Perserving The Legacy of the I.S.S.

ISS The International Space Station is scheduled for retirement, and a destructive reentry, as soon as 2030. (credit: NASA) Preserving the legacy of the ISS by Jeff Foust Monday, July 27 2026 Last week marked the 15th anniversary of the end of the final Space Shuttle mission, STS-135, and only now are the all the orbiters getting to the final homes. In June, the California Science Center previewed its revised display for the shuttle Endeavour in the new Samuel Oschin Shuttle Gallery. Inside, Endeavour is displayed as though it was on the launch pad, mounted on a external tank with two solid rocket boosters attached and a gantry beside it. “I would love to see this thing in a museum, I really would,” Keaton said. “It’s just not possible in a fiscally responsible, I suppose, or technologically responsible way.” “It is the fulfillment of a decades-long dream and will stand as an enduring source of inspiration for generations of scientists, engineers, and explorers,” Jeffrey Rudolph, president and CEO of the museum, said in a statement about the new center, set to open to the public in November. It also brings to mind another long-running program soon reaching its end: the International Space Station. NASA has maintained plans to retire the ISS at the end of 2030, although there have been some hints that it could be extended at least a couple years. A NASA authorization bill in the Senate, for example, would formally extend the station’s life to 2032. Even if the station continues to operate into the early 2030s, it’s clear it’s time to start thinking about the end of the ISS. That includes not just how to deal with the end of life of the station and how to transition to commercial successors but also what to preserve from the station, and how. Unlike the shuttle orbiters, which could be returned to Earth and put in museums much like aircraft, there is no way to bring the ISS back. NASA has also ruled out trying to preserve the station in orbit, perhaps at a higher altitude than it operates today. “We have a paper on this,” Jacob Keaton, acting ISS director at NASA headquarters, said during a half-day series of panels about preserving the ISS at the AIAA ASCEND conference in May. That 2024 paper looked at several alternatives to NASA’s plans to deorbit the station at the end of its life, including boosting it into a higher, longer-lived orbit. “It’s a lot of delta-V and the debris environment is pretty bad,” he said. That paper estimated that moving the ISS, currently in a orbit a little more than 400 kilometers high, to one between 640 and 680 kilometers, which would keep it in orbit for a century, would require between 18,900 and 22,300 kilograms of propellant. That higher orbit also has more debris, creating the risk of collisions that could cause “complete fragmentation” of the station and jeopardizing the safety of low Earth orbit. The same analysis, he said, also ruled out the partial disassembly of the station to either deorbit pieces of it individually or return them to Earth. “Any disassembly effort to safely disconnect and return individual components (such as modules) would face significant logistical and financial challenges,” the NASA paper noted. “I’ll just speak personally: I would love to see this thing in a museum, I really would,” he said. “It’s just not possible in a fiscally responsible, I suppose, or technologically responsible way, to preserve big chunks of this.” “Though large modules are not feasible for return, NASA has engaged with the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and other organizations to develop a preservation plan for some smaller items from the space station,” the NASA paper stated. “The Smithsonian has given us a list of desires,” said Ryan Landon, director of NASA’s ISS research integration office at the Johnson Space Center. She didn’t elaborate on the contents of that list. Cargo Dragon missions won’t be possible once the USDV is installed, Landon said. “So, our last cargo home will be about the middle of 2029.” One challenge will be finding the space to bring those items back. Today, only SpaceX’s cargo Dragon can return significant amounts of cargo from the ISS, with small amounts available on Crew Dragon and Soyuz. Other cargo spacecraft—Cygnus, HTV-X, and Progress—deliver cargo to the station but burn up on reentry. The pace of cargo missions will also slow as the station nears retirement. A key milestone will be the launch of the US Deorbit Vehicle (USDV), a modified Dragon that will dock to the station about 18 months before deorbit. It will use one of the two docking ports available to both commercial crew vehicles and cargo Dragon spacecraft. With the other port used by a Crew Dragon or Starliner spacecraft for the crew, there will be no space for a cargo Dragon. “Once those two vehicles are onboard,” she said of the USDV and commercial crew vehicle, “we will no longer have a vehicle that can return. So, our last cargo home will be about the middle of 2029.” That adds to the urgency for decisions on what to preserve from the ISS. However, historians and curators will be competing for space on those cargo missions with scientists seeking to return experiments as they maximize the station’s research in its final years, along with engineers who need to bring equipment back for maintenance or reuse. “That’ll be an interesting discussion,” she said. ISS A ten-person crew on the International Space Station shares a dinner together earlier this month. (credit: NASA) Researchers have made clear they want to use the ISS as long as they can. “We seek to continue to utilize the International Space Station right up until that last moment when Ryan turns the lights out. So, there will be drivers to maintain as much science capacity on those final return vehicles as we can,” said Michael Roberts, chief scientist of the ISS National Lab. “But, it’s not lost on anyone that there is tremendous scientific knowledge, as well as historical knowledge, that can be retained from the return of some of that instrumentation,” he added. There is, at least, awareness of the need to start planning for preserving items from the ISS. “The ISS is coming on my radar,” said Brian Odom, NASA’s chief historian. “It is the history of the agency’s human spaceflight for a very long time.” However, it’s not clear there is a formal process for determining what can be brought back and how. “There has to be a very concentrated, intentional effort by someone,” said Landon. That individual must be involved in discussions about cargo logistics and can thus advocate for bringing back items when space becomes available on a cargo return mission. That includes “talking to the crews about things to look for and having crews think about heritage while they’re up there,” she said. “The crew is amazing at packing those bags. There is always space somewhere.” “It will be a challenge” determining responsibility for preserving ISS heritage, Keaton said. “The space station program, as currently constituted, is focused on flying the space station.” Odom urged those working on the program “to be their own historian” and think about how to preserve records. “Your work could disappear forever.” “If protecting ISS heritage is something Americans or the US government, or certain portions thereof, care about, that has to be expressed though policy channels. It costs money, it costs time and effort not currently being given to those kinds of things,” noted Gabriel Swiney, director of the Office of Space Commerce’s policy, advocacy, and international division. “If people want to do that, there has to be some organized effort to do so.” Preserving ISS heritage goes beyond hardware on the station today that could be brought back. A big focus will be on preserving physical and electronic records of the station’s development and operations, as well as the oral histories of those involved in the station. That includes how crews actually used the station versus how it was designed to be used. “Archaeology is not necessarily about the distant past,” said Justin Walsh, a professor of art history, archaeology, and space studies at Chapman University. “It’s really about understanding human activity, understanding human culture, understanding adaptation to environments, and specifically doing that through the lens of material culture.” Walsh is the co-principal investigator on an ISS archaeology project that included documenting six areas on the station daily for two months to see how those areas were used by crews, including in “unexpected and unanticipated” ways, such as one astronaut who stored their toiletry kit on a wall in a high-traffic area of the station, illustrating the challenges of storing items on the ISS. “Those kinds of things tell a story that is really important for us to understand about what it means to live in space at our current level of technology.” That heritage can be documented in many ways. He pointed to the “ISS in Real Time” website that brings together photos, videos, transcripts of space-to-ground calls, and other documentation from nearly every day of ISS operations. He added he’s looking for other ways to document the station, including working with NASA to sample smells in different parts of the ISS to understand the chemicals that create it. “We would actually be able to know what the chemical composition of the atmosphere is to a degree that we could recreate smells for exhibits in science museums,” he said. (“Unfortunately, the first time I crossed over from STS-126, it even smelled like a submarine, which is not a nice thing to say about any place,” Stephen Bowen, a submarine officer who became a NASA astronaut, said of the station during another panel.) Despite that rich record, though, historians like Odom are worried they will lose valuable insights into the ISS because of ephemeral electronic records and fading memories. “We might know about Apollo at any minute than we’ll know about ISS in five years,” he said. “The way the bureaucracy created a record during Apollo was pretty substantial.” He urged those working on the program “to be their own historian” and think about how to preserve records of the decisions they made. “Don’t think that somebody else is going to do it for you,” he said. “Your work could disappear forever.” “I’m not big person on holding things,” Bowen said. “The biggest legacy, and what we should be preserving, is to continue to fly similar missions.” Regarding physical preservation of the station, some panelists got creative and suggested that private astronaut missions might be able to help, “taking down that they can,” said Todd Mosher, scholar in residence at the University of Colorado Engineering Management Program. Roberts called on historians to buy a SpaceX Dragon mission “and load it up with whatever you want.” (Perhaps overestimating the financial resources of historians.) Asked what one object from the ISS they would like to preserve, panelists offered answers ranging from the station’s cupola to the table that served as a communal dining space on the ISS to the station’s microbiome. Robert Pearlman, editor of collectSPACE, suggested something large enough that could be cut into small pieces and then mounted on cards or melted into medals “just so that everyone who remembers the space station, everyone who had a good memory of it over the last 25+ years, can have a piece of it if they want.” And what about Bowen, who spent half a year on the ISS in 2023 after three short-duration visits during the final years of the shuttle program? “I’m not big person on holding things,” he said. “The biggest legacy, and what we should be preserving, is to continue to fly similar missions.” Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Flies On August 30, 2026

