Gizmodo — “While Starlink is really kind of spread across all [customer segments], Amazon and TeraWave have chosen—at least initially—to position themselves towards the higher end,” said Kevin Bell, senior VP of the Engineering and Technology Group (ETG) at The Aerospace Corporation.
SpaceNews — A little more than a year after dismissing the moon as a “distraction,” Elon Musk says SpaceX will focus on lunar settlement before sending humans to Mars.
SpaceNews — Launch companies are divided on how to compete with SpaceX in a market where demand outstrips supply, yet customers remain price sensitive.
Air and Space Forces Magazine — “[NASA and the Pentagon] don’t need to have three bespoke initiatives underway,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said. That could mean using a NASA-certified launch vehicle for defense applications or sharing technology developments in areas like navigation, communications, and nuclear propulsion.
Aerospace America — As the Pentagon pushes to accelerate acquisition, Lt. Gen. David Miller Jr. — the Space Force deputy chief of space operations for strategy, plans, programs and requirements — said the service wants to align its purchases with mission areas, rather than programs.
SpaceNews — An investor in two space companies that went public in the past year said an upcoming SpaceX initial public offering could generate new investor interest in the sector while also triggering a wave of consolidation.
Aviation Week — Congress injected $110-120 million for NASA to further nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) research and development and $50 million for nuclear electric propulsion (NEP) efforts under the recently passed appropriations bill. New NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has embraced nuclear propulsion and fission surface power as core to the agency’s mission.
Aviation Week — The SDA awarded a contract to Tukwila, Washington-based startup Starfish Space to deorbit at least one of the agency’s satellites in a mission targeted for 2027. The goal is to validate a commercial “deorbit-as-a-service” model for managing end-of-life disposal in LEO.
Air and Space Forces Magazine — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth exhorted the U.S. space industry to step up its efforts in a forceful Feb. 2 speech at Blue Origin in which he called for a new era of American “space dominance.” Hegseth’s remarks were part of his “Arsenal of Freedom” tour of American defense firms across the country, in which he has touted acquisition reforms made last fall
T-Minus Podcast — Satlyt is integrating its edge-computing framework with Aerospace’s DiskSat platform. “It has always been our plan for DiskSat to be transitioned to industry as quickly as possible,” said Deb Salvaggio, Aerospace’s Director of Technology Transfer. “DiskSat provides the kind of power and scalability that makes real-time computing in orbit possible, said Satlyt CEO Rama Afullo.
