By Sandra Erwin
Welcome to this week's edition of SpaceNews' Military Space, your source for the latest developments at the intersection of space and national security. In this week's edition: Ukraine pitches itself as space and defense tech testing ground and Viasat turns focus to military satellite manufacturing.
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Ukraine's war a testbed for AI, satellites and the future of warfare
During three years of a grinding war with Russia, Ukraine has become an epicenter of warfare innovation — and the world's most dynamic drone and data battlefield. For companies at the intersection of space, AI and defense, Ukraine now serves as a live proving ground for how commercial satellite data and artificial intelligence are reshaping modern combat.
"Ukraine is one of the most sophisticated users now - arguably the most sophisticated user - of Earth observation data and AI," said Will Marshall, founder and CEO of Planet Labs, speaking at an investors conference last week. "Because necessity is the mother of invention, they've been constantly adapting to stay ahead." Planet Labs, which operates a constellation of about 140 imaging satellites that map the entire Earth daily, has worked closely with Kyiv since the early stages of the war. Marshall said Planet worked with then-Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov and other Ukrainian officials, gaining firsthand insight into how satellite data has been central to Ukraine's defense. Reznikov, who led Ukraine's defense ministry from 2021 to 2023, addressed the Planet conference remotely from Kyiv, urging U.S. industry executives to deepen cooperation with Ukrainian firms. "The nature of conflict has changed," he said. Wars today are fought not just on land, in the air or at sea, but also "in the information domain, in space and across digital networks." Military power, Reznikov argued, now comes not from sheer firepower but from speed and intelligence. "Modern defense is about seeing, understanding and acting faster than your enemy," he said. To achieve that, he added, engineers, soldiers, and entrepreneurs in Ukraine work side-by-side, "testing solutions in real time and under real pressure." Satellite data and AI are at the center of that shift. "We have learned to integrate traditional military analysis with cutting-edge technologies, from AI-driven data analytics to commercial satellite imagery," Reznikov said. From the early days of the invasion, he noted, "the best intelligence capabilities of the West were placed at the service of Ukrainian armed forces. This gave us a significant edge in reconnaissance and targeting."
Ukraine rapidly integrated commercial space infrastructure into its defense architecture, Reznikov said, citing SpaceX's Starlink for communications and satellite imagery from Planet, Maxar, and Iceye for real-time reconnaissance. Using that imagery, he said, "operations were carried out that destroyed enemy equipment worth a billion dollars." As Russian electronic warfare complicated drone operations, he added, "space imagery from Planet has become the main reconnaissance tool … We use these images to monitor enemy strategic aviation, track equipment, and depots deep within Russia." Reznikov emphasized that Ukraine's tactics evolve as Russian forces adapt. "They are very good students. They watch how the world reacts, how intelligence and industry cooperate and how democracies respond," he said. "That is why operational awareness, the ability to see, predict and respond to threats before they escalate, is vital for the entire free world ... This is how we prevent future wars, by being informed, connected and ready." Reznikov also issued a direct call to U.S. industry: Partner with organizations in Ukraine, where technologies are validated under real conditions and "successful ones scale to global markets," he said. "You will have a stamp 'combat tested in Ukraine.' You can invest in analytics and AI for satellite imagery, resilience, communication systems that work under attack, dual-use technologies that serve both defense and civilian needs." Marshall said Planet's work in Ukraine "helped adapt our products and services."
And the demand for such capabilities isn't going away, Reznikov warned. Even if the war ended today, he said, the need for overhead reconnaissance and AI-driven analytics would persist: this technology is needed to ensure long-enduring global security.
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Viasat capitalizes on commercial tech for defense deals
Satellite broadband provider Viasat is expanding its focus beyond communications services, moving up the value chain to custom-build spacecraft for the U.S. military.
Craig Miller, president of Viasat Government, told SpaceNews the company is leveraging its commercial portfolio, including the technology underpinning its flagship ViaSat-3satellites, to become a dedicated satellite provider for defense.
The company designed a dual-band geostationary satellite for the U.S. Space Force's Protected Tactical Satcom-Global (PTS-G) program. PTS-G aims to deploy smaller, jam-resistant satellites built on commercial product lines. Viasat, along with Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Intelsat and Astranis, secured initial contracts this summer as part of a $4 billion, 15-year indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity agreement. The first $37.5 million tranche tasks contractors with submitting satellite and ground architecture designs by early 2026, with the first launches projected for 2028. Viasat's design is a dual X/Ka-band architecture. The post-Inmarsat rebalance: This shift follows Viasat's 2023 acquisition of Inmarsat, which expanded its fleet and prompted a new focus on mobility and government markets. The company redirected resources from the planned ViaSat-4 satellite development into programs such as PTS-G.
Maneuverable satellites: Viasat also plans to bid on the Space Force's new Maneuverable Geosynchronous Orbit Commercial Satellite-Based Services (MGEO) program, which seeks small, nimble GEO satellites capable of rapid redeployment between orbital slots to support changing military needs.
This opens the door for innovative "condosat" business models, where a single satellite carries both commercial and defense payloads, allowing the commercial mission to "offset the price of the defense mission," according to Miller.
Eyeing Golden Dome: Looking ahead, Viasat plans to pursue defense deals as part of the Golden Dome missile defense program, anticipating the need for massive, low-latency command-and-control bandwidth for its global network of ground and space-based sensors and interceptors.
Viasat believes its work on multi-band relay communications for NASA translates directly to the necessary resilience and communications-at-scale required for a space-based interceptor layer.
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Space tech gets its defense moment — but there's a catch
There's a lot of money flowing into global security budgets, and space is high on the shopping list.
Bogdan Gogulan, CEO and managing partner at NewSpace Capital, makes the case that governments want what commercial space operators have: speed, agility, scalability and better technology than bureaucracies can build. Germany's defense overhaul is explicitly turning to private space firms. The Pentagon's Commercial Augmentation Space Reserve and the White House's Golden Dome project are doing the same.
For investors, this validates space as an essential asset class, not a speculative bet.
But here's the catch: Space companies betting everything on defense could be making a mistake, Gogulan says. Government procurement moves at government speed, deals get delayed, orders get cancelled.
The winners will be companies that resist the siren song of all-defense strategy. The play should be dual-use: innovations with civil and defense applications. That approach delivers diverse revenue streams, resilience against market swings, and the flexibility to shift emphasis as demand ebbs and flows. Commercial is the foundation; defense is the cherry on top.
The bottom line: Defense ministers need what commercial space provides: innovation, agility and efficiency. Space companies need what defense budgets provide: real money. Gogulan insists that the key to success is to maintain commercial focus while capturing defense upside — not the other way around.
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