Roman and OSO Nancy Grace Roman with a scale model of OSO-1 in 1962 (credit: NASA) Orbiting Solar Observatories: Nancy Grace Roman and solar science from spinning spacecraft by Trevor Williams Monday, July 27, 2026 When NASA was created on October 1, 1958, a major focus of its work was to be on space science. The new agency absorbed the facilities of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA); incorporated two Army establishments, the Army Ballistic Missile Agency at Redstone Arsenal and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory; and took over the Vanguard rocket program from the Naval Research Laboratory. These covered the areas of aeronautics and launch vehicle design, but did not address spacecraft design and operations. A new center was therefore established to cover this area: this was initially called the Beltsville Space Center [1, p. 28], but was renamed Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) on May 1, 1959, in honor of the American rocketry pioneer Robert H. Goddard, who launched the first liquid fueled rocket on March 16, 1926. There were significant obstacles to women having careers in science during the post-war period. Despite this, a key member of the early NASA science staff was Nancy Grace Roman. GSFC was initially intended to carry out all aspects of spacecraft design, even human spaceflight. Later, when the wide scope of space work became apparent, Goddard became focused on robotic missions, in particular those involving science: this has remained a key thrust of the center ever since. Surprisingly, given the difficulties that faced women when trying to enter scientific and technical fields in the 1950s and 1960s, much of the groundwork for this work was put in place by a woman. Nancy Grace Roman There were significant obstacles to women having careers in science during the post-war period. Despite this, a key member of the early NASA science staff was Nancy Grace Roman. Roman, an astronomer who obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1949, later described her early experiences in science in a 2016 essay as follows [2]: When I was a girl, women were not supposed to be scientists. When I asked my high school guidance counselor for permission to take a second year of algebra, she sneered, “What lady would take mathematics instead of Latin?” The college environment was similar. If the dean of women could not dissuade a girl from majoring in science or engineering, she had nothing more to do with her. My first bit of encouragement came in my third year of college, when the physics department chairman said to me, “I usually try to talk women out of majoring in physics, but I think maybe you might make it.” In graduate school, it was clear that the faculty did not like educating women. This environment affected her employment choices: for instance: I realized that, as a woman, I had little chance of getting tenure in an astronomy research department. So, to stay in astronomical research, I changed my specialization and accepted a position in the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). After working in radio astronomy at NRL, her move to NASA came about as follows, as she described in a 1980 interview [3, p. 41]: One day Harold Urey was giving a colloquium at NASA, which was of course very young in those days. And as you know, a good percentage of the science staff in NASA in the early days did come from NRL. The old Vanguard group and the NRL rocket group were taken over en masse by NASA. I came down to hear him, just because it sounded like an interesting lecture, and Jack Clark, who had been at NRL, but was now with NASA, came up to talk to me afterward, and said, “By the way, do you know anyone who would like to come and work for NASA and set up a program in space astronomy?” Well, as I say, I'd been staying very far away from anything having to do with the rocket group or the Vanguard group at NRL, but the idea of coming in with an absolutely clean slate to set up a program that I thought was likely to influence astronomy for 50 years was just a challenge that I couldn't turn down. Roman interpreted Clark’s question as an invitation to apply, and joined NASA in late February 1959 as Head of Observational Astronomy, becoming Chief of Astronomy in 1960. She was the first woman to hold an executive position at NASA, and was often referred to as the “Mother of Hubble” after advocating for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) at NASA Headquarters for two decades. One of her key observations was that it was important for Hubble to be designed to support planetary science. To enable this, she had the vidicon imaging tubes that were originally baselined for Hubble, a 1950s technology, replaced by more modern charge coupled devices (CCDs) to gain improved performance [4, p. 248]. This led to the Wide Field/Planetary Camera that has been a key HST instrument. Summarizing, as Dr. Roman pointed out: “I am glad I ignored the many people who told me that I could not be an astronomer. I have had a wonderful career in a field that I love.”[2] Early NASA space science and the Orbiting Solar Observatory Program There was early interest in performing stellar astronomy using spacecraft. However, the technical challenges were formidable, which led to solar astronomy being focused on first and carried out by the Orbiting Solar Observatory (OSO), a program which Roman oversaw at NASA Headquarters from 1961 to 1963. As described by Roman [3, pp. 46-47]: The solar work went a little faster than the stellar in both rockets and satellites because pointing at the sun was an easier job. You could do it with two axis stabilization instead of three, and you had a bright object to lock onto. And as a result the pointing systems worked and worked satisfactorily much earlier than they did for the stars. I think that's why solar physics really became a valid observational technique earlier than stellar… I don’t think it was possible to do much in nonsolar astronomy, until you had the three axis pointing controls… Goddard was working very hard particularly to get pointing controls. Ames was also involved in this, at the time… Actually Ames probably had more pointing control and gyroscope experience at that time than Goddard did. There was a group there that was fairly active. In fact, they developed the first solar pointing system for rockets and were responsible for the solar pointers for quite a while, after Goddard was the main group for the other rockets. Pointing in fact dictated the overall OSO configuration, which was quite novel. Specifically, OSO-1 was the first “dual-spin” spacecraft, where one section of the satellite spins and another does not, being despun by a motor at the bearing between the sections. In the case of OSO, a nine-sided “wheel” section spun to stabilize the spacecraft and allow a subset of the scientific instruments to scan the sky, while the despun “sail” section kept a solar panel and other instruments pointing towards the Sun to within 1 arcminute. Following launch, the sail was spun up (to 30 RPM for the case of OSO-1) by cold gas thrusters that were mounted, along with their associated tanks, on arms that were deployed from the spacecraft by its rotation. OSO-1 was the first “dual-spin” spacecraft, where one section of the satellite spins and another does not, being despun by a motor at the bearing between the sections. A key property of dual-spin spacecraft is that any damping that is present in the despun section will stabilize the spin, regardless of the geometry of the vehicle: departure from a pure spin would create nutation, producing a nodding motion of the despun section, which can be dealt with by a nutation damper. The situation is quite different from that for a simple spinner satellite, where internal damping stabilizes the spin if the body is oblate (“tuna can” shape), but destabilizes it if the body is prolate (“soup can” shape). This lesson was learned after the prolate Explorer 1, the first American satellite, went into a flat spin shortly after launch.[5] Following that experience spinning spacecraft were designed to be oblate, despite the fact that packaging these into a launch vehicle shroud became more challenging. The early OSOs had an oblate configuration, but later ones used a more efficient prolate packaging, once the lessons of dual-spin stability had been fully absorbed. Roman and OSO OSO-3 under construction. (credit: BBRC) As shown in the following diagram for OSO-5,[6] the pointing control hardware for these spacecraft included not only a nutation damper but also thrusters to control the spin rate of the wheel section, as well as “pitch control” hardware (consisting of sensors, thrusters, and a magnetic coil) to keep the spin axis correctly perpendicular to the Sun line and the sail pointed at the Sun throughout the mission. Roman and OSO OSO-5 attitude control hardware. (credit: NASA) Key Orbiting Solar Observatory Program points The first spacecraft, OSO-1,[7] was launched on March 7, 1962; launch mass 458 pounds (208 kilograms), instrument mass 75 pounds (34 kilograms) on sail, 100 pounds (45 kilograms) on wheel. Spin rate 30 RPM. The final spacecraft, OSO-8, was launched on June 21, 1975; launch mass 2,350 pounds (1,066 kilograms). Spin rate 6 RPM. OSO-1 to 7 were built by Ball Brothers Research Corporation (BBRC); OSO-8 was developed by Hughes Space and Communications Company. The spacecraft were launched on Thor-Deltas into orbits of about 575 kilometers altitude and inclination 32.8 degrees. All launches were successful with the exception of OSO-C, which experienced a second stage failure and did not achieve orbit. Instruments included X-ray and gamma ray telescopes, coronagraphs and ultraviolet sensors. The study of solar flares was a focus for OSO. In addition, OSO-7 was equipped with a spinning occulting disk to produce an artificial eclipse and so enable studies of the corona.[8] Spacecraft design lifetimes were typically six months; these were usually greatly exceeded in practice. Specified pointing accuracy was 1 arcminute. The OSO program covered an entire 11-year solar cycle. The OSO spacecraft carried many international experiments: for example, solar X-ray instruments jointly developed by University College, London (UCL) and the University of Leicester were flown on OSO-4 and 5, and a Lyman alpha instrument from UCL flown on OSO-6. These built upon the experience that these investigators had gained by flying experiments on the Ariel 1 satellite.