Plus: Ursa Major to go public in $2.3B deal
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By Jeff Foust Companies who built their business arranging launches of smallsats on SpaceX’s rockets are now buying entire launches for themselves, a symbol of how tight the market for getting to orbit has become.
Exolaunch and SEOPS, two companies that arrange rides to space for small-satellite operators, have each booked dedicated Falcon 9 launches as they seek more control over when and where their customers fly. Other launch-service companies are reshuffling missions and looking for additional capacity as the need to get to space outpaces the supply of available rides.
“Demand is growing much faster than capacity,” Robert Sproles, chief executive of Exolaunch, said in a June interview. |
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The space economy’s stellar growth is outstripping its workforce pipeline, even as advances in AI and automation boost productivity. Businesses and government agencies are struggling to find the engineers, cleared workers and mid-career managers needed to turn surging investment and demand into spacecraft and services.
Ursa Major, a Colorado-based defense technology company that has expanded from building rocket engines into hypersonic missiles and solid rocket motors, plans to go public through a merger with a blank-check company in a deal valuing the combined business at about $2.3 billion.
NASA announced July 24 it is working with Advanced Space on the CAPSTONE 02 mission, scheduled to launch in late 2027. It will feature two spacecraft built by Terran Orbital that will operate in a highly elliptical lunar orbit. The mission completed its critical design review earlier this month.
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David Hitt of the NASA SLS Payload Integration Office said the agency elected not to incorporate cubesats as secondary payloads on the Artemis 3 launch, scheduled for no earlier than mid-2027. NASA did fly cubesats on the first two Space Launch System missions.
Northrop Grumman satellites are preparing for launch into the Pentagon’s first operational military data network in low Earth orbit. After a months-long pause, SDA is filling out the Tranche 1 Transport Layer, the communications backbone of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture.
Redwire will manufacture data processing units and network switches under a licensing agreement with Luxembourg-based Edge Aerospace, the companies announced Aug. 25 at the Small Satellite Conference. |
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FROM SPACENEWS |
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Propulsion is having a moment: In the latest episode of the Space Minds podcast, SpaceNews’ Mike Gruss interviews Kevin Lausten, CEO of Morpheus Space, at the 2026 Small Satellite Conference in Salt Lake City. They discuss why propulsion is critical for enabling adaptation in a moment of congestion and competition, what sovereignty means for the market and how autonomy is changing production. Watch or listen now. |
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