Astronomy Prints 🌌: Expert predictions and suggestions for what lies ahead for the space industry in 2026

Wednesday, January 21, 2026

Expert predictions and suggestions for what lies ahead for the space industry in 2026

For our January 2026 issue of SpaceNews magazine, we asked more than a dozen space industry leaders to look into their crystal balls and tell us what to expect for 2026, either what's going to happen or what should happen.

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Here's what our contributors said they're expecting:

SpaceX's IPO will make space investment far less niche

By Micah Walter-Range, president of Caelus Partners, and a contributor to the S-Network Space Index, the index behind the Procure Space ETF (UFO)

The Pentagon will feel the pressure to finally realize 'commercial first'

By Sandra Erwin, senior staff writer at SpaceNews

Credit: NASA/SpaceNews illustration

It'll be a make or break year for NASA

By G. Scott Hubbard, former director, NASA's Ames Research Center; former director, NASA Mars Program, and Bruce M. Jakosky, emeritus professor, University of Colorado Boulder and University of Washington; former principal investigator, MAVEN

The U.S. will seize space leadership – or China will take it

By Kurt "Spuds" Vogel, aerospace consultant and previously NASA's associate administrator for space technology as well as director of space architecture after 32 years in leadership positions in the U.S. Department of Defense

This year must bring greater collaboration against orbital congestion

By Agostinho Linhares, executive director of the Instituto de Pesquisa para Economia Digital (IPE Digital) in Brazil

A year to clarify Europe's new priorities for space

By Emma Gatti, SpaceNews correspondent in Europe

An illustration of Rocket Lab's proposed Earth Return Orbiter, which would capture a container of samples launched from the Martian surface to return to Earth. Credit: Rocket Lab

Build a commercial backbone for interplanetary science

By Peter Beck, founder, president and CEO of Rocket Lab Corporation

The Space Force will acquire and integrate systems faster

By Claire Leon, former director of the Space Force's Space Systems Integration Office and partner at Elara Nova

The year of space nuclear power and surviving the lunar night

By Tyler Bernstein, co-founder and CEO; A.C. Charania, SVP of space business development; and Alex Gilbert, VP of regulation at Zeno Power

Space sustainability will evolve into a data-driven system

By Clinton Clark, chief growth officer, ExoAnalytic Solutions, and Ralph "Dinz" Dinsley, general manager at 3S Northumbria

AI needs spatial intelligence. The GEOINT industry will deliver it.

By Dan Smoot, CEO of Vantor

There's no end in sight for a nuclear renaissance

By Brad Tousley, former director of the Tactical Technology Office at DARPA and partner at Elara Nova

Space operations will become more dynamic

By Charles Galbreath, director of the Mitchell Institute's Spacepower Advantage Center of Excellence and partner at Elara Nova

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