[9, p. 348; 10; 11; 12] Two significant unplanned incidents occurred during the OSO program: OSO-7 deployment problems resulting from second stage failure:[13] In the nominal OSO separation sequence, the sail section of the spacecraft is spun up to 40 RPM prior to the second stage burn in order to provide spin stabilization against tip-off torques. Then, after separation, the sail section is despun and the wheel spun up to its mission rate of 30 RPM. However, a vehicle malfunction during the OSO-7 second stage burn caused the stage/spacecraft stack to tumble, reaching a rate of 55 RPM. The resulting post-separation spacecraft attitude motion was quite complicated and required a great deal of non-standard commanding to correct. The whole recovery sequence took several orbits longer than nominal: the battery reached a depth of discharge of 75%, but recovery fortunately occurred in time to avoid power problems. The only hardware impacts that were observed were additional attitude control gas usage, although there remained more than enough to cover the mission, and the failure of one of the two spacecraft tape recorders, thought to have been caused by the high accelerations (up to about 8 g) experienced during the launch sequence. In addition, the failure of the second stage led to a final orbit with lower than planned perigee: reentry therefore came three years after launch, somewhat earlier than originally planned. Roman and OSO Intended vs actual launch sequences for OSO-7. (credit: BBRC) OSO-2 inadvertent ignition of solid rocket third stage during ground testing (an event referred to in a NASA report[14] as “The Disaster”): On April 14, 1964, the solid rocket third stage of the OSO-2 launch vehicle was in the Spin Test Facility at Cape Kennedy with the spacecraft mounted to it. It was covered with a polyethylene shroud as a dust protector: when this was adjusted a crackle was heard and the rocket ignited. As a result, three men were burned fatally, and a further 11 had non-life-threatening burns. The only positive to come from this tragedy was that an extensive study was performed of the various mechanisms that could have contributed to it: it was found that a polyethylene cover could in some circumstances charge the spacecraft to 15,000 volts, and that the accident had been caused by an electrostatic discharge through the rocket igniter squib. This study led to measures being identified that were taken on future missions to prevent any similar occurrences. The OSO-2 spacecraft was extensively damaged in this incident, but was rebuilt using flight parts, prototype parts, flight spares and new parts. This reconstituted spacecraft was launched on February 3, 1965 and operated successfully. Advanced Orbiting Solar Observatories and Skylab Soon after the launch of the first OSO spacecraft, planning began for a follow-on series of Advanced OSOs (AOSOs), also known as Helios.[15] Negotiations began in October 1963 [4, p. 249] between NASA Goddard and Republic Aviation Corp. for a series of four such spacecraft, with launches planned to start in 1966.[15, p. 27] This timing was selected in order to have the AOSOs operational during the next solar maximum in 1969, with operations continuing into 1971. Not only did the AOSO instruments need a new means for reaching space, but the Apollo Applications Program (AAP)—the Skylab space station—needed a high-quality science payload. The AOSOs were to have been larger than the OSOs, with better resolution and ten times the data storage: this would have allowed them to observe transients such as solar flares,[16, p. 69] although returning that much data would have been challenging. The pointing accuracy specified for AOSO was a considerable improvement over that of OSO: 5 arcseconds versus 60. Attitude control would have used a set of three orthogonal reaction wheels, with magnetic torque coils for desaturation; initial detumbling would have been performed using cold gas thrusters.[15, p. 36] Launch into Sun-synchronous orbit would have been performed by Thor-Agena, although a minor increase in launch vehicle performance would have been required. Given the increase in performance of AOSO relative to OSO, its development would have been expensive. Furthermore, the NASA science budget experienced cuts, leading to AOSO being cancelled in 1965.[17, p. 70] To keep open the option of perhaps being able to fly the AOSO instruments on some future mission, their development was kept alive after cancellation,[17, p.74] and they were made general-purpose.[17, p. 167] The main modification to their design that was considered was the use of film for imagery return, given the large amounts of data generated. Studies were carried out of the feasibility of mounting these solar telescopes in either an Apollo Service Module (SM) or Lunar Module (LM) flying in Earth orbit, with the crew returning the film to Earth. A drawback of these concepts, however, was that the mission durations could not exceed about two weeks. It was then recognized that not only did the AOSO instruments need a new means for reaching space, but the Apollo Applications Program (AAP)—the Skylab space station—needed a high-quality science payload. Flying the AOSO telescopes on Skylab solved both these problems: they were mounted in the Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM), which began as a derivative of the LM. Data was collected on film, with these canisters retrieved by astronauts during spacewalks and then returned to Earth in the Apollo Command Module. Roman and OSO Advanced Orbiting Solar Observatory. (credit: NASA) In addition, collaborative research was carried out between Skylab (launched in 1973) and the final OSO, OSO-8 (launched in 1975). Specifically, OSO-8 studied energy transfer between different solar layers,[18] with Skylab data on chromospheric structure used to target these OSO measurements. So, OSO and AOSO data were eventually used in tandem to improve the study of the Sun. Roman and OSO Skylab Apollo Telescope Mount. (credit: NASA) P78-1 Solwind: eventual anti-satellite test target Following the end of the OSO program, the DoD Space Test Program P78-1 Solwind spacecraft was launched on February 24, 1979, from Vandenberg Air Force Base. An Atlas F launch vehicle placed the 2,934-pound (1,331-kilogram) Solwind into a 500 -kilometer altitude Sun-synchronous orbit with an inclination of 97 degrees. The spacecraft was designed to observe space weather by examining the solar corona and the upper atmosphere of the Earth. It was built by Ball Brothers Research Corporation (BBRC) from the modified OSO-7 flight spare. Using the same approach that was taken for the OSO spacecraft, Solwind was a dual-spin spacecraft equipped with a passive nutation damper for spin stability. P78-1 carried seven scientific instruments, including the flight spare white light coronograph from OSO-7. Solwind was the first satellite to observe comets, notably nine Sun-grazing comets of the Kreutz group, which were imaged between August 1979 and August 1984. Roman and OSO OSO-7 and P78-1 Solwind spacecraft. (credits: NASA and USAF, resp.) By early 1985, Solwind had experienced significant degradation of its batteries, and the last of its three onboard recorders had failed. These factors conspired to render further operations challenging, so discussions started on terminating the mission. Meanwhile, there was a desire to test the ASM-135A anti-satellite weapon, then under development, against an orbiting spacecraft: such a test had not been carried out to date. The ASM-135A, developed by LTV Aerospace, involved a three-stage missile launched at 38,100 feet (11,600 meters) altitude from an F-15A aircraft in a zoom climb. The 30-pound (13.6-kilogram) spinning Miniature Homing Vehicle (MHV) third stage used line-of-sight guidance based on an infra-red seeker to impact the target at a closing rate of around 15,000 mph (6.70 km/s), performing a kinetic kill. Given that Nancy Grace Roman proposed an early exoplanet study concept in 1959 based on using a space telescope, associating her name with the new telescope is certainly very fitting. The target satellite for a test of this system would have to be under DoD control, and there was too little time to develop one from scratch, as a congressional ASAT ban was expected in the near future (it actually took effect in October 1985.) Since Solwind was operating in a degraded state, it became a leading candidate for use as the ASM-135A test target. This test was authorized by President Reagan on August 20, 1985, and carried out on September 13.[19] It generated 285 trackable pieces of debris; only eight remained in orbit as of January 1998, with the last piece reentering on May 9, 2004. Despite this successful demonstration, the ASM-135A program was terminated in 1988 because of technical problems and significant cost overruns. Roman and OSO ASM-135A anti-satellite weapon test launch. (credit: USAF) The continuing space science legacy of Nancy Grace Roman NASA is shortly to launch a major space observatory named in honor of Nancy Grace Roman. The Roman Space Telescope is an observatory sensitive to visible and near-infrared radiation, with resolution comparable to that of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) but with a field of view roughly 100 times larger. The main instrument on Roman is the Wide Field Instrument (WFI), which will be used to study dark energy, the mysterious quantity that is believed to cause the acceleration of the expansion of the universe, as well as to observe exoplanets using the technique of gravitational microlensing. Roman and OSO Roman Space Telescope undergoing final testing at NASA Goddard. (credit: Seth Shulman) Roman makes use of a spare spacecraft primary mirror donated to NASA by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). It has a diameter of 7.9 feet (2.4 meters), the same as that of HST. Development of the spacecraft, originally called the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) and renamed Roman in 2020, began in 2016, led by a team at NASA Goddard. Launch to a Sun-Earth L2 libration orbit, ahead of schedule and under budget, is planned for August. 30. The mission will continue the strong tradition of international involvement in Goddard science missions: organizations participating in RST are the European Space Agency, CNES in France, JAXA in Japan and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany. Roman is also equipped with a coronograph instrument for direct imaging of exoplanets. This will be used as a technology demonstration for the Habitable Worlds Observatory. Given that Dr. Roman proposed an early exoplanet study concept in 1959[20] based on using a space telescope—in her design positioned on the Moon—associating the name Nancy Grace Roman with the new telescope is certainly very fitting. References Venture into Space: Early Years of Goddard Space Flight Center, A. Rosenthal, NASA Center History Series, 1968. “Following my Lucky Star”, N.G. Roman, Science, Dec. 9, 2016, Vol. 354, Issue 6317, p. 1346. N.G. Roman, interview with David DeVorkin, Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics, Aug. 19, 1980 (transcription version July 16, 2025). The Space Telescope: A Study of NASA Science, Technology, and Politics, R.W. Smith, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989. “Rotation of Artificial Earth Satellites”, R.N. Bracewell and O.K. Garriott, Nature, Vol. 182, pp. 760-762, Sept. 20, 1958. OSO-5 Press Kit, Release 68-13, NASA, Jan. 20, 1969. “OSO to Study Sun in Quiet Period”, Robert R. Ropelewski, Aviation Week & Space Technology, July 26, 1971, pp. 34-36. “OSO Will Provide Own Eclipse”, Aviation Week & Space Technology, Sept. 20, 1971, p. 17. History of British Space Science, H.S.W. Massey and M.O. Robins, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1986. Ariel 1: The First International Satellite – Experimental Results, NASA SP-119, 1966. “NASA Goddard and the Dawn of International Cooperation in Space”, T. Williams, The Space Review, Dec. 8, 2025. “British X-Ray Astronomy”, K.A. Pounds, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 27, 1986, pp. 435-444. OSO-7 Orbiting Solar Observatory One-Year Performance Summary, Report F72-10 (NASA CR-130184), Ball Brothers Research Corporation, Dec. 31, 1972. History of Orbiting Solar Observatory OSO-2, NASA TM X-55590, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Apr. 1966. The Observatory Generation of Satellites, Session II of Special Astronautics Symposium held at the Franklin Institute Dec. 27, 1962, NASA SP-30, Mar. 1963. Living and Working in Space: A History of Skylab, W.D. Compton and C.D. Benson, The NASA History Series, NASA SP-4208, 1983. “Helios to Relay More Accurate Solar Data”, Warren C. Wetmore, Aviation Week & Space Technology, Mar. 4, 1963, pp. 48-53. “OSO-8 Program Keyed to Skylab Data”, Aviation Week & Space Technology, June 30, 1975, pp. 45-47. “The First Space Ace – F-15 vs Satellite”, P. Glenshaw, Air & Space Magazine, Apr. 2018. “Planets of Other Suns”, N.G. Roman, The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 64, No. 1273, pp. 344-345, Oct. 1959. Trevor Williams is a space dynamicist who grew up avidly following the Apollo missions, and has long been fascinated by space history. He recently retired from NASA Goddard.

