Commercial Observer In 2026, the South Bay is in a different league compared to where it was just 15 years ago. Dozens of startups have cropped up in coastal Silicon Beach cities. The aerospace and defense industries added 11,000 jobs to L.A. County between 2022 and 2024 alone

SpaceNews — Under a new strategy, the U.S. Space Force is looking to leverage commercial phased-array technology and walk away from customized designs.

SpaceNews — The U.S. Space Force’s push to accelerate procurement of new systems is running up against a basic constraint: not enough contracting officers and financial managers to execute the work.

Breaking Defense — Gen. Chance Saltzman, U.S. Space Force chief, said the work already done to design a satellite system for tracking ground targets should also help speed Airborne Moving Target Indicators (AMTI) capabilities to orbit.

Aerospace America — The Air Force’s new acquisition approach will eventually result in about 18 portfolio acquisition executives, Secretary Troy Meink said. These PAEs will “have all the contracting, finance” personnel directly under their authority.

Breaking Defense — Companies involved in manufacturing satellites may shift their sights away from DoD to supplying commercial players simply due to the economies of scale. Another complicating factor is that DoD demand can be fickle as it is dependent on the annual budget and political winds.

Aerospace America — Based on the missions launched to date and those projected to by 2030, the number of orbit “conjunctions” where collisions or near misses are possible could increase 100-fold, according to a 2025 paper by the Aerospace Corporation.

The New York Times — NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said that Artemis III will launch in mid-2027 as a flight test to practice rendezvousing in low-earth orbit, so the agency can iterate more quickly between Artemis missions.

SpaceNews — Procurements of certain elements of the U.S. military’s low Earth orbit satellite constellation known as the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) are on hold, as the Pentagon reviews acquisition options and shifts responsibility for parts of the program outside the Space Development Agency (SDA).

Federal News Network — Chief Master Sgt. of the Space Force John Bentivegna told the Senate Armed Services Committee that while “achieving a force of just over 10,000 uniformed guardians in 2025 was a landmark milestone, it is insufficient for the missions we have been assigned.”