In addition, the company secured just over $34.2 million in debt financing from financial institutions, including loan facilities with stock acquisition rights provided by the Japan Finance Corporation.

Alongside the fundraising, secondary transactions with existing shareholders were also conducted to optimize the company’s capital structure. Nomura Securities provided advisory support in this series, including the introduction of several potential investors, some of which resulted in fundraising.

The funds raised in this round will be used primarily for the development of first ZERO orbital launch vehicle, strengthening the manufacturing system toward future commercialization, and the research and development of satellites, thereby driving further expansion of both businesses.

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Launch timing for the BlueBird 7 mission has been announced by AST SpaceMobile. The launch is currently scheduled for late February from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Blue Origin’s New Glenn launch vehicle.

Identical to BlueBird 6, BlueBird 7 is the second satellite in AST SpaceMobile’s next-generation campaign. At nearly 2,400 square feet, it features the largest commercial communications array in low Earth orbit, 3.5 times larger than BlueBirds 1-5. Its size and design, built on significant technical innovation and supported by more than 3,800 patent and patent-pending claims, enable peak data rates of up to 120 Mbps space-based broadband connectivity for voice, data, and streaming.

The next generation BlueBirds are designed to be compatible with all major launch vehicles. Future missions on New Glenn are expected to deliver up to 8 next generation BlueBirds per flight, with its seven-meter fairing enabling twice the payload volume of five-meter class commercial launch systems.

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In depth this week, the satellite industry faced a supply chain nightmare in 2022, with critical components like optical communication terminals and radiation-hardened processors backordered for 18 months. Industry analysts predicted widespread deployment delays that would cripple the booming constellation business. But those delays never materialized—at least not for commercial operators. (Paywall)

According to industry data, constellation operators achieved 94% of their planned launch targets despite the crisis. SpaceX launched 96 missions in 2023 alone, more than all other launch providers worldwide combined. OneWeb finished deploying its 648-satellite constellation on schedule by 2023.

The secret? Commercial operators rebuilt their supply chains from scratch rather than waiting for global markets to recover. Companies like SpaceX doubled down on vertical integration, manufacturing critical components in-house at their Redmond, Washington facility—a strategy industry veterans initially dismissed as inefficient.

The approach created what one analysis calls “a parallel manufacturing economy” built on three pillars: making components internally, stockpiling critical parts, and simplifying satellite designs to reduce dependencies.

The strategy worked. While component shortages were real—German optical terminal maker Mynaric nearly went bankrupt before being acquired—commercial operators maintained their production pace through manufacturing flexibility unavailable to competitors.

The exception highlights the rule: The Space Development Agency, bound by government procurement regulations, experienced exactly the delays commercial operators avoided on their Tranche 1 satellite constellation.

Industry observers say these manufacturing changes aren’t temporary fixes but represent a permanent shift in constellation economics, widening the gap between operators controlling their own production and those relying on traditional supply chains.

Paid subscribers can read the full analysis on The Journal of Space Commerce under the Supply Chain tab, where you can also find deep dives on Supply Chain Sovereignty in Rare Materials, The Strategic Premium on Supply Chain Gaps, and The CEO Playbook for Supply Chain Resilience.

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