Starship May Become Useful Before It Becomes Reuseable

CLPS landers Starship lifts off on its 13th suborbital test flight July 24. (credit: SpaceX) Starship may become useful before it becomes reusable by Paul Almond Monday, July 27, 2026 SpaceX’s Starship-Super Heavy system is usually discussed in terms of its most ambitious promised capabilities: full reusability, rapid turnaround, very large payloads to orbit, and eventual operations beyond low Earth orbit. Those aims matter, but they can make the program look more binary than it really is. Starship is often treated as either an experimental vehicle still working through flight-test failures, or as a future fully reusable transport system that will radically reduce the cost of reaching orbit. That framing misses an important intermediate possibility: Starship may become commercially useful before it becomes fully reusable. The first commercially meaningful Starship may not be one that lands, survives inspection, and returns quickly to flight. The most plausible early use case is not crewed flight, lunar operations, or Mars, but Starlink deployment. Through Starlink, SpaceX has a large internal demand for mass to orbit and does not have to persuade an external satellite operator to accept the same level of risk from an immature launch system. The nearer-term question is therefore not only when Starship becomes fully and rapidly reusable, but when it can become a payload-first vehicle: one that can deploy Starlink satellites to useful orbits and then dispose of the ship safely, even if the ship is not recovered. The first commercially meaningful Starship may not be one that lands, survives inspection, and returns quickly to flight. It may be one that delivers Starlink satellites to useful orbits and then comes down predictably. The missing middle The transformative Starship case still depends on full and rapid reuse. Recovering both stages, inspecting them quickly, refueling them, and flying again at high cadence would be a different kind of launch system from anything currently in routine service. Starship’s significance lies not just in its scale, but in its ambition to move orbital launch closer to transportation infrastructure than to bespoke expeditionary rocketry. But a system does not have to achieve its final form before it has operational value. There is a possible middle ground between “test vehicle” and “fully reusable transport system.” In that middle ground, Starship’s upper stage might be expended, or recovery might remain an optional development objective rather than a condition of commercial mission success. The Super Heavy booster may reach operational reuse before the ship does. The ship might deploy payloads and then be deliberately disposed of over a remote ocean area. Reentry data could still be gathered, but the payload mission would not depend on the ship surviving. This distinction matters because “expendable Starship” is not, by itself, a very interesting claim. Any launch vehicle can be expended. Expendability buys performance by removing the need to bring hardware back. The more interesting point is that Starship’s first useful commercial phase may be neither pure test flight nor full reuse. It may be Starlink deployment with secondary reuse testing attached. That is different from simply “putting payloads on test flights.” A test-led mission chooses its trajectory, timing, and objectives mainly to gather vehicle data and manage public risk. If a payload is carried, it is opportunistic. A payload-led mission reverses the priority. It must reach a useful orbit or deployment condition, protect the deployment objective, and have a credible end-of-mission disposal plan. Reentry and recovery tests may still be attempted, but only within that mission envelope. The fact that the ship must reenter does not by itself justify turning the end of the flight into a landing experiment if doing so changes the trajectory, increases public risk, complicates licensing, or undermines the payload objective. That transition, from test-led to payload-led flights, may be one of the most important thresholds in the Starship program. Why Starlink is the natural first customer Starlink is what makes this intermediate case commercially plausible. SpaceX is developing Starship alongside a satellite network that can absorb large amounts of launch capacity, rather than relying only on external customers for early demand. Starship’s first useful commercial phase may be neither pure test flight nor full reuse. It may be Starlink deployment with secondary reuse testing attached. The current Falcon 9-based Starlink deployment system is already formidable. Falcon 9 has become the workhorse of modern orbital launch, and SpaceX has used it to build one of the largest satellite constellations ever deployed. But next-generation Starlink satellites are larger and more capable. Reuters reported that SpaceX was aiming to begin launching V3 Starlink satellites in the second half of 2026, likely on Starship, and that Starship’s payload bay was tailored for these upgraded satellites, with capacity for up to 60 in a single flight compared with roughly two dozen smaller Starlink satellites on Falcon 9. SpaceX has also begun testing this deployment path directly. On Flight 12, Starship successfully deployed 20 Starlink simulators similar in size to next-generation Starlink satellites, while also pursuing in-space and reentry test objectives. On last week’s suborbital Flight 13, it deployed 20 functioning Starlink V3 satellites for brief tests before the satellites reentered. That does not prove that Starship will be ready on that schedule. It does show why Starlink is the obvious bridge case. A Starship flight that deploys a large batch of V3 Starlink satellites could be commercially valuable even if the ship is not recovered. It could add network capacity, test deployment systems, and provide operational experience with real payloads, while SpaceX continues working toward the more difficult goal of full ship reuse. The regulatory filings around Starlink also show that the deployment problem is not abstract. Reuters reported that the FCC had approved another 7,500 second-generation Starlink satellites, bringing the authorized total to 15,000, subject to deployment milestones. The underlying FCC order also links certain orbital shells and inclinations to the possibility of Starship launches from Starbase, with alternative inclinations if the FAA does not allow particular Starship launch profiles. That is a revealing detail: a payload-led Starship is not just a test vehicle with satellites bolted on. It must be able to reach useful Starlink orbits and inclinations under a flight profile regulators are willing to license. The real threshold: safe disposal If Starship is used in an early payload-first mode, it does not necessarily need to land. It may not even need to survive reentry intact. But it must not become a large object making an uncontrolled reentry. Test objectives and commercial deployment objectives can conflict. This is where the second stage’s size matters. A Falcon 9 upper stage can be disposed of or allowed to reenter in ways regulators and operators understand well. Starship is in a different class: it is much larger, carries more energy, and, if stranded in orbit, would present a more serious uncontrolled reentry problem. Under the FAA’s commercial launch rules, operators must normally satisfy public-risk criteria for launch, reentry, and disposal, including limits on collective public risk. To fly its near-orbital Starship trajectory, SpaceX sought and received an FAA waiver, published in the Federal Register, from 14 CFR 450.101(a)(1)(i). In that waiver, the FAA stated that, at Starship’s then-current stage of development, the public risk associated with a random Starship reentry would be 40 to 50 times higher than the normal collective-risk threshold. The near-orbital trajectory, by contrast, allowed SpaceX to avoid random reentry risk and predict debris impact locations with high certainty. That is central to understanding any intermediate commercial mode. Starship does not need to be reusable to be useful, but it does need a licensed end-of-mission state. For a payload-first Starlink mission, the minimum success condition would include not only launch and satellite deployment, but controlled disposal of the ship. That disposal could in principle be achieved in several ways. The most straightforward would be to use Starship’s own propulsion and guidance systems for a controlled deorbit or targeted reentry over a broad ocean area. A transitional vehicle might carry additional disposal-assurance hardware, though that would add mass, complexity, and new safety questions. At this stage, the controlling requirement is not intact recovery but predictable disposal. A stripped-down cargo Starship could discard systems needed for intact recovery, but not those needed for safe disposal. It would still require attitude control, power, command logic, tracking, telemetry, deorbit capability, and a credible failure analysis. Expendability would reduce the recovery burden; it would not remove the obligation to control where the vehicle goes. Payload-led flights may conflict with test-led flights This is why the intermediate regime is more subtle than simply adding Starlink payloads to Starship tests: test objectives and commercial deployment objectives can conflict. A test flight may prefer a trajectory that maximizes engineering data while keeping debris in a known remote corridor. A Starlink deployment mission may require a different orbit, altitude, inclination, or phasing. A recovery test may consume propellant margin or impose reentry constraints that are not needed for the payload mission. A deliberately conservative disposal profile may be more attractive for an early commercial flight than an aggressive recovery experiment. The FAA will not ignore optional post-deployment tests simply because the payload has already been released. If SpaceX deploys Starlink satellites and then attempts a demanding reentry, landing, or catch profile, that entire sequence is part of the licensed risk picture. A payload-led Starship mission may therefore need to treat recovery experiments as secondary. They may be useful when they fit within the same acceptable risk envelope. Once they begin to determine the trajectory, timing, disposal plan, or licensing case, the mission has become test-led again. The analogy is not Falcon 9’s upper stage so much as Falcon 9’s early booster recovery attempts. Customers bought a launch service, and SpaceX then attempted booster recovery after the primary mission. Early Starship Starlink flights might follow a similar pattern: deployment is the mission; recovery or reentry testing is a SpaceX development objective layered on top. What early usefulness would and would not prove A payload-first Starship used for Starlink would be important, but it should not be confused with proof of the full Starship architecture. Such a mission would not prove rapid turnaround, cheap heat-shield refurbishment, ship catch, long-duration orbital operations, orbital refueling, crew safety, lunar landing, or Mars transport; those would remain separate milestones. The public debate around Starship often jumps from spectacular test flights to sweeping claims about Mars, lunar bases, or airline-like rocket operations. They are not necessarily the right benchmark for judging the first possible commercial threshold. It would prove something narrower but still significant: that Starship can move from experimental trajectories toward operational payload service. It would show that Starship can deliver useful mass to useful orbits, deploy payloads, and end the mission safely. For SpaceX, that could matter even before full reuse because Starlink creates a large internal demand for precisely that capability. This is also why the intermediate mode should not be oversold. If an expendable or semi-expendable Starship launches V3 Starlink satellites, the economics may still be far from the final promise of rapid full reuse. Expending the ship would consume hardware and engines. It could reduce payload margin if additional disposal-assurance systems are needed. It could complicate the test program if a payload-optimized ship diverges from the reusable configuration SpaceX ultimately wants. Yet the existence of those trade-offs does not erase the middle ground. A vehicle can be commercially useful before it is economically revolutionary. Useful before reusable The public debate around Starship often jumps from spectacular test flights to sweeping claims about Mars, lunar bases, or airline-like rocket operations. Those ambitions matter to SpaceX’s long-term story, but they are not necessarily the right benchmark for judging the first possible commercial threshold. For Starlink, the relevant near-term question is simpler and harder: can Starship fly a payload-led mission to a useful orbit and dispose of the ship safely enough for regular use? If it can, then Starship may begin to matter commercially before it becomes fully reusable. That would not be the final Starship vision, and it would not settle the question of rapid reuse or the economics of the complete system. It would, however, mark a transition from vehicle testing toward operational infrastructure. Starship may become useful before it becomes reusable. The missing middle is not glamorous, but it may be where the program first becomes commercially real. Paul Almond is an independent researcher based in London whose research interests include launch systems, spacecraft engineering, and space policy. He has previously published in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society.

