Space Commerce Week

About Space Commerce Week

A weekly newsletter published to the community highlighting the news of the week and letting you know who our podcast guest is that week. We will look ahead to the coming week to see what's happening and let you know. www.exterrajsc.com (https://www.exterrajsc.com/s/weekly-review?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Ex Terra Media, LLC

Category

news · news

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

10 Nov 2024

Latest episode

1 Nov 2026

Latest episodes

91 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   1 Nov 2026

   NASA has Changed the Flight Plans for Both of its Artemis Moon Landers. And Big Iron from Cowboy Space

   The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has changed the designs and flight plans (https://www.exterrajsc.com/p/nasa-and-lander-providers-revise) for both commercial landers in its Artemis program. The goal is still a crewed Moon landing in 2028. The changes cover landers from Blue Origin and SpaceX. NASA laid them out a news conference at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The biggest shift is in the mission order. Artemis III won’t land. Instead, four astronauts will stay in low Earth orbit next summer and practice docking the Orion capsule with test versions of both landers. NASA officials said Artemis IV is now the mission planned to put crew on the surface. Neither company’s been assigned to that landing. Artemis program manager Jeremy Parsons said NASA will hold that decision as long as it can. “The uncrewed demonstrations for us are gonna provide critical operations to reduce risk for our initial surface mission. It’s gonna allow us to learn how do we start and restop cryogenic engines on the moon rather than hypergolic. We’re gonna understand kind of the conditions of the regolith at the South Pole, plume conditions and surface interaction, thermal performance of the landers, and really is gonna be a critical stepping stone to the eventual lunar landing. If all goes according to plan, we’ll also have a lunar terrain vehicle on the lunar surface by the time the first Artemis astronauts arrive near the South Pole, giving us additional options as the moon base begins to take shape,” Parsons said. “NASA and we intend to wait as long as possible to make a decision about which provider is ultimately going to provide the first American astronauts back to the moon in 2028. And so this is, again, really trying to go along with them in the development cycle, and we have dedicated teams working hand in hand with both providers, marching along the way, doing everything we can to accelerate. Regardless of who goes first, both providers are planning for lunar landing missions in 2028.” Both companies must fly an uncrewed demonstration mission before NASA’s crewed landings. And both landers will reach lunar orbit differently than first planned. SpaceX’s Starship lander will wait for Orion in Earth orbit. The two will dock there. Then Starship will fire its engines to push the combined stack to low lunar orbit. NASA says it’s modifying Orion for that push. SpaceX still plans to refuel Starship in orbit. A figure of 22 refueling flights was floated at a panel discussion the day prior to the news conference. Parsons said NASA isn’t tracking that high, and that six to eight flights is closer to what SpaceX is planning. He said early, conservative estimates put propellant loss during transfer at 5 to 10 percent. Blue Origin is skipping propellant transfer. It’ll use three transfer stages to carry its Blue Moon Mark 2 lander to an elliptical polar orbit. On schedule, NASA officials said Artemis III is running 90 days behind. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the work ahead includes a tanking test of the rocket at the end of this year. Parsons tied the delay to the supply chain. “So right now it’s supply chain for the lunar builds that are really kind of driving it. And so kind of what you’ve seen in terms of the broader industrial supply base right now is you have a number of components that, you know, may get outclassed for certain DOW builds, you know, that are kind of higher rated,” Parsons said. Parsons said avionics is the key item. He also said Blue Origin is returning its New Glenn rocket to flight after an incident in May, and is aiming to restart pad operations in November. The baseline Artemis III mission runs 14 days and can stretch to 17. Blue Origin’s test lander launches first, on New Glenn. Orion follows on the Space Launch