Astronomy Prints 🌌: Editor's Choice: What's drawing space startups to California?

08/12/2026

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By Mike Gruss

What states come to mind when you think about the space industry?

Florida. Alabama. Texas. Colorado. Ohio.

And of course, California. Mention some Golden State cities and the tie to space is even clearer: Sunnyvale. Hawthorne. El Segundo.

As the space economy grows, so too does the number of states hoping to show they’re an attractive place for the industry to call home. California, with plenty of space industry history under its belt, is well on the way.

Debra Werner’s story on how the state is having a kind of space manufacturing renaissance is a good reminder, particularly for those of us on the East Coast, of how strong the space industry remains there.

Yes, there’s the government presence with Space Force’s Space System Command (Los Angeles) and the Jet Propulsion Lab (Pasadena) but a new brand of space startups the last couple of years have made California their manufacturing hub. That includes a flurry of activity in the Bay area.

A few key paragraphs from the story:

While Silicon Valley and the Los Angeles metropolitan area have impressive satellite-manufacturing legacies, California’s reputation as a space-technology hub suffered in recent years when Aerojet Rocketdyne, SpaceX, Made in Space and Orbit Fab announced plans to move headquarters or manufacturing out of state. In many cases, company executives — most notably SpaceX’s Elon Musk — cited California’s high cost of living, stringent regulations and financial incentives offered by Colorado, Florida and Texas.

Now, satellite manufacturing is flourishing in Colorado, Florida, Texas and Washington, but it’s also booming in California despite some big name departures.

In the last three years, some of the industry’s fastest rising companies including Aerospacelab, Apex, Astranis, K2 Space, Millennium Space Systems, Muon, Terran Orbital, True Anomaly, Umbra and Xona Space Systems have opened California manufacturing plants or expanded existing facilities.

I asked Debra about what’s different about this era of California expansion. Here's what she told me:

"Lockheed's Sunnyvale plant was known primarily for producing sophisticated, customized satellites for national security customers and commercial communications constellations.

"The new satellite manufacturing startups tend to be venture-capital backed and well funded companies focused on designing satellites to ensure they can be manufactured rapidly. Another lesson many of the startups have taken from SpaceX and from recent supply chain shortages is vertical integration. To ensure they can scale up manufacturing to rapidly to meet demand, companies are bringing as many components as possible in house."

Read the whole piece to learn about what’s driving the investment.

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SIGNIFICANT DIGIT

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The number of PIL-BOX systems Redwire plans to send to the International Space Station later this year. SpaceMD has used those systems to crystallize compounds for pharmaceutical research.

SafetySpect is developing a handheld device for real-time plant health monitoring in space. Credit: SafetySpect Inc.

SPACE FOOD

We spend a lot of time covering news about hardware (rockets and satellites) but as NASA’s plans for a moon base, one that could start as early as 2028, comes into focus one long-term issue is food.

Already the agency has spent years studying plant growth in microgravity on the International Space Station. But it will be years before astronauts can toss a salad with produce grown entirely in space. It will likely take even longer for additional experiments and new capabilities to scale crop production there.

Some firms are under contract today to build the necessary technology, with the goal of creating a reliable and nutritious food system for humans on the moon — and potentially beyond. This spring, NASA solicited Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) proposals for plant-growth technologies and has multiple contract opportunities for similar types of innovations.

Trending This Week

Blue Origin traced the explosion of its New Glenn rocket during a static-fire test in May to a valve in the rocket’s BE-4 engine.

China appears to have lost an unknown payload after a Long March 7A rocket exploded less than 90 seconds into flight.

Northrop Grumman and the Canadian Space Agency said this week they will adapt what they had been working on for NASA’s lunar Gateway into applications for a planned lunar base, albeit with few specifics.

Rocket Lab warned that the chances of launching its Neutron rocket for the first time before the end of the year are “narrowing” despite progress on the vehicle’s development.

FROM SPACENEWS

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