Space Commerce Week

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A weekly newsletter published to the community highlighting the news of the week and letting you know who our podcast guest is that week. We will look ahead to the coming week to see what's happening and let you know. www.exterrajsc.com

  1. 1D AGO

    NASA GAO Questions the Moon Lander Program, and AIAA Publishes Satellite Operator Best Practices

    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. -0- 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. -0- 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. 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. -0- 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. -0- The commercial s

    24 min

  2. MAY 17

    The FCC Rewrites the Rulebook on Direct-to-Device, and the Satellite Industry’s Annual Report

    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. -0- 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. -0- 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. -0- 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. -0- 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 sign

    22 min

  3. MAY 10

    Satellite Spectrum Rules Get a Major Update From the FCC. And the Earth Observation and Satellite Propulsion Markets

    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. -0- 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. -0- 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. 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. -0- 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

    19 min

  4. MAY 3

    The FCC Reshapes the Satellite Landscape, and That Market is Poised to Thrive

    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. -0- 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. -0- 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. 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. -0- 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. -0- 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

    18 min

  5. APR 26

    Satellite Licensing Reform, Spacesuits, and Nuclear Power

    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. -0- 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. -0- 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. 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. -0- 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 -0- 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

    17 min

  6. APR 19

    Unlocking New Space Broadband Capacity, and the Consequences of ‘On Hold’

    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. -0- 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. -0- 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.” 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. -0- 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. -0- 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. Worth a Second Look Space Control Platform MDA Midnight Unveiled by MDA Space On-Orbit Precision Acquisition and Tracking Demonstrated by Star Catcher NASA Awards Seventh Private Astronaut Mission to Voyager Satellite Constellation Expansion Planned by Vantor Satellite Broadcast’s Final Chapter [Paywall] Theme Stock Music Provided by Pond 5 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.exterrajsc.com/subscribe

    18 min

  7. APR 12

    European Regulations, Weird Space Stuff, and a Bid for Globalstar

    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. -0- 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. -0- 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. 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. -0- 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 commer

    22 min

  8. APR 5

    A Startup Hits Unicorn Status, and the Impact of the SpaceX IPO

    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. -0- 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. -0- 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. 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. -0- 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. -0- 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 th

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About

A weekly newsletter published to the community highlighting the news of the week and letting you know who our podcast guest is that week. We will look ahead to the coming week to see what's happening and let you know. www.exterrajsc.com

Information

  • Creator
    Ex Terra Media, LLC
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    76
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Ex Terra Media, LLC
  • Show Website
    Space Commerce Week