System, or SLS, and docks with the lander. The crew will go inside. Starship launches later from Florida and docks with Orion for about two hours. The crew won’t enter Starship. There are hardware changes, too. NASA’s adding a stretch Centaur upper stage as an option for SLS, alongside the existing upper stage. Parsons said it carries about 50 percent more propellant than the standard Centaur. NASA moved to Centaur from the Exploration Upper Stage after it lost confidence that stage could meet its timelines, cost and schedule. NASA and Axiom Space are also developing a second spacesuit configuration for early missions. Parsons said it cuts suit mass from a little over 500 pounds to about 250. Parsons said avionics is currently the item driving the Artemis III schedule. The agency expects to choose between the two SLS upper stages around next summer, near the time of Artemis III. -0- The European Space Agency, or ESA, has picked OHB System to lead feasibility and preliminary design studies (https://www.exterrajsc.com/p/esa-awards-feasibility-studies-for) for shared infrastructure on the lunar surface. OHB System, a subsidiary of Germany’s OHB SE, announced the award Monday. The project’s called OASIS. That’s short for Outpost for Advanced Scientific Investigation Station. OHB says OASIS would supply power, communications and data storage to multiple payloads. Instead of each mission building and flying its own systems, future payloads could use shared services. Energy generated and stored during the lunar day is meant to keep payloads running through the roughly two-week lunar night. The company says that could cut the complexity, mass and cost of future lunar missions. OHB is prime contractor and is responsible for the overall system concept. It’s working with as-yet unnamed partners on system requirements and the preliminary design phase. OHB describes the concept as modular and scalable, built to host science instruments, technology demonstrators and robotic systems. In the current reference architecture, Europe’s Argonaut lunar lander would deliver the infrastructure on an Ariane 6 rocket. Communications and data relay would run through Moonlight, Europe’s planned lunar communications infrastructure, starting with Lunar Pathfinder. The concept would move power and communications off individual mission budgets and onto shared hardware. -0- NVIDIA plans to take a minority stake in Reflex Aerospace (https://www.exterrajsc.com/p/german-satellite-maker-to-expand), a German satellite platform maker. Reflex says the money will help expand its production in Bavaria. Reflex is based in Berlin and Munich. The company says the funds also will support development of its platform architecture, with a focus on onboard processing. NVIDIA would join existing investors Alpine Space Ventures, Human Element, Bayern Kapital and HTGF. The planned investment follows Reflex’s Series A round in November 2025. That round raised about 56 million dollars, or 50 million euros. Reflex builds mid-sized satellites for low Earth orbit constellations. It adapts them to customer payloads for Earth observation, intelligence, space domain awareness and communications missions. The company says it typically needs nine to 12 months from order to delivery of the first satellite of a new design. It compares that with two to four years for traditional satellite programs. Reflex ties its strategy to Europe’s security needs, with manufacturing in Germany and sovereign control over its supply chain, manufacturing and operations. CEO Walter Ballheimer said the company’s platform work includes designs for very-high-resolution stereo imaging and orbital data center constellations. The deal pairs a major processor supplier with a European platform builder focused on onboard computing. The investment hasn’t closed yet. Cowboy Space Corp. has unveiled the upper stage (https://www.exterrajsc.com/p/rocket-with-data-center-upper-stage) of its Big Iron rocket. It’s designed to stay in orbit and operate as a megawatt-class data center. The San Carlos, California, company was formerly known as Aetherflux. It also introduced Big Iron Express, a commercial launch program for outside customers that need megawatt-class power in orbit for computing or other uses. The same upper stage will be designed to carry their payloads, configured for each mission. Cowboy Space is targeting 2028 for Big Iron’s first flight. After that, it plans to scale up its Stamped… This is a public episode. 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2. 

