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: Commercial space seizes opportunities amid the Pentagon's acquisition overhaul. Plus, a new report urges the Space Force to make satellites maneuverable and harder to target.
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Commercial space doubles down on Pentagon demand
The commercial space industry is charging into the national security market, betting that new Pentagon procurement reforms will make it easier for nontraditional suppliers to compete for defense contracts.
The latest move came from lunar lander developer Intuitive Machines, which announced an $800 million acquisition of satellite manufacturer Lanteris Space Systems, formerly known as Maxar Space Systems. Chief executive Steve Altemus said the purchase will help position the Houston-based firm as a "next-generation space prime."
"We feel like we're in a good position for the future opportunities coming out of Golden Dome," Altemus said, referring to the Trump administration's missile defense initiative.
National security venture capital is also moving. The CIA-backed In-Q-Tel announced it is investing in commercial space station developer Vast and will serve as an observer on Vast's board. When asked whether the firm saw national security value in Vast's stations, Gareth Keane, a partner at IQT, said: "A lot of investments that we make are purely for insight, to understand how markets are evolving. I think the commercial space station sector is no different."
The answer signals IQT's confidence that commercial development will eventually prove strategically relevant, even if the immediate use case remains unclear.
Other commercial players are being more explicit about their dual-use calculations. Satellite communications provider Viasat said last week it is expanding its defense footprint. During an earnings call Friday, Mark Dankberg, Viasat's chairman and CEO, cited "increased reliance on space-based assets for national security purposes, both domestically and internationally, which creates a growing set of global opportunities for the commercial space industry, especially for dual-use capable systems."
The posturing extends across the sector. Voyager Technologies is emphasizing missile defense as a key near-term growth driver, calling its defense and national security segment its largest and fastest-growing unit. Satellite startup Apex is investing $15 million into Project Shadow, a demonstration of space-based interceptor technology. And K2 Space is leveraging its multi-orbit satellite platform as a Golden Dome-compatible offering, asserting that its Mega-class satellite design is the "exact full size satellite that could be used in future Golden Dome architectures."
Pentagon's acquisition overhaul
The commercial space push into dual-use markets comes as the Pentagon launches a major effort to overhaul its acquisition system and make it easier for private companies to compete for national security contracts.
The Defense Department on Friday released a new Acquisition Transformation Strategy, following a high-profile speech by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, outlining a set of reforms designed to speed up procurement and strengthen ties with the commercial sector.
The strategy mandates that the Pentagon prioritize speed, flexibility and commercially available technology, including a new directive to adopt a "commercial first" approach.
The convergence of Pentagon procurement reform and commercial space capital deployment suggests the industry believes this moment — potentially a once-in-a-generation opening — is finally here.
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New report warns U.S. satellites are sitting ducks
The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies warns in a new report that the U.S. military's predictable satellite orbits, fixed ground stations and static missions have become vulnerabilities China is working to exploit.
The report, authored by retired Col. Charles Galbreath, argues that the legacy space architecture — designed in an era when space was considered a sanctuary, not a warfighting domain — puts U.S. space superiority at risk. The remedy, according to the report, is a comprehensive shift to "dynamic space operations" — a concept that extends far beyond the on-orbit refueling that has dominated recent Space Force discussions. "DSO is more than rapidly or repeatedly repositioning satellites," Galbreath writes. "All elements of the U.S. space architecture can benefit from increased flexibility and more dynamic operations." The report identifies seven principles for achieving DSO: fielding proliferated satellite constellations, enabling frequent unpredictable maneuvers, employing frequency hopping and laser communications, deploying mobile ground stations with phased array antennas, building modular satellites with reprogrammable software, establishing on-orbit logistics infrastructure and diversifying launch sites and vehicles.
China is already pursuing these capabilities. The report details how Chinese satellites have demonstrated orbital refueling, robotic servicing and what U.S. Space Force officials describe as "dogfighting in space" — coordinated maneuvering operations among multiple spacecraft.
Galbreath notes that the U.S. Space Force has begun moving toward more dynamic systems, with programs like the RG-XX reconnaissance satellite constellation — which the service is designing with on-orbit refueling capability — and technology demonstrations for satellite servicing and modular payloads. The Space Force is also developing next-generation command and control systems like R2C2 and phased-array antennas through the SCAR program to reduce reliance on fixed ground stations.
But the report contends these efforts are insufficient without a decisive commitment to fund large-scale deployments. "The Space Force must now take proactive steps to fully implement these concepts operationally. However, progress moves at the rate it is resourced," Galbreath writes. "Overly constrained budgets have created a barrier to full adoption of DSO." The report calls on Congress to provide "reliable funding growth" and recommends the Space Force establish a dedicated program office for in-space logistics infrastructure — a move that would signal sustained commitment to operational logistics in orbit similar to tanker aircraft operations in the air domain. Notably, the report pushes back against the assumption that rapid launch costs and reusable rockets make satellite refueling unnecessary. It argues that replacing entire satellites during a prolonged conflict would be slower and more resource-intensive than refueling existing operational assets already positioned in space.
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Army's next network brings space into the fight
The U.S. Army is taking another run at a decades-old goal: a fully connected battlefield where every soldier, vehicle and sensor share data seamlessly.
After a string of costly failures — from the Joint Tactical Radio System to the Warfighter Information Network–Tactical and Future Combat Systems — the service is launching Next Generation Command and Control, or NGC2, an effort to link forces through an open, data-driven architecture built more like a commercial tech stack than a traditional weapons program.
Anduril Industries leads the early push with a $100 million contract to prototype NGC2 for an infantry division, joined by Palantir and Microsoft. Lockheed Martin and L3Harris have smaller awards to test competing approaches — a deliberate move toward continuous prototyping and faster iteration.
Role for space tech
The program opens new ground for the space industry, as satellite networks are central to modern command and control, said Craig Miller, president of government systems at Viasat.
"The Army's vision is to fuse streams of data from sensors on land, at sea, in the air and in space — enabling commanders to make faster decisions," he said.
Commercial players are lining up. Kymeta won a contract to supply flat-panel satellite terminals for NGC2's mobile-communications experiments.
"The Army wants to compress a program that could go out five to seven years into two and a half years," said Tom Jackson, Kymeta's executive vice president. He added that the service wants tools that let commanders "tap whichever network — terrestrial or in space — that offers the best balance of bandwidth, latency and security at a given moment."
Miller said the effort could expand opportunities for commercial constellations to provide connectivity, cloud storage and computing power in the field — effectively integrating space assets into the Army's digital backbone.
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