Plus: Shattered launch records in 2025
| By Dan Robitzski
Defense contractor L3Harris sold a majority stake in its Space Propulsion and Power Systems business to the private equity firm AE Industrial Partners, giving up 60% of the business for $845 million. That makes the sale, as SpaceNews senior staff writer Sandra Erwin reported, the first major restructuring of L3Harris' space portfolio since the company bought Aerojet Rocketdyne in 2023.
The 40% retained by L3Harris includes the RS-25 rocket engine, which powers NASA's Space Launch System for Artemis lunar missions and carries long-term contractual and mission commitments — ultimately allowing L3Harris' work with NASA to continue uninterrupted by the acquisition.
AE Industrial said in a press statement that the acquired business will be renamed Rocketdyne, a brand whose heritage dates back to the 1950s. The group also said it will pursue accelerated propulsion system development through its RL-10 engines, in-space propulsion technologies and space power systems, which will be folded into AE Industrial's broader portfolio of aerospace technologies.
This adds the Space Propulsion and Power Systems business to an investment portfolio that already includes major players in the space industry. AE Industrial Partners invests in York Space Systems, which filed for an initial public offering in November, Redwire, which went public via a special purpose acquisition company in 2021, and Firefly Aerospace, whose IPO was in August.
AE's published strategy revolves around investing in themes and developing complementary technologies. While the company already has a significant presence in aircraft and military aerospace manufacturers, it's increasingly clear with this latest acquisition that the company has a significant foothold in the commercial space realm as well.
| | | | | | | SIGNIFICANT DIGIT
| $24.438 billion | | The fiscal year 2026 budget for NASA agreed to in a new "minibus" appropriations package released Jan. 5 by the leadership of the House and Senate appropriations committees. | | | | | | | A YEAR OF BROKEN RECORDS
| | 2025 was a banner year for shattering launch records worldwide. Collectively, orbital launches (and attempts) reached new all-time highs, largely driven by SpaceX's Starlink deployments and China's rapidly growing space program. Here are some key facts for 2025's 324 orbital launch attempts, which represents a 25% increase from 2024's previous record of 259: -
88% of all launch attempts came from China (92) and the U.S. (193). -
SpaceX conducted 170 of those 193 American launches. -
Other commercial providers were also active, including Rocket Lab, which set its own annual record with 21 Electron launches. -
Europe did not set a launch record this year, but its eight launches do represent a significant increase over its cadence for the last several years. -
Russia and India's launch rates remain relatively unchanged in recent years, though their maintained presence in space helped break the global record. | | | | | | | FROM SPACENEWS |  | | How physics AI is transforming the future of space engineering: On this episode of Space Minds, host David Ariosto speaks with Juan Alonso — CTO and co-founder of Luminary Cloud and professor at Stanford University — about the rapid transformation underway in aerospace engineering. Alonso breaks down how advances in computational fluid dynamics and Physics AI are enabling designers to simulate complex aerodynamic behavior in seconds, dramatically accelerating how rockets, aircraft and hypersonic systems are conceived and tested. Watch and listen to this episode. | | | | | | | | | SpaceX plans to lower the orbits of some of its Starlink satellites, a move the company says is intended to improve space safety following two recent incidents.
| | | | China's astronaut corps has completed a near month-long underground cave training, conducted in part to prepare for future crewed lunar landing missions.
| | | | | A Spanish military communications satellite launched in October was struck by what its operator described as a "space particle," an event that could jeopardize the spacecraft's mission.
| | | | Array Labs announced Jan. 5 it raised $20 million in a Series A round as it pushes to bring lower-cost synthetic aperture radar into commercial and national security markets.
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