Plus: Making sense of the fundraising wave
By Mike Gruss
Doug Schiess is the new head of the Space Force. He took over from Chance Saltzman. How will he be different?
SpaceNews’ Sandra Erwin tried to answer this question in a profile that’s on the cover of this month’s magazine. Here’s an excerpt of how retired Space Force Lt. Gen. John Shaw described the new state of play:
“He will be pretty aggressive about talking about the need for these capabilities and about normalizing space as a warfighting domain,” Shaw said.
“That means not only supporting the joint force, which the Space Force needs to do, and not only protecting U.S. space capabilities, which it also needs to do, but being able to go on offense to deprive an adversary of its capabilities.”
The difference, Shaw said, is that the argument is now being made by military leaders outside the space community as well.
“You hear the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the commander of Central Command and other military leaders without space backgrounds talking about the importance of space and cyber,” he said. “I think we are now at the highest point yet in terms of understanding the importance of space, the need to integrate space and the need not only to deliver space capabilities, but also to defend them and to go on offense against adversary space capabilities.”
Sandra also looked at two other new military space leaders: Roger Mason, who takes the helm at the National Reconnaissance Office, and Erich Baquero-Hernandez, who will lead space acquisition for the Department of the Air Force. Both will likely have the resources they need, which means there likely won’t be a lot of room for excuses. The key to success in their new gig will be getting results.
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SIGNIFICANT DIGIT
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38 |
The number of launch missions that have been awarded to SpaceX in the National Security Space Launch Lane 1 contract. Thirty-nine total contracts have been awarded.
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FUNDRAISING WAVE
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Each week feels like it brings news of a staggering amount of money that’s pouring into the space industry from private investors.
Look at these funding announcements from the long holiday weekend.
Stoke is an interesting one, especially amid concerns of a launch bottleneck and an increasing demand for launch, especially from the Pentagon. The company is also a well established space unicorn, meaning a privately held company whose valuation tops $1 billion. |
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| The Pentagon has more than doubled the number of national security launch services it expects to procure, from 151 in its 2022 baseline to 337 under its latest estimate.
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| Stoke Space Technologies, a company nearing the first flight of a fully reusable launch vehicle, has raised $1 billion to help accelerate work on a larger rocket.
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