02/17/2026

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Strains with Washington fuel sovereign space spending

Companies in the space-based Earth observation sector are navigating a business climate increasingly shaped by friction between Washington and historically close allies. Executives at the SmallSat Symposium in Mountain View said a shift toward sovereign capability that gained traction in recent years is now accelerating.

"The trends are very clear," said James Crawford, chief strategy officer of the geospatial analytics company Privateer Space. "You don't even have to look at the politics, you just have to look at the quarterly statements coming out of Planet and BlackSky, and the amount of their revenue that's coming from sales of hardware, entire satellites" to non-U.S. customers.

Planet and BlackSky, U.S. remote-sensing operators, have reported growing international sales, reflecting demand from governments seeking greater control over collection, tasking and data exploitation.

This push gained momentum following the 2025 Munich Security Conference, when Trump administration officials signaled a more transactional and ideologically driven U.S. foreign policy. A year later, NATO leaders are openly discussing strategic autonomy amid U.S. trade pressure, and disputes over Greenland and support to Ukraine.

Crawford pointed to a speech at the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney as another inflection point. Carney framed "middle powers" as needing to adapt to a world in which great powers, notably the United States, are no longer dependable guarantors of stability. The implication for the space industry: countries that once relied on U.S.-provided intelligence or commercial data feeds may now seek sovereign satellites, domestic data centers and independent AI models.

Crawford put the question to fellow executives: "Are we going to see more demand from countries all around the world for their own eyes in the sky?"

The response is an emphatic yes.

"We definitely see a shift," said Marco Esposito, managing director of Cosine Remote Sensing, which operates in the Netherlands, Italy and Germany. "The customers have become really defense centered."

Dan Adams, chief executive of Norway's Kongsberg Satellite Services, said his company has seen business pick up substantially over the past 12 months, with "new and very eager buyers for low latency data products in Europe."

KSAT provides ground station capacity to satellite operators, a critical enabler for governments seeking rapid data downlink and processing. Adams described "very demanding customers within the European theater, and globally," adding that "that new infusion of capital, that new infusion of demand, is driving a significant growth segment within our business, and it's forcing us to look in different ways to drive latency even lower."

He characterized the Earth observation market as "very dynamic, it's demanding time, and there's only more money coming to make this thing even more real."

Beyond middle powers

Marino Fragnito, senior vice president at Thales Alenia Space, said the shift is not confined to middle tier nations. "This is a more generalized situation all over the world. It's clear that the geopolitical situation of today has induced all countries in the world to think about sovereign capabilities, not only in the Earth observation domain, but also in telecommunication systems."

Thales Alenia has partnered with Leonardo to build an Earth observation constellation at a new factory in Rome designed to produce up to 100 satellites a year.

Thales also is working with BlackSky to build a constellation for Indonesia. "I can tell you that in the Asia Pacific, all the countries around Indonesia are looking for sovereign capabilities, which is very good for us," Fragnito said. "They want their own ground infrastructure, and they want to have access to the product. They don't want to rely on U.S. components for the satellites," he added. "For sure, this is the consequence of the geopolitical situation."

Follow-through question

Whether today's sovereign rhetoric translates into fully independent constellations remains an open question. Peter Kant, chief executive of Enabled Intelligence, noted that space programs take years to execute. Political priorities and fiscal constraints can shift before satellites reach orbit.

For now, however, the direction is clear: more governments are weighing direct control over collection and processing infrastructure. For satellite manufacturers, ground network operators and geospatial analytics firms, that translates into a growing pipeline of buyers seeking national capability rather than shared access.

Space startups balance tech ambition against customer demand

Jeff Bezos' recent decision to suspend Blue Origin's suborbital space tourism flights and concentrate resources on lunar systems became a talking point during a panel last week at the SmallSat Symposium, where executives debated how to resist chasing aspirational projects that lack clear revenue.

Andrew Kwas, engineering fellow at Northrop Grumman, framed the issue directly. "As leaders in your companies, how do you make that decision?" he asked a panel of startup executives.

Eric Romo, president and chief operating officer of Impulse Space, said the question goes to the core of startup survival. "There's a saying around here in Silicon Valley that startups don't die from starvation. They die from indigestion," he said. "The inability to focus is probably the most killer startup problem."

Founded in 2021 by SpaceX propulsion veteran Tom Mueller, Impulse develops in-space transportation systems, including orbital transfer vehicles and high-thrust stages that move satellites and other payloads from low to higher Earth orbits and beyond.

"We have to make the distinction between aspiration and plan," he said. Despite plans to work on lunar vehicles, moon and Mars-related efforts "are things that we would love to have an opportunity to do as a company. We'd love to be able to support NASA and their goals there. But today, right now, there are zero people in the company actually working on that stuff."

Focus on Pentagon contracts

"Where we've gotten the overwhelming majority of our traction in the market is with the Pentagon, and that's where the majority of our work is right now," Romo said, noting that the military has funded three spacecraft. Even so, he acknowledged the constant pull of new ideas. "Focus is always a challenge, and every day we have that problem of, hey, should we go work on this new cool thing?"