   25 Oct 2026

   Project Constellation, and NASA’s Science Priorities

   The U.S. State Department is putting five million dollars into a new program meant to build space partnerships between the United States and other countries. It’s called Project Constellation (https://www.exterrajsc.com/p/us-announces-5-million-space-partnership). The goal is a long-term platform that connects governments, industry, academia, entrepreneurs and international organizations, and builds capacity in emerging space economies. Planned activities include commercial diplomacy, fellowships, pitch competitions, study tours, innovation showcases and investor engagement. There’ll also be discussions on regulatory alignment, space law and policy, and workforce development. The program supports the U.S. Mission to International Organizations in Vienna. The award was announced at the second annual U.S. Space Forum, held Oct. 15 and 16 at the Vienna International Center. The grant goes to the Commercial Space Federation, or C-S-F, along with partners Meridian International and SPACEAIMS. C-S-F will lead the commercial space side of the program. That means assessing partner countries’ priorities and readiness, and connecting emerging space programs with U.S. companies and supply chains. The group says it’ll use convenings, exchanges and delegations to find openings for procurement and long-term business partnerships. Wells Griffith, the U.S. ambassador to the Mission in Vienna, said the program offers other nations pathways into the U.S. space ecosystem. He also pointed to a separate State Department effort, the Space Catalyst Partnership, which pairs diplomatic outreach with industry engagement. -0- Private investment in space companies hit 20-point-8 billion dollars in the third quarter. That’s according to the latest quarterly investment tracker (https://www.exterrajsc.com/p/private-space-investment-totals-208) from Seraphim Space. The total’s more than two and a half times the previous quarterly high of eight billion dollars, set in the first quarter. Trailing 12-month investment reached 40-point-1 billion dollars. One deal drove nearly half of it. Blue Origin raised 10 billion dollars in what the report called its first outside funding round. Take that out, and the quarter came in at 10-point-8 billion dollars. The money concentrated at the top. The 10 largest rounds took 78 percent of the capital deployed, up from 57 percent in the second quarter. They included Hadrian’s one-point-37 billion dollar Series D, Stoke Space’s one billion dollar Series E and K2 Space’s 500 million dollar Series D. Seraphim counted 216 deals in all. Series D and later rounds more than doubled year to date, from 20 to 43. Space access companies, a category that covers launch, spacecraft manufacturing, suppliers and satellite operations, drew 16-point-4 billion dollars across 120 deals. Without Blue Origin, that’s six-point-4 billion. Downstream applications went the other way. They fell to 400 million dollars across 40 deals, down from one-point-1 billion dollars in the second quarter. Public markets lagged. Planet Labs, AST SpaceMobile and Rocket Lab each fell more than 30 percent during the quarter, following SpaceX’s initial public offering in June. The report said SpaceX’s share price recovered late in the quarter. Chinese companies closed 49 deals worth three-point-3 billion dollars, topping their previous high of 35. That money reached beyond launch and satellite constellations into space-domain awareness, orbital logistics, return vehicles and in-space computing. In Europe, deal count over the past 12 months fell to 133 from 169, while investment rose from one-point-5 billion to five-point-3 billion dollars. Four deals with special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, were announced in the quarter. They involve Ursa Major, Astro Digital, Astrum Space and Space-Eyes. The report said each one’s outcome depends on committed capital, redemptions and closing on the proposed terms. Seraphim also flagged launch capacity. Delays and groundings across New Glenn, Vulcan and Ariane 6 have limited supply, leaving smaller satellite operators exposed on rideshare. Seraphim expects that constraint to last through 2027 and 2028, with real relief unlikely before 2029. Looking ahead, Seraphim doesn’t expect fourth-quarter funding to stay at this level. It says 2026 is still on course to be the sector’s strongest funding year on record. -0- The inspector general (https://www.exterrajsc.com/p/nasa-inspector-general-finds-gaps) for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration says the agency lacks the communication, tracking and cost-accounting processes it needs to manage the surveys that set its science priorities. The studies are called decadal surveys. NASA contracts with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to produce them. The report says NASA has invested billions of dollars in missions based on survey recommendations, including the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and Mars Sample Return. In the last cycle, NASA received 160 recommendations across its five science divisions. Auditors found NASA’s approach has been hands-off, largely by design, to protect the surveys’ independence. The report says that limits communication and leaves division concerns unaddressed. The National Academies’ process often takes two years. NASA then gets a prepublication report that can run more than 700 pages, and it often has fewer than 10 days to review it. Division officials told auditors some recommendations can’t be acted on. One division received four recommendations in its 2010s survey and 26 in its 2020s survey, with similar staff and budget. In Biological and Physical Sciences, the survey recommended two research campaigns costing 100 million to 400 million dollars a year ... each ... for 10 years. One year of one campaign would exceed that division’s entire fiscal 2023 budget of 85 million dollars. NASA also isn’t fully counting survey costs, the report said. The agency spent about 16 million dollars on task orders for the last five surveys. Related mission concept studies cost about 76 million dollars, nearly five times as much. NASA doesn’t track staff time on survey work, and it doesn’t systematically track how divisions carry out recommendations. NASA’s Science Mission Directorate agreed with all eight recommendations. They