Wave hello to TeraWave, a communications network of more than 5,400 satellites.
The post Bezos’ Blue Origin Reveals New Satellite Rival to Musk’s Starlink appeared first on TechRepublic.
Wave hello to TeraWave, a communications network of more than 5,400 satellites.
The post Bezos’ Blue Origin Reveals New Satellite Rival to Musk’s Starlink appeared first on TechRepublic.
Starfish Space has secured a $52.5 million contract from the U.S. Space Force’s Space Development Agency to dispose of military satellites at the end of their operational lives.
The Tukwila, Wash.-based startup says it’s the first commercial deal ever struck to provide “deorbit-as-a-service,” or DaaS, for a satellite constellation in low Earth orbit. In this case, the constellation is the Pentagon’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, which provides global communications access and encrypted connectivity for military missions.
The contract calls for Starfish Space to launch the satellite disposal service in 2027.
“This is not research and development. This is an actual service, in a structure that allows that service to scale for this constellation, for an entire industry,” Starfish Space co-founder Trevor Bennett told GeekWire. He said the arrangement validates the Space Development Agency’s approach to building and maintaining its constellation, and also validates “the path that we can take with the industry at large.”
Starfish is developing a spacecraft called Otter that would be able to capture other satellites, maneuver them into different orbits, release them and then move on. In a deorbiting scenario, Otter would send the target satellite into a trajectory for atmospheric re-entry that wouldn’t pose a risk to other orbital assets. Starfish’s system doesn’t require the target satellite to be pre-outfitted with specialized hardware — which is a significant selling point.
The system provides an alternative to what typically happens to satellites toward the end of their lives. Today, most satellite operators either have to execute a deorbiting maneuver while they’re sure that the propulsion system still works, or risk having their spacecraft turn into unmanageable space junk.
Bennett compared Otter to a tow truck that can be brought in to carry away an old vehicle when it really needs to be scrapped.
“With the tow truck kind of capability, we can provide that service as needed, but we are not trying to replace normal operation,” he said. “We are augmenting it and extending it so the satellites that are being flown in that constellation can go fly longer. … Once it’s done operating and it’s time to dispose, we can provide that transit to the right disposable altitude.”
Starfish’s deal with the Space Development Agency builds on a previously awarded mission study contract that supported work on the concept in 2024 and 2025. The $52.5 million won’t be paid out all at once. An initial payment will cover costs leading up to the first deorbiting operation, and from then on, the agency will pay Starfish for services rendered. Bennett declined to provide further financial details, citing confidentiality.
Otter’s capabilities aren’t limited to deorbiting satellites. The oven-sized spacecraft could also be used to change a satellite’s orbital path, or bring it in for servicing. “With Otter, we’ve dramatically reduced the cost and complexity of satellite servicing across orbits,” Austin Link, Starfish Space’s other co-founder, said in a news release. “This contract reflects both the value of affordable servicing missions and the technical readiness of the Otter.”
Starfish conducted a partial test of its first Otter prototype, known as Otter Pup, in 2024. A second prototype, Otter Pup 2, launched in mid-2025 and is currently undergoing tests that could include a satellite docking attempt. “That vehicle remains healthy and operational, and is actually progressing through some additional mission milestones,” Bennett said.
Three other projects are in the works:
“Those Otters are all under construction and in testing,” Bennett said. “Actually, we’ll see a couple of those launched this year. And so this is an exciting time, where Otters are about to go to space and start operating as commercial vehicles.”
Space technology investment hit record levels in 2025 and is expected to rise further in 2026, driven by defense spending and launch services.
The post Space Sector Investment Set to Grow in 2026 After Record Year appeared first on TechRepublic.
Space technology investment hit record levels in 2025 and is expected to rise further in 2026, driven by defense spending and launch services.
The post Space Sector Investment Set to Grow in 2026 After Record Year appeared first on TechRepublic.
After taking one small but historic step for space-based AI, a Seattle-area startup called Starcloud is gearing up for a giant leap into what could be a multibillion-dollar business.
The business model doesn’t require Starcloud to manage how the data for artificial intelligence applications is processed. Instead, Starcloud provides a data-center “box” — a solar-powered satellite equipped with the hardware for cooling and communication — while its partners provide and operate the data processing chips inside the box.
Starcloud CEO Philip Johnston said his company has already worked out a contract along those lines with Denver-based Crusoe Cloud, a strategic partner.
“In the long term, you can think of this more like an energy provider,” he told GeekWire. “We tell Crusoe, ‘We have this box that has power, cooling and connectivity, and you can do whatever you want with that. You can put whatever chip architecture you want in there, and anything else.’ That means we don’t have to pay for the chips. And by far the most expensive part of all this, by the way, is the chips. Much more expensive than the satellite.”
If the arrangement works out the way Johnston envisions, providing utilities in space could be lucrative. He laid out an ambitious roadmap: “The contract is 10 gigawatts of power from 2032 for five years, at 3 cents per kilowatt-hour. That comes to $13.1 billion worth of energy.”