Affordability For Artemis

CLPS landers An illustration of Orion docking with a Starship vehicle in low Earth orbit on Artemis 3. (credit: SpaceX) Affordability for Artemis by Robert G. Oler Monday, July 27, 2026 Should a Democratic House and Senate emerge from the upcoming midterms, the prime goal of the relevant committees on spaceflight should be defining the status of all the parts of the human lunar program. Today the status of each segment of the effort, paid for with taxpayer money, hides in the fog of purpose-based ambiguity. While NASA administrator Jared Isaacman is on hand for an under-oath explanation to Congress, ask a basic question: what is the bottom line for a landing attempt on Artemis 4 or 5? Once the public knows where the program is, and how much federal money it will take to get to wherever it is going, then the issue of where it is going and why should become part of our politics. Where to start? According to some reports, NASA is looking for $3–5 billion in additional funding for the landing. Where will all the money go? Lander “prototypes” will take some government spending. There is the “spacer” for Artemis 3, parts to buy for the SLS for Artemis 4 and 5. What will the Centaur V, the upper stage being adapted for SLS, cost? What is the value here? The docking exercise planned for SpaceX seems to be just a notch above docking with a defunct upper stage. It appears Blue Origin is changing the design of its initial lander. How close is Artemis 3 to what would be used on a landing? While NASA administrator Jared Isaacman is on hand for an under-oath explanation to Congress, ask a basic question. Including redirected Gateway money and what has been spent so far on Artemis 3–5, in total what is the bottom line for a landing attempt on Artemis 4 or 5? Once we have the cost, we can compare it with the value of the entire effort. How long does the nation fly SLS/Orion? Administration funding plans seem to end SLS at Artemis 5 or maybe 6. Not upgrading SLS means that the system will never reach full performance potential and is essentially admitting the program’s failure. The Centaur V upper stage could allow SLS to continue production, allowing some modest performance upgrades. Within the mold lines of the current rocket, Centaur allows an improved service module to put Orion into a reasonable and usable lunar orbit. CLPS landers A Blue Moon Mark 2 prototype in Earth orbit for Artemis 3. (credit: Blue Origin) The reality? At a cost of $5–7 billion a flight the combination will never be affordable. Affordability is more than a buzz word. It is the measure of value and the key to having a lunar (human) program that survives when the political imperative of today has left. The initial lunar landings of Apollo died of sticker shock. Its sister Artemis definitely has it in the SLS/Orion combination. Today it appears the plan is to use all available resources to satisfy the current president’s vanity and little else, leaving the next NASA with no tools to operate with. Report after report comes out about the lack of oversight of the Starliner program by NASA. Compared to the oversight of both lander programs, the effort at Starliner seems invasive. The landers and how they are being acquired is the weakest, and potentially the costliest, part of the program. The landers are fixed-cost in name only. All that is fixed is the initial price to the government. After that? What development cost will each company want to recover? Also, what is the operational cost of each lander and its proprietary infrastructure? People from SpaceX and Blue should be queried on this. It is a near certainty that a lot of the additional money NASA is requesting will go to one or both landers. The “prototype lander” for Artemis 3 alone increases the cost. That aside, the entire program is tethered to the landers and their delays, with the total program burning cash as the days come off the calendar. The future of the landers is an enigma inside of a mystery. With either lander no one knows what the nation is committing itself to. Aside from an unknown cost per landing other massive issues exist. How are all these reusable vehicles serviced and maintained in lunar orbit? For how many missions is the lander usable? What will the government’s financial role in lander sustainment be? Rhetoric aside, what are their capabilities? Who is liable if a government crew is lost on a commercial lander? Who does the investigation? Who pays for the fixes? Answers are critical to the operation of the system, but the bottom line is the question of short- and long-term cost of the system. If the Starship lander requires 20 tanker flights (depot cost aside) with each flight costing $100 million, or Blue Moon requires three New Glenn launches at $1 billion a copy, the systems are neither affordable nor sustainable. Both companies have goals and rhetoric, but a reality of failing to meet any semblance of a schedule and frequently embracing calamity. Both companies continue to have full-scale vehicle failures. Neither has at this writing landed anything on the Moon nor outside of the GNSS environment, nor do they have plans for a full-envelope demo before humans try landing the vehicle on the Moon. This last part is puzzling. Report after report comes out about the lack of oversight of the Starliner program by NASA. Compared to the oversight of both lander programs, the effort at Starliner seems invasive. After Starliner, the lack of a complete uncrewed demo mission for a first-ever lunar landing by both companies is both an unsound planning method and an unsafe method of operation. It is an indictment of the entire effort. Returning Americans to the Moon only has value if doing so enables a future in which the nation can routinely and affordably operate humans in an environment it cannot now. Seeing the future cost of these programs is staring through a glass darkly. The cost to build and operate the shuttle, SLS, and Orion differed greatly from predictions. Both Blue Origin and SpaceX have demonstrated inability to meet schedules, development costs and timelines, and have unknown internal costs. These herald poorly for the accuracy of launch costs or schedules. The question of which nation first sent humans to the Moon and returned them safely has been settled for all humanity. Today’s timetable of a lunar return is being driven by the need of vanity camouflaged by an unsubstantiated fear. Isaacman constantly talks about a race with the Chinese. Really? Americans returning to the Moon after the Chinese initial landing has no penalty to the effort. Everyone knows who accomplished the first landing. Accomplishment in the current president’s term is not for history or the future of the republic. It is for him and him alone, particularly when it summons no future past his term. Returning Americans to the Moon only has value if doing so enables a future in which the nation can routinely and affordably operate humans in an environment it cannot now. That is what defines which nation can afford to involve humans in lunar exploration by being there. That accomplishment is independent of any other nation’s timeline or success. If the lunar landing becomes a second Iran war—poorly planned, badly executed, and disastrous—the next president will have a lot of pieces to pick up as human spaceflight in the US will grind to a halt. Congress, through its power of oversight and the purse, must add sanity, coherence, and purpose to an expensive effort that has none. Let’s get value for the cost and find affordability. Robert G. Oler is a founding member of the Clear Lake Group on space policy he can be reached at flynavyF14@hotmail.com. These opinions are his alone and do not represent those of his employer.

Privately Developed Lunar Landers Will Play A Big PArt in NASA's Lunar Ambitions

CLPS landers Privately developed lunar landers will play a key role in NASA’s lunar ambitions. (credit: Astrobotic/Intuitive Machines/Firefly Aerospace) To win the Moon, divide the labor by Alexander William Salter Monday, July 27, 2026 This April, four astronauts sailed around the Moon aboard NASA’s Orion capsule—the first crew to make that voyage since 1972. In May, on the Texas coast, SpaceX launched the first flight of Starship Version 3, a machine bankrolled not by Congress but by private capital, on which the company has now staked more than $15 billion of its own money. The commercial space revolution and the return to the Moon have arrived at the same moment. But can private enterprise coexist with public imperatives? The answer is a resounding yes. We need both business and government to get the most out of space. In fact, some basic economic theory can help us understand the comparative advantage of each. Unless we are willing to abandon the foundational tenets of space law, nations, not corporations, provide the ultimate oversight. There are two major considerations. First, can space-related outputs be sold to a paying customer? Second, are public policy goals a question of technical possibility or financial feasibility? Answering these questions gets us far along the path to a strategy for American space supremacy. Let’s start with space services that are difficult for markets to price. Some of the most valuable work in space yields benefits that are non-excludable. That’s an economic term meaning the benefits accrue to parties whether they pay for them or not. A space observatory that warns of solar storms—one recent tempest cost American farmers half a billion dollars due to scrambled GPS signals—helps everyone alike. Billing people separately for the service is prohibitively difficult. Economists would say the transaction costs are too high. A related yet distinct category is the group of space assets too critical to fail. For example, in a planned lunar settlement, the core habitat and primary power system ought not depend on continued private funding. Otherwise, bankruptcy or other difficulties for-profit firms face would cost lives and invite geopolitical disaster. Better the public sector foot the bill for this one. And then there’s the highest-stakes issue of all: outer space’s basic governance framework. As humanity extends its reach into the stars, will America or its authoritarian rivals write the rules that govern the final frontier? Public international law makes this a basic consideration for states. The private sector can play a supporting role, but national governments must be in the driver’s seat. This is an important list of governmental functions. But it’s also fairly short. There’s ample room for market forces on the Moon. In fact, ongoing developments in the commercial space sector show the power of property rights, prices, and profits in delivering both economic prosperity and national wellbeing. Launch is the most obvious example. A little more than a decade ago, getting a payload to orbit required concerted and costly investments by sovereign actors. Today, it is much closer to a basic transportation service. SpaceX alone has cut the cost of orbital access by roughly a factor of seven, from an average of $18,500 per kilogram before reusable rockets to $2,700 per kilogram currently. Market forces and the profit motive did that. Government bureaucracies and the culture of cost-plus contracts could not have. Denigrators of SpaceX frequently accuse it of being dependent on government funding, but a quick glance at its finances shows this is not true. Starlink satellite internet represents approximately 60% of SpaceX’s revenues. In contrast, only about a fifth comes from federal agencies, including NASA and the Department of Defense, and it is hard to argue that the US does not get its money’s worth. There’s no getting around the fact that SpaceX is a genuine capitalist success story. Contemplating increased human activity on the Moon, lunar resource extraction, manufacturing, and secondary power systems can all be supplied by for-profit entities. The rule is simple: once feasibility is settled and a paying customer appears, the job is best done by people risking their own fortunes, not the taxpayers’. Between these poles lie some tricky and interesting cases: space projects that are potentially realizable but not yet proven, with goods and services that are sellable someday but not today. Even though private enterprise can supply many services, we must remember that governments will still be the primary customer for the foreseeable future. This is where public-private partnerships shine. They already have a long story of success in American space policy. Failing to allocate tasks properly between the private and public sectors can be incredibly costly. One error is to keep the government building what the market has already proved it can do better. When NASA needed cargo, and then crew, carried to the space station in the era after the Space Shuttle, it did something revolutionary: It became an anchor customer, offering to buy the service while letting companies own the hardware and raise the capital. Commercial crew put Americans in orbit for a fraction of government launch costs and ended our embarrassing dependence on Russian rockets. The same model now lands robots on the Moon and funds competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin to build landers to put Artemis crews on the Moon. There is a clear progression in the public sector’s role, from anchor customer to referee and overseer, nurturing nascent markets and then stepping aside as it matures. Failing to allocate tasks properly between the private and public sectors can be incredibly costly. One error is to keep the government building what the market has already proved it can do better. This is the reflex that keeps NASA’s Space Launch System, costing $4 billion a launch, in operation mainly because it employs the right people in the right congressional districts. The second is to hand private firms a contract that will never pay out, expecting companies to finance permanent lunar activities out of revenues that do not yet exist and may not for decades. A permanent lunar settlement will be neither wholly public nor wholly private. Writing for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, space entrepreneur and policy veteran Charles Miller proposes a public-private “authorities” model—think Port Authority of New York, not abstract governmental power—for lunar development. It’s an intriguing option with a proven track record that takes the assignment of private and public responsibilities seriously. Authorities are publicly directed and overseen, but largely privately operated. That includes raising private capital by issuing bonds. These governance structures are used all over the world, he notes, “for transportation projects, urban renewal projects, electric, water and gas projects, to create school districts and public hospitals, and for flood control.” Why not use them to develop the Moon, too? The next 10 to 20 years are the most important for American space policy since the Apollo era. With hostile powers, namely Russia and China, increasing their civil and military operations in space, we can’t afford to lose a step by getting the economics of space governance wrong. Sort the tasks correctly, and Americans can return to the Moon to stay. The market forces that propelled us deeper into space than ever before will be an essential ingredient. But there is more to space supremacy than dollars and cents. Sort the tasks wrong by overlooking the government’s comparative advantage, and we will watch our rivals leap ahead of us. A version of this essay was first published by National Review. Alexander William Salter, an economics professor in the business school at Texas Tech University, has published space policy commentary in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, National Review, The Hill, SpaceNews, and several other outlets. He is the author of Space Economics: Production Possibilities for the Final Frontier.