include performance metrics in task orders, interim reports, more review time, cost tracking and directorate-wide guidance. Mark Clampin, the directorate’s deputy associate administrator, wrote that the surveys’ independence and federal contracting rules limit how much feedback NASA can appropriately give. He added that survey recommendations aren’t binding on the agency. NASA plans to ask the National Academies’ Space Studies Board to hold a lessons-learned workshop in spring 2027. Completion dates for the eight recommendations run from June 30, 2027, to May 31, 2028. Blue Origin says more than three billion dollars in Florida launch, manufacturing and booster-recovery infrastructure (https://www.exterrajsc.com/p/florida-launch-build-out-texas-satellite) is meant to support multiple flights a week by the end of the decade. The company made that disclosure last week. It followed an Oct. 8 announcement of Constellation Park, a one-point-3-million-square-foot production campus for satellite and communications programs in Hutto, Texas. Start in Florida. Launch Complex 36A is being restored after a May 28 anomaly during a New Glenn hotfire test. In a June 30 update, Blue Origin said its investigation was ongoing and that it’s aiming to return to flight by the end of this year. The company has filed an Environmental Assessment to raise the permitted launch rate there from 12 a year to 50. The FAA’s website lists a draft assessment covering up to 50 launches a year. Next door, Launch Complex 36B is under construction as the future home of the larger New Glenn nine-by-four, and the company says it plans more New Glenn pads on the Space Coast after that. At Rocket Park, near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, a 330 million dollar expansion will build the nine-by-four’s second stage. Blue Origin is targeting completion in summer 2027, with capacity for up to 150 upper stages a year. At Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, the company is building a customer integration facility with the U.S. Space Force. It’ll have four payload bays, two encapsulation bays and a multi-manifest processing area. At Port Canaveral, the landing platform Jacklyn is operating, with two more under way. Blue Origin says it has more than 5,000 Florida employees, 500 Florida suppliers and more than 20 sites across Brevard and Orange counties. In Texas, Constellation Park will make parts for TeraWave, a satellite communications network the company says will offer up to six terabits per second of symmetrical data. It’ll also expand production of Quartz, a ground network using antennas about 12 feet across, and build solar arrays, avionics and telecommunications hardware. Blue Origin projects more than 2,000 new jobs there over 10 years. -0- Orbius and Armada have launched a combined satellite connectivity and edge computing package (https://www.exterrajsc.com/p/edge-ai-computing-now-offered-over) that they say is available now to customers in remote locations. The offering pairs Orbius’ StarEDGE Multi-LEO platform, which links to multiple low Earth orbit satellite networks, with Armada’s modular, ruggedized data centers. The companies say customers can deploy and manage the satellite links and the artificial intelligence computing as one system. Target markets include maritime, energy, government, telecommunications and enterprise customers. Orbius says traffic runs over what it calls a Private Network Interconnect. That’s a set of dedicated network paths to regional data centers, rather than the public internet. The company says that keeps data on secure infrastructure from the satellite link to the computing workload. The companies list faster deployment, control over where data is stored, the ability to scale from one site to a global fleet, and a single partner holding the service-level agreements. Armada CEO Dan Wright said the goal is to give customers one partner from signal to decision, instead of making them combine vendors on their own. -0- SpaceX has agreed to buy a nationwide portfolio of 800-megahertz wireless licenses (https://www.exterrajsc.com/p/nationwide-low-band-spectrum-purchase), covering up to 14 megahertz of paired spectrum. The deal needs approval from the Federal Communications Commission, or F-C-C. A filing seeking that approval describes a purchase agreement dated Oct. 8. SpaceX didn’t disclose a price. The company says the low-band spectrum would give its Starlink Mobile service a coverage layer alongside its two-gigahertz mid-band spectrum. Low-band signals get through walls and other obstacles, so service could reach phones inside buildings. SpaceX also says most existing mobile devices already support the 800-megahertz band. Once the F-C-C signs off, SpaceX says Starlink Mobile will combine its satellite-to-phone constellation with a ground-based network. The company says that would make Starlink Mobile the first operator to deploy both satellite and terrestrial spectrum. But so far there is no announced timeline for the ground network to be deployed. Project Constellation, Commercial Space Federation, U.S. Space Forum Vienna, Space Diplomacy, State Department Space Grant, Seraphim Space Q3 2026, Space Venture Capital, Blue Origin Funding Round, Space SPACs, Launch Capacity Shortage, NASA Inspector General, Decadal Survey, NASA Science Mission Directorate, NASA Audit, Blue Origin, New Glenn, Constellation Park Texas, Space Coast Launch Infrastructure, TeraWave, Orbius, Armada, Edge Computing, Satellite Connectivity, Multi-LEO, SpaceX Spectrum Purchase, Starlink Mobile, 800 MHz Spectrum, Direct-to-Device, FCC Worth a Second Look High-Pressure Satellite Refueling Interface Completes Qualification Under UK Funding (https://www.exterrajsc.com/p/high-pressure-satellite-refueling) Demonstration Payload Launches on Pelican Satellite for NASA Relay Test (https://www.exterrajsc.com/p/demonstration-payload-launches-on) European Carriers Sign Letter of Intent to Explore Joint Satellite Spectrum Bid (https://www.exterrajsc.com/p/european-carriers-sign-letter-of) Memorandum Sets Stage for European Lunar Rover Testing (https://www.exterrajsc.com/p/memorandum-sets-stage-for-european) Report Outlines Repair, Reuse and Recycling of Hardware Already in Orbit (https://www.exterrajsc.com/p/report-outlines-repair-reuse-and) This is a public episode. 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3. 