Putting the pieces in place for that business is a primary focus for Redmond, Wash.-based Starcloud, which was founded in 2024 by Johnston, chief technology officer Ezra Feilden and chief engineer Adi Oltean. The co-founders are building on the experience they gained at ventures ranging from SpaceX’s Starlink operation to Airbus and McKinsey & Co.
Starcloud was one of the first startups to look seriously into the idea of using satellites as data centers. Initially, the business model focused on processing data from other satellites before sending it down to Earth, thus economizing on the cost of downlinking the raw data. Now, tech companies are also gauging the benefits of uplinking data to orbital data centers for processing.
The leading companies in AI — including OpenAI, Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Meta — are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on data centers that are increasingly hungry for square footage, electrical power and cooling capacity. That has led the titans of AI, and startups like Starcloud and Sophia Space, to look toward Earth orbit as the next frontier.
Starcloud’s first big move in space came with last month’s launch of Starcloud-1, a 130-pound satellite equipped with an Nvidia H100 chip. Launched by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the mission aimed to prove that the hardware on Starcloud-1 could process AI data reliably in the harsh radiation environment of outer space.
This month, executives confirmed success. Using the Nvidia chip, Starcloud trained a large language model called NanoGPT, a feat that hadn’t been done in space before. The AI agent was trained on the complete works of William Shakespeare — and so it answered queries in sometimes-stilted Shakespearean English. (For example, “They can it like you from me speak.”)
Starcloud-1 produced better results with a pre-trained version of Gemma, an open-source AI model from Google. When asked for its first statement, Gemma responded with “Greetings, Earthlings! Or, as I prefer to think of you — a fascinating collection of blue and green.”
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who is now executive chairman and CEO of Relativity Space, said in a post to X that Gemma’s performance was “a seriously cool achievement.”
Coming up with orbital witticisms is only the beginning. “We’re also going to be running some more practical workloads,” Johnston said.
Next year, Starcloud-1’s Nvidia H100 chip will start analyzing synthetic-aperture radar data from Capella Space’s satellite constellation. “The idea is that we can draw insights from that data on orbit and not have to wait a few days to downlink all that data over very slow RF ground-station links,” Johnston said.
Starcloud-2 is due for launch next October, with about 100 times the power-generating capability of its predecessor. It will carry multiple H100 chips and Nvidia’s more advanced Blackwell B200 chip. “We’re also flying some on-premises hardware from one of the big hyperscalers. I can’t say exactly who yet,” Johnston said.
“From there, we scale up to Starcloud-3, which is about a 2-ton, 100-kilowatt spacecraft that will launch on the Starship ‘Pez Dispenser’ form factor,” he said. “So we can launch many of those.”
How many? Johnston envisions a constellation of tens of thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit, or LEO. The satellites would travel in a globe-girdling “train,” with data transmitted from one satellite to the next one via laser links. “We just basically have a laser fixed [on each satellite], and then we very slightly adjust with a very finely tuned mirror. … You have one target that you’re aiming for,” Johnston said.
Johnston said the company has begun the process of seeking a license from the Federal Communications Commission for the Starcloud-3 constellation. The plan also depends on the development schedule for SpaceX’s Starship super-rocket, which would be charged with deploying the satellites.
Starcloud will need funding as well, from investors and from potential customers such as the U.S. Space Force. “We’ve raised about $34 million as of today,” Johnston said. “So we are funded actually through the next two launches at least.” He said the company may consider a Series A funding round in the first half of 2026 to support the development of Starcloud-3.
Starcloud currently has 12 team members. “We could easily triple the size of the team now … but we’ve got some of the most kick-ass engineers in the business,” Johnston said. The company is likely to be looking for a bigger facility next year. “We’ll stay in Redmond, almost certainly,” Johnston said.
Over the past year, industry observers have been debating whether orbital data centers could really offer a better value proposition than terrestrial data centers. But in light of the interest that’s been coming from the likes of SpaceX’s Elon Musk and Blue Origin’s Jeff Bezos, Johnston feels as if the debate has now been settled.
“People seem to trust that if Elon wants to do it, then there must be a sensible way to figure that out,” Johnston said.
Can Starcloud handle the competition from SpaceX or the dominant players in the data center market? Johnston noted that Google recently announced an AI-in-space moonshot called Project Suncatcher, “which is exactly what we’re doing.”
“They’re paying Planet Labs to do a demo in 2027, and as I understand it, the demo they’re doing in 2027 is less powerful than the one we’ve got in orbit — so we have a massive head start against all of those guys, AWS and SpaceX being the exceptions,” Johnston said.
“I think we become an interesting partner for some of those folks,” he added. “And I don’t mean an acquisition target necessarily. I do mean potentially a partner.”
Putting tens of thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit sounds like a job of astronomical proportions. But if everything comes together the way Johnston hopes, Starcloud’s power-generating, data-crunching satellites could go even farther on the final frontier.
“There are many different places you can put them, further away from Earth,” Johnston said. “We’re looking at lunar orbits. We’re looking at some other Lagrangian points — the lunar L1 to Earth, also just the Earth L1. It’s actually less radiation than in LEO.”