Romo said distraction is almost structural in space. "This market that we're in is just so darn fun that I think we often sort of convince ourselves that opportunities are real … and the space tourism thing is probably a pretty good example."

"We've got to try and figure out, how do we focus on things where there's actually a business opportunity, and that can be hard in a world where all the stuff we want to work on is so interesting," he added.

Jonny Dyer, chief executive of Muon Space, described a similar tension. "A really common problem is a focus on the technology, the product and not really the problem."

Muon designs, builds and operates Earth observation satellite constellations for commercial, climate and national security customers. "One of the things that we really try to do as a company is go very deep with operators that are going to be using our systems, whether they're the warfighters or whether they're fire agencies, and deeply understand their problems or their missions," he said. "If you can internalize that, then you can quickly identify where the real value is, and it makes a lot of these decisions fairly straightforward."

The company is building a constellation for wildfire detection and tracking. "We will also be using those same satellites to support Space Systems Command with their space-based environmental monitoring, and theater weather imagery needs," Dyer said. "And those overhead persistent infrared capabilities are very useful for things like battle damage assessment as well as missile warning and missile tracking."

The goal is solving an end-user problem, he said, "and not trying to sell widgets."

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Golden Dome: Industry leans in despite lingering questions

Space industry executives say they are continuing to invest in the Golden Dome missile defense initiative even as questions persist about its scope, cost and long-term political durability.

During a panel discussion at the SmallSat Symposium, industry analyst Chris Quilty openly questioned whether the effort will ultimately endure or follow the path of past modernization programs that were canceled after years of development.

"We've all heard talks about $25 billion in the budget this year, and hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars, depending upon how you size it," said Quilty, chief executive of Quilty Space. He described Golden Dome as a "budget crosswalk … an amalgamation of things" rather than an actual program.

More than a year after President Trump issued an executive order directing the Pentagon to pursue the effort, Quilty asked executives: "Is this something that has staying power, or is this another Crusader program or Comanche that runs its course for several years and gets canceled?"

He was referencing the Crusader artillery system and the RAH-66 Comanche, two high-profile Army programs scrapped in the early 2000s after billions had been spent amid cost growth and shifting strategic priorities.

Golden Dome is envisioned as a layered homeland defense architecture integrating ground, airborne and space-based systems to detect, track and intercept ballistic, hypersonic and cruise missiles.

Missile defense problem not going away

Mark Hanson, senior mission architect at Redwire, said the issue transcends political cycles.

"Our position is that it's a real problem, the budget notwithstanding," Hanson said. "Whether it's Golden Dome or some other name, it's a real problem that does have to be solved to defend the country. So to that extent, we are devoting internal resources, working with teammates to begin to architect and understand how we would go about solving it."

Redwire is using digital engineering to model "system of systems" scenarios, Hanson said. "And in that sense, however it's defined as a budget item, a crosswalk or wherever, we are actively looking into solutions as to how you would solve it."

Chris Daywalt, vice president of growth at Loft Federal, the U.S. subsidiary of Loft Orbital, struck a similar tone.

"This problem will persist through administrations, through different congresses," he said. "This is a significant call to action that we need to get after, and the technologies to do that we've been developing for years, and we're continuing to deploy them," he added. "That call to action represents a reason for us to continue to invest into this and continue to prepare how we're going to go after the different line items that inevitably will come out."

John Vargas, executive vice president of growth at Voyager Technologies, said his firm is investing in propulsion, space electronics, radios and cameras that could support a Golden Dome architecture. These capabilities, he said, "can empower the Golden Dome architecture, but can also empower other solutions that are being developed by the Space Force and others."

Program's contours remain unclear

"We still don't have a good idea of what Golden Dome is," Quilty said.

Program manager Gen. Michael Guetlein has indicated he does not plan to provide open briefings because of cybersecurity threats from foreign actors. "So they've decided to basically keep the entire program behind the classified wall," Quilty noted.

John Rood, president and chief executive of Momentus, said he has "mixed emotions" about that approach. Rood, a former U.S. defense intelligence official, said he understands the need to protect sensitive information.

At the same time, "part of our strength in the United States is this open system by which we can have that innovation," he said.

"There is a balance that I understand General Guetlein is trying to strike, but I would personally like to see more of an open dialog about some of the challenges that need to be met, to encourage some of these other players to come in from the tech industry."

Watching the clock

Defense analyst Tom Karako of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said the pace of the initiative has not matched early expectations, though he cautioned that the effort is complex.

In the coming weeks and possibly months, "if we don't begin to see contracts, I'm going to start to get a little more nervous," Karako said Feb. 13. "You're definitely going to see some tests and that sort of thing."

More fundamentally, he said, the program needs broad political backing. "What we need to see is a widespread and bipartisan understanding of the basic idea of what we're trying to do here and how it contributes to deterrence," Karako said.

As with any large defense effort, politics can shift. "Golden Dome should not be political. It should not be a lightning rod. The threats don't care whether you're blue or red, which state you're in … And so this kind of capability development needs to be sustained," he added.

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