   18 Oct 2026

   A New Framework for Nuclear Power and Propulsion in Space, and NASA Solicits Proposals for Commercial Space Stations

   NASA and the Department of Energy have signed a memorandum of understanding that sets a framework for joint work on space nuclear power and propulsion (https://www.exterrajsc.com/p/memorandum-sets-framework-for-space). NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and Energy Secretary Chris Wright signed the agreement Oct. 8 in Washington. The signing took place at a science summit hosted by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The agreement covers advanced research, fuel production, testing, launch integration and operations. NASA called safety the central pillar of that work. Isaacman said nuclear power will let the agency go farther, operate longer and field more capable spacecraft and instruments than it has before. He described it as the start of a nuclear era for NASA. What is not locked down is a dollar figure. NASA didn’t state funding levels, and it didn’t say which agency will handle which tasks. The memorandum builds on a December 2025 executive order that directs NASA to develop a launch-ready lunar surface reactor by 2030. NASA says it and the Energy Department are making steady progress toward that goal. Two programs carry most of the load. Space Reactor-1 Freedom is scheduled to launch in 2028, and NASA says it will move nuclear propulsion from laboratory research to deep-space operations. Lunar Reactor-1 is a fission surface power system meant to keep the planned Moon Base running through the lunar night. NASA hasn’t given a launch date for that one. The agreement also covers radioisotope power. NASA’s Dragonfly rotorcraft, bound for Saturn’s moon Titan, will use a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator and 24 lightweight radioisotope heater units. NASA’s mission page lists the launch as no earlier than July 2028. The two agencies also plan to supply 24 similar heater units for the European Space Agency’s Rosalind Franklin Mars rover. For suppliers of reactor components, nuclear fuel and radiation-tolerant hardware, the document spells out the work areas the two agencies plan to share. It doesn’t yet spell out the budgets behind them. The agreement takes effect Nov. 1. -0- Voyager Technologies says its Griffin-1 lunar lander has completed acceptance testing (https://www.exterrajsc.com/p/griffin-1-lunar-lander-completes), clearing the spacecraft for the next phase of launch preparation. Griffin Mission One is what Voyager calls an infrastructure-class lander. It was developed by Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic, which Voyager acquired this summer, through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. The testing verified the lander’s systems performance. The mission will carry 10 payloads from six countries to the moon’s south pole. That manifest includes payloads from NASA, the European Space Agency and commercial customers. Voyager Chairman and CEO Dylan Taylor said that when Griffin touches down, it will be the largest commercial payload delivery to the moon to date. He described the company’s role as building the transportation layer for a lunar economy, meaning the logistics, access and systems needed for sustained operations there. Voyager Executive Vice President John Thornton said every payload on the manifest represents a customer and a capability. Griffin-1 is now part of NASA’s Moon Base Phase One objectives. Voyager says the lander is designed to deliver rovers, science instruments and other infrastructure, including future power systems. For payload developers and component suppliers, that makes Griffin a delivery route tied directly to the agency’s lunar surface plans. Griffin-1 is heading back to Voyager’s Lunar Systems headquarters in Pittsburgh for final preparations. From there, it ships to Cape Canaveral, Florida. Voyager says the launch is planned for later this year, but it hasn’t announced a date. -0- NASA has awarded two Small Business Innovation Research Phase One contracts to Yank Technologies to develop wireless power hardware (https://www.exterrajsc.com/p/nasa-funds-two-wireless-power-projects) for robots on the moon and Mars. Yank is a Brooklyn-based developer of wireless charging systems. The company’s pitch starts with a problem every lunar surface system shares. Regolith, the fine dust on the lunar surface, builds up on the metal terminals of electrical connectors. And because regolith is a strong insulator, it can interfere with power transfer. Yank calls that a significant mission risk. The first award covers a modular, kilowatt-class wireless power system for NASA robotic vehicles and equipment. It moves power without physical contact, so there’s no exposed connector for dust to foul. The company says it’s designed to keep working when the transmitter and receiver aren’t precisely lined up, and to adjust for different power levels and positions. The second award covers a high-power-density converter that changes alternating current to direct current. Yank says it delivers kilowatt-class power in a smaller, lighter package. It also monitors its own