Vikram-1: A Great Success Story For India

Vikram-1 launch Skyroot Aerospace’s Vikram-1 rocket lifts off July 18 on its inaugural launch. (credit: Skyroot Aerospace) Vikram-1: A success for India’s entire space ecosystem by Ajey Lele Monday, July 20, 2026 India became a spacefaring nation on July 18, 1980, when the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launched the SLV-3 rocket and placed Rohini (RS-1), a 35-kilogramexperimental satellite, into low Earth orbit. Exactly 46 years later, on July 18, 2026, a private Indian space company, Skyroot Aerospace, successfully launched Vikram-1, India’s first privately developed orbital rocket, into space. This historic flight, named Mission Aagaman (the Arrival), successfully placed six payloads into a 450-kilometer orbit at an inclination of 60 degrees, marking a significant milestone in India’s growing private space sector. This launcher is named after Prof. Vikram Sarabhai, who pioneered the Indian space program. Skyroot’s rapid rise reflects the remarkable growth of India’s private space sector since its liberalization in 2020. Vikram-1 is a small orbital launch vehicle developed by Skyroot Aerospace, based in Indian city Hyderabad. The vehicle is designed to provide orbital launch services for payloads of up to 480 kilograms. This vehicle is developed for launching small satellites into 500-kilometer low and Sun-synchronous orbits. This four-stage vehicle is a combination of solid propulsion technology and liquid-fueled orbital maneuvering engines. The first three stages are solid-propellant stages called Kalam-1200, Kalam-250, and Kalam-100. Each of these stages have a burn time of approximately 80 to 100 seconds. The fourth and final stage is equipped with a cluster of four Raman-1 engines powered by monomethylhydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide. These engines are designed to enable precise orbital insertion and final orbit adjustments. Although Vikram-1 marks India’s first privately developed orbital launch vehicle, ISRO has a long history of collaborating with private industry globally to launch satellites. A notable early milestone was the Ariane Passenger Payload Experiment (APPLE), ISRO’s first indigenously developed experimental communication satellite, which was launched into a geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) aboard the third developmental flight of the Ariane launch vehicle from Kourou on June 19, 1981. The Ariane program had experienced a launch failure during its second developmental flight in 1980. As a result, the consortium was struggling to attract customers. But by securing a payload slot on the third developmental flight of Ariane, ISRO demonstrated remarkable confidence in their vehicle. The mission was successful, qualifying Ariane for operational service and marking the beginning of Arianespace’s emergence as a dominant player in the global commercial launch market. Even today, ISRO uses the services of Arianespace for launching heavy satellites into geostationary orbit. Founded in 2018 by former ISRO scientists, Skyroot Aerospace undertook the successful launch of Vikram-1 from ISRO’s launchpad at SHAR in Sriharikota and also got assistance from ISRO’s ground networks and its Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network during this launch. Centers located in Indonesia and Australia also assisted the tracking. Skyroot Aerospace is one of India’s leading private space companies. It made history in 2022 by launching Vikram-S, a suborbital launch vehicle. Building on this achievement, this startup raised $60 million in a funding round that valued the company at $1.1 billion, making it India’s first space tech unicorn. This company has been backed by prominent investors, including Sherpalo Ventures, Singapore’s GIC, and BlackRock. Skyroot’s rapid rise reflects the remarkable growth of India’s private space sector since its liberalization in 2020. Vikram-1 is India’s first orbital launch vehicle built entirely with an all-carbon composite structure. Carbon-fiber composites are substantially lighter than conventional rocket-grade steel but have comparable structural strength. This enables a relatively small launcher to place payloads of up to 350 kilograms into LEO. The Orbital Adjustment Module (OAM) on Vikram-1 is powered by a fully 3D-printed liquid engine, aiding precise orbital insertion and in-orbit maneuvers after the solid propulsion stages complete their burn. This 3D-printed system helps in reducing the number of components, lowers production time and cost, and improves engine reliability and performance. This mission had six payloads: SCOPE: Skyroot’s in-house atmospheric and Earth-observation satellite. SOLARAS: A 1U CubeSat by an Indian company called Grahaa Space for observing solar activity Embrace: An in-orbit robotic arm demonstration by Indian company Cosmoserve Space for space debris capture technology uD3PP and mD3RN: In-orbit technology demonstration payloads developed by the Germany-based company DCubed Cosmic Bloom: A diamond jewelry creation shaped like a blooming flower, mounted on an aluminum base Micro-Art: An 18K gold micro-sculpture; the sculpture features an 18K gold rocket holding micro portraits of celebrated Indian space scientists Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, and Sir C.V. Raman, each smaller than a grain of rice The payload Embrace remains attached to the rocket’s payload deck throughout this mission to demonstrate soft-robotic capture technology. It is an in-space demonstration of a robotic arm, a key step towards developing technologies for capturing and servicing objects in orbit. Such capabilities are expected to play a critical role for space debris removal, in-orbit servicing, and orbital sustainability. The validation of this technology in space is expected to meaningfully accelerate the development of India’s indigenous soft-robotic capture systems for next generation on-orbit operations. The successful orbital launch of Vikram-1 marks a defining moment in India’s space journey, demonstrating that the country could emerge as a hub for private launch services in near future. Over the past few years, the Indian space ecosystem has increasingly focused on capitalizing on the growing global demand for small satellite launch services. ISRO has also taken a major step towards commercializing India’s launch capabilities by transferring the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) technology to an Indian public sector agency called Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) through an arrangement worth $60 million. This is the first time ISRO has transferred the complete design, manufacturing, integration, testing, and operational knowhow of an entire launch vehicle to an external entity. So far, the SSLV, which is capable of putting 500 kilograms into LEO, has completed three developmental flights. Its first mission in August 2022 failed, but the next two missions in 2023 and 2024 were successful and the vehicle has been validated for commercial operations. Along with Skyroot Aerospace, another prominent Indian space startup, AgniKul Cosmos Pvt. Ltd., is developing the Agnibaan, a small-lift launch vehicle, designed to place payloads of up to 100 kilograms into a 700-kilometer orbit. On May 30, 2024, the company successfully conducted the first launch of its suborbital test vehicle. This vehicle was fitted with the world’s first flight of a single-piece 3D-printed semi-cryogenic engine. The mission was launched from a privately built launch pad, the first in India. AgniKul has also established a Large Format Additive Metal Manufacturing (LFAMM) facility, housing India’s largest 3D metal printer dedicated to rocket components. With such facilities in their service, the company is confident of producing an entire rocket engine in just seven days. Expanding beyond launch services, AgniKul announced a partnership with NeevCloud (India’s first AI “supercloud” startup) in February 2026 and is working towards developing a space-based AI data center, which is planned to be launched aboard Agnibaan as soon as 2027. Another Indian startup called Bellatrix Aerospace conceptualized in 2017–2018 a two-stage, liquid methane-powered micro launch vehicle called Chetak, to place payloads of up to 150 kilograms into Sun-synchronous orbit. However, today the company is focusing more on satellite propulsion technologies and have discontinued the development of Chetak. Unlike India’s recent successes in private launch vehicle development, private launch companies in other Asian states like Japan and China are facing setbacks. Japan’s Space One has yet to achieve a successful orbital launch with its Kairos rocket. Its maiden launch in March 2024 ended in an explosion seconds after liftoff and its second and third attempts also suffered failures. Similarly, China’s leading private launch company, Space Pioneer, suffered a major setback when the maiden flight of its Tianlong-3 heavy-lift rocket failed on April 3, 2026. This failure followed an earlier accident in June 2024, when a Tianlong-3 first stage accidentally lifted off during a ground test and crashed nearby after detaching from its test stand. The successful orbital launch of Vikram-1 marks a defining moment in India’s space journey, demonstrating that the country could emerge as a hub for private launch services in near future. As global demand for small satellite launches continues to grow, India is expanding its overall space ecosystem to capture a share of this rapidly expanding market. Beyond proving the technical capabilities of Skyroot Aerospace, this mission has generated valuable engineering data that will help them to refine future launch vehicles. Today, with more than 400 space tech startups, around 90 of which have collectively attracted nearly $870 million in investment, India’s commercial space sector is on a growth trajectory. The success of Vikram-1 should be viewed as a demonstration of the growing strength of India’s private space ecosystem. Ajey Lele is Deputy Director General at MP-IDSA, New Delhi, India and the views expressed are personal.<>/p> Note: we are now moderating comments. There will be a delay in posting comments and no guarantee that all submitted comments will be posted.

