The New Space Commerce Regulatory Landscape
When Regulation Meets a Deal Wave: Potential Winning Strategies for 2026
If 2025 was the year regulators stepped on the gas for commercial space, 2026 is when we find out which deal valuations were priced for the new rules and which were priced for a fantasy. A sharp rebound in global M&A collided with one of the most consequential regulatory resets the industry has seen in a decade, forcing investors to decide which space assets truly earn their premiums and which are riding a passing sugar high.
On the U.S. side, President Trump’s 2025 Executive Order 14335, ‘Enabling Competition in the Commercial Space Industry,’ explicitly framed commercial space as a national-competitiveness priority and ordered agencies to streamline licensing, permitting, and environmental review for launches and novel space activities. It also elevated the Office of Space Commerce within the Department of Commerce, signaling that commercial space regulation and promotion are now core economic policy rather than niche technical issues.
In parallel, NASA moved ahead with acquisition reforms that expand the use of fixed-price, milestone-based Space Act Agreements and Other Transaction Authority structures, especially in programs like Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD), shifting more performance and schedule risk to contractors while preserving long-term demand visibility for those that execute. Across the Atlantic, the European Commission unveiled its draft EU Space Act in mid-2025, a framework that would apply to both EU and non-EU operators providing space services in Europe, with safety, resilience, and environmental provisions and a staged implementation beginning around 2030.
All of this happened against the backdrop of a broad-based M&A rebound: global deal value increased meaningfully versus 2024, average EV/EBITDA multiples held up or ticked higher in favored sectors, and aerospace, defense, and space (AD&S) saw a double-digit increase in announced transactions, with more than 150 AD&S deals in Q1 alone and strong appetite for precision components, defense tech, and UAV platforms. Within that surge, space-related transactions rode the same rising tide but also enjoyed an extra push from deregulation headlines, NASA budget signals, and a renewed willingness among strategics and private equity to pay up for orbital infrastructure and supply chain assets.
The core question for 2026 is straightforward but uncomfortable: which of 2025’s space deal structures and valuation multiples are grounded in durable regulatory pathways and budget-backed demand, and which will look stretched once the novelty of new rules wears off.