voltage, current and component temperature to detect wear while it’s running. CEO Josh Yank said the contracts expand the company’s wireless power work for NASA, with an emphasis on modularity and scalability for lunar and planetary surfaces. The company says both systems are intended for a range of vehicles, payloads and science equipment. The power interface is a small part with a large footprint. Any rover, payload or instrument that has to plug in on the lunar surface faces the same dust problem. Yank didn’t disclose the value of the awards, and it gave no timeline for either project. The Federal Communications Commission’s Space Bureau has extended to Jan. 5 the deadline for Reflect Orbital to post a surety bond (https://www.exterrajsc.com/p/fcc-extends-surety-bond-deadline) for its Earendil-1 satellite. Earendil-1 is a single satellite designed to deploy and test a steerable sunlight reflector. The bureau licensed it July 9, and the original grant required the bond by Aug. 10. Jennifer Gilsenan, acting chief of the Space Bureau, signed the order. It adds 150 days to the deadline, for a total of 180 days from the grant. Reflect Orbital had asked for a 90-day deferral, or a permanent deferral as an alternative. The bureau turned down the permanent option, citing the commission’s pending move to new Part 100 licensing rules. The amount of the bond was not disclosed. The bureau said the bond is meant to push operators to launch quickly or surrender their authorizations early, so they don’t warehouse spectrum and orbital slots. It said Reflect Orbital’s plan to launch within several months of the grant reduces that concern. The bureau also said it’s granted the same 150-day deferral to other operators with small systems and near-term launches, including an August grant to Impulse Space. There was no objection to Reflect Orbital’s request for an extension. But this action doesn’t settle two other challenges to the license, and both remain pending. Earthjustice filed an application for review on behalf of Dark Sky International, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, Environment America and the American Bird Conservancy. An individual filed a separate petition for reconsideration. The FCC says it addressed an earlier petition to deny from the American Astronomical Society in the original grant. Earendil-1 is authorized to operate at an altitude of about 388 miles in an orbit inclined 88 degrees. The license runs two years from the date the company certifies the satellite is operating in orbit, and Reflect Orbital has to launch and begin operations by July 9, 2032. For operators of small satellite systems, the order shows a consistent pattern. The bureau is granting 150-day bond deferrals for near-term launches while the Part 100 rules are pending. Reflect Orbital’s bond is now due Jan. 5. No launch date has been suggested by Reflect Orbital -0- NASA has released its final request for proposals (https://www.exterrajsc.com/p/nasa-opens-bidding-for-next-generation) for commercial space stations in low Earth orbit. The solicitation asks companies to design, build, test, certify and operate commercial destinations, with end-to-end destination and transportation services for human spaceflight. The contract structure matters here. NASA plans to award firm-fixed-price, multi-award, indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts covering development, certification and services. The agency will pick two or more companies for early development. A competitive task order would follow for final design, test and evaluation, certification and services, and that could go to one company or several. Under a fixed-price structure, the contractor carries the cost risk. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the opportunity is significant, but the economics have to work. He said NASA wants credible plans, strong technical execution and companies prepared to invest in destinations that serve NASA while also building customers and markets of their own. Isaacman tied the solicitation to the National Space Policy and to keeping a sustained American presence in low Earth orbit after the International Space Station retires. He said commercial stations could give NASA a place for research, technology development and crew training, while freeing up agency resources for missions to the moon and Mars. The final request follows NASA’s Ignition event earlier this year. The agency issued two requests for information in March, released a draft request for proposals in July, and then held an industry day and one-on-one meetings with companies. For suppliers, the down-select is the date to watch. The companies NASA picks for early development will set which supply chains get the work. Proposals are due Dec. 8. NASA expects to award contracts in spring 2027. -0- Those commercial stations will need paying customers, and one program is working to build that pipeline now. The ISS National Laboratory’s Orbital Edge Accelerator pairs flight access with private investment for startups at the pre-seed and seed stages. On The Journal of Space Commerce podcast (https://www.exterrajsc.com/p/empowering-the-next-generation-of), I