Getting To Yes Or No

Reflect Orbital Reflect Orbital received FCC authorization for a satellite that will test the ability to reflect sunlight to spots on the ground. (credit: Reflect Orbital) Getting to yes—or no by Jeff Foust Monday, July 20, 2026 On July 9, the FCC issued an order approving communications for Eärendil-1, the first satellite built by Reflect Orbital, in multiple bands for telemetry and control. The approval itself was not unusual, as the FCC issues similar approvals on a regular basis. This week, in fact, the FCC plans to vote on a proposal to create what it calls a “licensing assembly line” to speed up approvals of satellite applications. Tyson was blunt in his assessment of Reflect Orbital’s plans during a National Academies meeting last month, calling those plans “even crazier” than broadband megaconstellations. However, Eärendil-1 is not a typical communications or remote sensing satellite. The 142-kilogram spacecraft, expected to launch later this year into low Earth orbit, will deploy a thin-film reflector 18 meters on a side. Reflect Orbital will use the spacecraft to test how it can reflect sunlight to spots on the ground. This spacecraft will be able to light up spots on the ground a few kilometers across for several minutes at a time, potentially as bright as the full moon. The company has plans for a constellation of as many as 50,000 satellites that could provide artificial sunlight to extend the operations of solar farms, aid agriculture and construction sites, and more. However, many environmentalists and astronomers worry that such spacecraft would make groundbased optical astronomy virtually impossible and upset the diurnal cycles of plants and animals. “This harm could include damage to sensitive research telescope equipment, potential flash-blinding of pilots and drivers, and—as Reflect Orbital stated in its own FCC filings—potential permanent eye damage to anyone looking through a mid-sized telescope,” the American Astronomical Society (AAS) said in a statement about the mission. Tony Tyson, chief scientist of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, was blunt in his assessment of Reflect Orbital’s plans during a meeting of National Academies committees last month, calling those plans “even crazier” than the megaconstellations that he and fellow astronomers have worried about for the last several years. Those concerns prompted a flood of public comments regarding Reflect Orbital’s FCC application: nearly 1,900 comments by the time the agency issued its order, mostly opposing the mission. By comparison, SpaceX’s application for a constellation of up to one million orbital data center satellites had generated nearly 1,500 comments by the time of the FCC ruling, although that application came months after Reflect Orbital’s. The FCC, in its order approving Eärendil-1, said those concerns were beyond its remit. “We find that concerns about Eärendil-1’s impacts on optical astronomy fall outside our review and authorization of the space station and are not a basis for denial of or additional conditions on Reflect Orbital’s operations,” it stated. Later, when addressing environmental concerns, it stated that “we find that operation of a solar reflector attached to the satellite is too attenuated from the Commission’s action of approving use of spectrum and, thus, beyond the Commission’s authority.” “We are working on a framework that allows the government to say ‘yes’ to innovative space activities that don’t fit into traditional offices,” said Jordan. The FCC’s decision highlights a regulatory gap for commercial spaceflight in the United States. While licensing and approval processes exist for launches and reentries, by the FAA; for remote sensing, by the Commerce Department’s Office of Space Commerce; and for communications, by the FCC, who can, or should, regulate other activities remains unclear. Yet some degree of oversight by the federal government is required to meet US obligations under the Outer Space Treaty to provide “authorization and continuing supervision” of space activities by its nationals. This has been a longstanding concern of the commercial space industry, which worried that this gap meant there was no agency empowered to approve missions that fall outside the well-worn paths of launch, remote sensing, and communications. That has led to years of efforts to develop a “mission authorization” system to provide such approvals and, thus, regulatory certainty for those companies. But after a decade of effort, there is no mission authorization system in place. In the last administration, that debate led to a standoff between the White House, which proposed a system that split those responsibilities between the FAA and Office of Space Commerce, and the House Science Committee, which advanced a commercial space bill giving that authority solely to the Office of Space Commerce (see “An extended mission for authorization”, The Space Review, December 18, 2023.) The latest effort for mission authorization came in March, when the Office of Space Commerce rolled out a proposal for a voluntary system. That proposal was in response to direction from an executive order on commercial space policy in August, directing the Commerce Department to develop a proposal for authorization what are widely called “novel space activities.” “We are working on a framework that allows the government to say ‘yes’ to innovative space activities that don’t fit into traditional offices,” Taylor Jordan, the director of the Office of Space Commerce, said in a speech at the Satellite 2026 conference that announced the proposal. Jordan Taylor Jordan, the director of the Office of Space Commerce, discusses the new mission authorization proposal at a conference in March. (credit: J. Foust) That proposal would establish a voluntary system where companies could receive a “Space Commerce Certification” from the Office of Space Commerce. The companies would provide information about their missions to the office, which would then distribute them to other government agencies for review. Those agencies would have 30 days to review those applications and raise any objections. The office would have 120 days from the time it received a completed application to rule on it, with a presumption of approval: if the office did nothing after 120 days, the application would be automatically approved. The Office of Space Commerce has since collected input from industry on the proposal while awaiting a White House decision on it. “In developing this proposal, we worked hand-in-glove with the interagency to get their feedback to be able to say yes to how this works,” Jordan said last week at a hearing on the proposal by the House Science Committee’s space subcommittee. With the proposal now in the hands of the White House, “to me that means that we have the interagency in a good place to use our framework we have proposed.” The certification is voluntary, he noted, because the office lacks the statutory authority right now to require companies to use. “We are leveraging existing authorities,” he said, including the ability “to seek the removal of legal, policy, and institutional impediments to the growth of the commercial space sector.” So, what is the incentive for companies to go through a voluntary process? “The incentive that we’ve come up with is that we can provide a streamlining of the different regulations,” he said. “A company could put in one application to us and it could satisfy portions of the FAA’s or FCC’s obligations for their own work.” He suggested that a Space Commerce Certification could be used to satisfy payload review requirements for an FAA license or orbital debris mitigation requirements for an FCC license. If the White House approves the proposal, Jordan said his office would gradually implement it, starting a pilot program and tabletop exercises using more mature missions as initial cases. “We intend to look at mature technologies and mature missions, and really focus on what is near operations in space,” he said. “From there, we will put our application into the interagency. We will work with them on how we get to yes through that process.” “I believe we ought to advance a commercial space industry that contributes to the public good and a strong economy,” said Lofgren. “Clarity about who regulates specific activities is needed.” During the 90-minute hearing, with Jordan as the only witness, members of the committee agreed on the need for some kind of mission authorization system. “We must provide the regulatory certainty that companies need,” said Rep. Mike Haridopolos (R-FL), chairman of the space subcommittee. “Failing to do so would slow investment, slowing innovation and undermining American leadership.” “I believe we ought to advance a commercial space industry that contributes to the public good and a strong economy,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), ranking member of the full committee. “Clarity about who regulates specific activities is needed.” Members raised questions on both what legal authorities the office might need to turn the Space Commerce Certification into a binding, required system as well as concerns about the potential for overregulation. Jordan vowed to provide a light-touch approach to the certification but suggested some new authorities in law would be helpful. “With congressional action, you all have the ability to make that non-voluntary,” he said. The theme of his testimony, and of the questions from some members, was that the certification or some other kind of mission authorization scheme was needed for the commercial space industry to thrive as it moves into new activities. “The current licensing regime is not designed to address them,” he said of novel space activities. “US regulations simply do not offer a clear path to ‘yes’ for novel activities. Instead, they risk trapping our industry in an endless maze.” But a system that offers a clear path to “yes” can also produce a “no,” and the lack of a mission authorization system also makes it difficult to object to a novel space activity. Lofgren hinted at that when bringing up Reflect Orbital’s FCC approval in her opening remarks. “In a rare admission, the FCC said that addressing any concerns related to the satellite’s purpose was outside their jurisdiction,” she said. “That admission illustrates, in part, why we’re here today. No federal agency has the statutory authority to oversee novel space missions.” The AAS, in its statement, pressed the FCC to take action on Reflect Orbital’s application even after the commission said it had no authority to do so. “While the current license is for a single satellite, this logic implies that the Commission would also have no ability to consider the severe implications of a constellation of 50,000 solar reflectors like that envisioned by Reflect Orbital,” it stated. “In the absence of another licensing agency that could take these considerations into account, we believe that it is critical for the FCC to consider all of the impacts of the satellite's use case,” the AAS added. (The House Science Committee has previously criticized the FCC for enforcing orbital debris mitigation requirements without the explicit authority to do so in federal law.) But a system that offers a clear path to “yes” can also produce a “no,” and the lack of a mission authorization system also makes it difficult to object to a novel space activity. The lack of a mission authorization system has, so far, not been an insurmountable obstacle for many companies pursuing novel space activities. Three companies have launched commercial lunar lander missions. SpaceLogistics, a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman, launched two missions to dock with and extend the lives of commercial GEO communications satellites, and has another launching this week. Others have flown tech demos for satellite servicing and related technologies. A mission authorization system would provide more certainty for those companies. “The commercial space industry has told us for years that the lack of a clear regulatory pathway has discouraged investment and slowed the development of novel space activities,” said Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX), chairman of the House Science Committee, at last week’s hearing. But creating a system that can say “yes” to novel space activities also means one that has the ability to say “no,” particularly if government policies and priorities change. Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.

