Discover the cutting-edge launch systems, orbital infrastructure, and commercial space innovations expanding humanity's footprint and building the new space economy.
A satellite's worst enemy is the air it flies through. Vaxon Space, a nine-person company founded in 2025, is building a bus for the 180-250 km band where satellites are not supposed to survive, powered by air-breathing electric propulsion.
The ISS National Lab chose eight startups for the 2026 Orbital Edge Accelerator, split into a Sentinel Track for dual-use space infrastructure and a Disrupt Track for in-space manufacturing and biology. Each gets up to $750K in private capital and a flight test on the ISS.
SpaceX flew 165 Falcon 9 missions in 2025 and roughly three-quarters were its own Starlink flights. That ratio, and the cost curve behind it, is the only scoreboard that matters for judging who owns access to orbit in 2026.
Blue Origin's Blue Alchemist turns lunar regolith into solar cells, wiring, and oxygen on the spot. NASA's project page, updated 2026-07-17, shows the eight-technology autonomous line maturing toward TRL 6, with the simulated-lunar-environment demonstration scheduled for 2026.
NASA deorbits the ISS in 2030-2031. Vast, Axiom, Orbital Reef and Starlab all hold funded agreements and hardware in production. One procurement decision, due in late August, will decide which architecture owns the next decade of low Earth orbit.
K2 Space raised a $500 million Series D at a $6.8 billion valuation to scale production of large high-power satellites. Its Gravitas platform is already in orbit with 12 hosted payloads; the open question is whether a 100-satellite-a-year factory can actually work.
The grid has spent a century assuming the Sun's tantrums are rare. That assumption is now a procurement line. DSCOVR's 15-60 minute warning window and commercial services like MagWatch3D are turning space weather intelligence into infrastructure the grid buys.
Most recent commercial lunar landers in 2024-2025 died within their first two-week lunar night — solar power cuts out, batteries drain, and electronics freeze.