spoke with ISS National Lab Chief Economist Sven Eenmaa about how the program works. This year, the second for the program, the cohort grew from six companies to eight, split into two tracks of four. Funding rose to as much as $750,000 per company on one of those tracks. Three investors sit on each track, and all three invest in every company in it. One track, called Disrupt, focuses on in-space manufacturing and robotics. The other, called Sentinel, focuses on dual-use technology with civilian and defense applications. Eenmaa explained what fits on each side. “And so this isn’t like this is space bio in space manufacturing with advanced materials, potential electronics, drug development, different drug delivery methods, drug testing. This is all kind of fits into that under that umbrella. We also look at the physical AI, right, as part of it because it is whether it goes to the, helping the researcher on the station to automate because, human capital is very expensive in space. Already it has path to future exploration,” Eenmaa said. “There is kind of AI and physical AI is an opportunity there as well. And there is, obviously kind of adjacent developments on these areas. which could kind of evolve over the years, including supply chains, et cetera. On the other track, the Sentinel track, the dual use track, we look at opportunities, in essence, which build on the, you know, the more established space tech ecosystem in general. We have seen launches evolved already. We don’t support always launch companies, but there is orbital logistics, orbital services, new materials, new sensing, communications, capabilities where there is, things can evolve more over the years. And so that many of them have actually kind of capabilities and uses which are both relevant to civilian use, right? Whether you think about communications, you think about sensing, transporting, moving things around in space, protecting against radiation and thermal management side of things or energy generation. And that has also applications on the kind of defense side, right? So That’s the way we kind of thought about it this year. And hopefully over the years, we kind of continue to expand the platform as investable opportunities open up.” Eenmaa said investor appetite for defense, dual-use and artificial intelligence companies is running high right now. As an economist, he cautioned that the people who can build those systems don’t arrive as fast as the money does. “And as you know, like the talent in the industry, they’re like, people who can actually, you know, execute and build those things doesn’t necessarily linearly scale with the dollars coming in, right? It will scale, but there is likely going to be a delay between when the talent shows up versus, you know, kind of some of their investor enthusiasm waves. So we do, kind of the key here is to remain selective, right? And that is because the goal for us here is to really pick companies and support companies who can you know, they will see cyclicality. They see volatility deep. Currently, we’re in very good capital markets,” Eenmaa said. “This is likely going to change like as they, you know, grow up. They at least have, there will be this. So we we want to stay disciplined on on pricing. You know, and and look for opportunities which are still kind of unlocked. It is I would really do not want to point here to any specific company where we think its valuations too are too low. But you clearly have seen, if you read in me, that there is multi-billion dollar companies now here which have very little spaceflight heritage, right? So that raises the risk return questions in our minds.” Eenmaa said the ISS National Lab has flown more than 100 startups to the space station, and many of them raised money based on their flight results outside the Orbital Edge program. This year’s Orbital Edge cohort presents at a demo day in San Francisco in December. Eenmaa said applications for the next cohort are expected to open early next year, with details at orbitaledgeaccelerator.com. The full conversation is available on the Journal of Space Commerce podcast. -0- Also of Interest * Series A Funds Spaceborne Radar Payloads for Classified Tracking Contracts (https://www.exterrajsc.com/p/series-a-funds-spaceborne-radar-payloads) * Final Pair of Solar Array Wings Headed to Space Station on SpaceX Cargo Flight (https://www.exterrajsc.com/p/final-pair-of-solar-array-wings-headed) * NASA Orders $3.3 Million in Commercial Satellite Data on Precipitation and the Ionosphere (https://www.exterrajsc.com/p/nasa-orders-33-million-in-commercial) * Pentagon Office Awards $22.4 Million Agreement to Prototype Rideshare Satellite Dispensers (https://www.exterrajsc.com/p/pentagon-office-awards-224-million) * The Cislunar Economy in 2026 (https://www.exterrajsc.com/p/the-cislunar-economy-in-2026) [Paywall] This is a public episode. 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Who has been a guest on Space Commerce Week

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Dan Huot
• Phillip Irace
• Evan Hilgemann
• Patrick Georgi
• Dr Don Platt

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