The Arsenal's New Owner

hypersonics New companies and new investment are reinvigorating the space industrial base. (credit: Karman Space & Defense) The arsenal’s new owners by Bharath Gopalaswamy and Daniel “Sphinx” Dant Monday, July 20, 2026 A change of ownership is underway in the American defense industrial base, and it carries more promise than alarm. For half a century, the arsenal had one shape: a handful of original equipment manufacturers, “the Primes,” building to government requirements, financed through the annual appropriations cycle. The industral base that private capital is entering had grown brittle, much of it the residue of an earlier consolidation. Private capital is now reinforcing it from three directions. Venture money is funding a new generation of defense companies. Private equity is recapitalizing the mid-tier and lower-tier suppliers who fabricate the parts. And, as the legacy primes refocus, financiers are backing the divisions they shed. The arsenal is gaining partners it has lacked for a generation. The numbers are not subtle. Venture investment into defense and national-security companies set a record in 2025 and surpassed it by early 2026, more than $13 billion in the first months of the year against roughly $1.6 billion as recently as 2020.[1] Anduril alone raised five billion in a single round at a valuation of $61 billion, much of it bound for new production capacity.[2] Private equity is deploying record sums into defense suppliers, with sector deal volume up more than 20% year over year.[3] For decades the binding problem was the absence of capital and urgency. Both have arrived. Nowhere is that arrival more visible than in space. Private capital has poured into the sector faster than into any other corner of the defense enterprise: global space-technology investment grew roughly 48% in 2025 to a record $12.4 billion, with the United States taking the largest share. SpaceX has industrialized spacecraft production on automotive lines the government could never have commissioned on its own.[4] A wave of space firms, such as Firefly, Voyager, and Karman, has reached the public markets, and SpaceX’s recent listing could pull more behind it. Space, once the most state-bound corner of the arsenal, has become the clearest proof that capital and urgency have both shown up. This is good news, and it is worth stating plainly: the base that private capital is entering had grown brittle, much of it the residue of an earlier consolidation. The mergers which followed the 1993 “Last Supper” cut 51 major defense firms down to five primes and diluted the supplier tiers beneath them, trading redundancy for efficiency.[5] Lead times for missiles and aircraft now run to years, and production rates are counted in dozens, not thousands. For US government satellite systems, the story is worse still. Critical satellite components often carry lead times beyond 78 weeks, with some parts on a single government-contracted satellite taking a year and a half to replace.[6] Private capital is the first force in decades able to reverse that: venture investors backing entrants the old structure would never have funded and private equity, at its best, recapitalizing starved suppliers and rebuilding fragmented tiers into something that can deliver at scale. These owners want to build, and they can typically do it faster than the primes. The question is whether the government gives them a reason to build for the long term. That government demand signal is the real constraint. It is not the investors. Capital responds to the signal it is given, and the appropriations cycle sends a short one. Funded one year at a time, even the most patient owners are pushed toward short-term horizons, because no buyer can underwrite a decade of capacity against a budget that resets every year. Assembly lines, tooling, the fabrication of critical components from often scarce materials, cleared workforces, and qualified suppliers take years to stand up and must survive lean and inconsistent budgets across the Future Years Defense Program. Ask capital to commit to that against an annual demand signal, and it will, sensibly, hedge or walk away. The mismatch is not Wall Street against the warfighter. It is between what investors are asked to underwrite and what the defense industrial base needs, and the government predominantly holds the pen and the purse strings. The reforms set the destination; private investment can set the pace, closing the distance faster than appropriations alone ever could, if the demand signal lets it. Space shows exactly how this breaks, because in space the demand has already arrived and the supply cannot keep up. Lockheed Martin has told investors it is planning for a 632% increase in satellite and space-vehicle deliveries against its long-range plan, across a supplier network of roughly 13,200 vendors in 52 countries.[7] The Space Development Agency’s proliferated architecture, the Golden Dome space-based interceptor program with its contractual 2028 demonstration deadline, and commercial megaconstellations are three demand signals compressing against the same constrained suppliers, and they peak in roughly the same 18 window. They land on the same radiation-hardened electronics, space-qualified solar panels, optical inter-satellite link terminals, and propulsion shops, a market so thin that Rocket Lab’s acquisition of Mynaric further consolidated one of only a handful of optical-terminal suppliers.[8] The 2026 State of the Space Industrial Base report reached the conclusion that should reframe the whole debate: technical capability is no longer the primary bottleneck. The bottleneck is manufacturing capacity, workforce depth, and supply-chain resilience, and a March 2026 Pentagon industrial-base review found that efforts to scale production and bring in nontraditional vendors had not yet moved the needle.[9] When the government’s own technical advisors say the problem is no longer technical, that is the signal. To its credit, the Department of Defense sees this and is adapting, albeit slowly. The reforms are real: outcome-based contracting, multi-year procurement authority for critical munitions, new acquisition authorities and organizations aligned to Portfolio Acquisition Executives and, in some cases, Direct Reporting Program Managers, and a stated intent to treat production capacity as a strategic asset. They are the right reforms, and they deserve support rather than reflexive cynicism. But reform runs on an institutional clock, and the threat does not. The adversary gets a vote too, with its own timelines and its own leverage over contested supply chains, most acutely in space, where China controls roughly 90% of global rare-earth refining and has already used export restrictions on heavy rare earths and permanent magnets to disrupt allied defense supply chains.[10] The prospect of a high-end fight in the latter half of this decade will not wait for the procurement system to finish modernizing. The gap that matters is not that government is failing to act, but that the pace of reform and the pace of the threat are diverging, and the capacity must be built in the delta between the two paths. This is where private capital becomes indispensable rather than incidental. The reforms set the destination; private investment can set the pace, closing the distance faster than appropriations alone ever could, if the demand signal lets it. This means contracts and forecasts durable enough to make patient investment the rational choice, so that all relevant stakeholders are rewarded for adding capacity, not only for trimming cost. It implies extending the multi-year authorities now emerging for munitions across the supplier tiers, and into the space-qualified component shops, where the real chokepoints reside. And it means giving investors what they most lack: a credible, multi-year picture of demand and predictability, which they can build against with conviction. The space sector proves the point in the negative, its own analysts now say capital is increasingly constrained not by technical ambition but by uncertainty over sustainment strategy, regulatory stability, and federal demand signals. The owners have arrived. Now the Pentagon must give them a demand signal strong enough to make building for the long run the rational choice, and do it before the next crisis proves the cost of waiting. The stakes are high, and they run down to the sub-tier. Considerable recent industrial dealmaking involves buyers acquiring suppliers two and three tiers down the bill of materials.[11] In the right conditions that consolidation rebuilds depth and resilience, and the government’s task is to make those conditions the default by rewarding companies that invest in capacity. The skilled workforce, the scarcest input of all, follows the same logic: owners train and retain cleared technicians and trades when the demand horizon justifies it, and the surest route there is a signal they can rely on, fund, and plan against. None of this means holding private capital at arm’s length. It means meeting it halfway. The Pentagon is the base’s largest customer, and a customer that size shapes behavior whether it intends to or not. The opportunity is to shape it on purpose, alongside the investors now stepping forward. Government supplies the reforms, while capital supplies the speed. What remains is to align them before events force the issue. Again, the adversary gets a vote. The reforms are right, and they are coming. The capital is here, and it is willing. But the one variable the United States does not control is time, and time is what the threat is spending fastest. In space, the crunch has a date on it, the delivery ramps and the 2028 demonstration deadlines are already contractual, not aspirational. Financing the arsenal and building it cannot be treated as separate acts, or sequential ones. The owners have arrived. Now the Pentagon must give them a demand signal strong enough to make building for the long run the rational choice, and do it before the next crisis proves the cost of waiting. Notes Defense, national-security, and law-enforcement companies set a venture-funding record in 2025 and exceeded $13 billion in the first months of 2026, up from roughly $1.6 billion in 2020. Crunchbase News, “Anduril Raises Another $5B As Defense Tech Startups Shatter Funding Records,” May 13, 2026, news.crunchbase.com. Anduril Industries raised a $5 billion Series H at a $61 billion valuation in May 2026, on 2025 revenue of about $2.2 billion, with proceeds directed substantially toward manufacturing capacity. Anduril, “Anduril Announces $5B Series H Raise,” anduril.com; CNBC, May 13, 2026, cnbc.com. Private equity is deploying record capital into defense suppliers and carve-outs, and aerospace, defense, government, and security deal volume rose roughly 22 percent year over year. PwC, “Aerospace and Defense: US Deals 2026 Outlook,” pwc.com; Capstone Partners, “Merger and Acquisition Outlook 2026,” capstonepartners.com. Global space-technology investment grew about 48 percent in 2025 to a record $12.4 billion, with the United States accounting for roughly $7.3 billion (60 percent); spacecraft manufacturing has been industrialized on automotive-style production methods. Seraphim Space, 2025 space-investment data, reported January 2026 (SpaceNews); AO Shearman, “Private Capital Firms Target Emerging Opportunities in the Space Sector,” 2026. Following the 1993 “Last Supper,” 51 major defense firms consolidated to five primes, thinning the supplier tiers beneath them. Defense Acquisition University, “The Shrinking Private Supplier Base and Acquisition Reform,” dau.edu. Critical satellite components frequently carry lead times beyond 78 weeks, with some parts on a single government-contracted satellite taking 52 to 78 weeks to replace. Cofactr, supply-chain analysis, cofactr.com. Lockheed Martin executives have publicly described planning for a roughly 632 percent increase in satellite and space-vehicle deliveries against the company’s long-range plan, across a supplier network of about 13,200 vendors in 52 countries. Breaking Defense, February 2026, as compiled in industry analysis, 2026. Three converging demand signals, the Space Development Agency proliferated architecture, the Golden Dome space-based interceptor program (with a contractual 2028 demonstration), and commercial mega-constellations, are compressing against the same constrained suppliers; Rocket Lab’s acquisition of Mynaric further consolidated the small optical inter-satellite link terminal market. “U.S. Space Industrial Base Capacity Crisis 2026–2028,” industry analysis, May 2026. The 2026 State of the Space Industrial Base report concluded that technical capability is no longer the primary bottleneck; a March 2026 Pentagon industrial-base report found efforts to scale production and onboard nontraditional vendors had not yet moved the needle. State of the Space Industrial Base 2026; Department of Defense industrial-base report, March 2026. China retains roughly 90 percent of global rare-earth refining capacity and about 70 percent of natural-graphite processing, and its 2025 export restrictions on heavy rare earths and permanent magnets have disrupted allied defense supply chains. International Energy Agency, Critical Minerals Outlook 2024; Aerospace Industries Association, 2026 Space Priorities. A large share of recent North American supply-chain mergers and acquisitions reflects strategic and financial buyers acquiring suppliers two and three tiers down the bill of materials. PitchBook and Refinitiv data, as compiled in industry analysis, 2025. Bharath Gopalaswamy, PhD, is an aerospace, defense, and emerging-technology executive. Col. (Ret.) Dan Dant, Vice President at KBR, is a defense industrial-base strategist. Both are Senior Fellows of the National Spacepower Center. The views expressed are the authors’ own.