Tukwila, Wash.-based Starfish Space and California-based Impulse Space say they’ve successfully demonstrated an in-space satellite rendezvous during a mission that handed over control of an Impulse Mira spacecraft to Starfish’s guidance and navigation system.
The demonstration was code-named Remora, in honor of a fish that attaches itself to other marine animals. Operation Remora was added to Mira’s agenda for Impulse Space’s LEO Express 2 mission, which was launched in January. Impulse and Starfish waited until the Mira spacecraft completed its primary satellite deployment tasks for LEO Express 2. Then they spent several weeks monitoring the maneuvers for Remora.
“About a month ago, we concluded the major steps here,” Starfish co-founder Trevor Bennett told GeekWire. “Since then, we’ve been getting data down and understanding the full story. And the full story is incredible.”
Remora was kept under wraps until today, primarily because both companies wanted to make sure that the demonstration actually worked as planned. “There was never a guarantee that there would be an outcome here,” Bennett explained. “And so what we wanted to do is talk about it when there was something to talk about.”
Bennett said the demonstration showed that Starfish’s software suite for guidance, navigation and control could be used on a different company’s satellite to make an autonomous approach to another spacecraft in orbit.
“Remora became definitely a first for us, in terms of being able to allow a whole new vehicle platform to autonomously do this full mission, all the way in and through,” he said. “Basically, we had no operator commands necessary for the vehicle to fly itself all the way down to 1,200 meters, take a bunch of pictures and then autonomously egress back out to further distances.”
Before launch, the LEO Express 2 Mira was equipped with a peripheral flight computer that was loaded with Starfish’s Cetacean and Cephalopod software. During the Remora mission, that Mira spacecraft used Starfish’s guidance system and a single lightweight camera system supplied by TRL11 to close in on a different Mira that had been used for Impulse Space’s LEO Express 1 mission.
As the distance decreased from about 100 kilometers (62 miles) to roughly 1,200 meters (three-quarters of a mile), Starfish’s software processed the camera imagery to generate estimates of relative position. Then it computed optimal orbital trajectories and commanded Mira’s thrusters to fire accordingly.
Starfish is working on an in-house spacecraft called Otter that will be capable of approaching and docking with other objects in orbit to conduct inspections, perform orbital servicing or get rid of space debris. Bennett said the success of the Remora mission could open up new market opportunities that don’t depend on Otter.
“What we’re trying to show is that you don’t have to design a vehicle just for RPO [rendezvous and proximity operations] and docking,” Bennett said. “You can design the vehicle for the core mission that it needs to do in addition to that. … What we’re trying to do is remove this high barrier to having RPO and docking be a mainstay in our industry.”
Eric Romo, president and chief operating officer of Impulse Space, said Remora was a plus for his company as well.
“Our Mira spacecraft uses high-thrust chemical propulsion, and what that means is, we’re typically pretty good at moving really quickly between two points in space,” he told GeekWire. But Romo said some potential customers have wondered whether Mira’s high-thrust system had the precision and accuracy that would be required when operating near another spacecraft.
For those customers, the Remora mission showed that there’s no trade-off between speed and accuracy, and that Mira “has the commandability and the controllability you need to do this type of proximity operation,” Romo said.
Bennett and Romo both said their companies would look at future opportunities for collaboration. “For us, the path forward is to pull it away from just a pure demonstration mission to a truly day-to-day capability that we rely on and build on,” Bennett said. “We’re very fortunate that Impulse was our partner up to this point, and I think there are plenty of opportunities for us to be partners going forward.”
In the meantime, both companies are busy with other projects. Starfish Space is in the midst of an Otter Pup 2 test mission that was launched in June — and the company has its first three full-scale Otter missions lined up for NASA, the U.S. Space Force and the SES satellite company (which acquired Intelsat) in the 2026-2027 time frame.
Impulse Space’s third Mira spacecraft was launched last month to deploy and host payloads for the LEO Express 3 mission. Looking ahead, Impulse is pursuing a partnership with Anduril to conduct a high-precision rendezvous and proximity operations mission in geosynchronous Earth orbit in 2026. And looking even further ahead, the company has laid out a roadmap for sending medium-sized payloads to the moon.
EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — When we think about the arteries of global power, images of oil pipelines or shipping lanes often come to mind. They are visible, tangible, and easy to picture on a map. The digital world has its own arteries, equally vital but far less visible: undersea cables, satellites, and semiconductor supply chains. These systems allow our economies to function, our militaries to coordinate, and our societies to remain connected.
We rarely stop to consider how very fragile they are. A fiber-optic cable lying quietly on the seabed, a satellite orbiting high above, or a single Dutch firm making the machines that build the world’s most advanced chips? Each represents a potential point of failure. And when one of them falters, whether by accident or design, the consequences ripple instantly across the globe. What makes this even more concerning is that adversaries understand their potential value. They have studied the geography of our digital world with the same intensity that past powers studied maritime routes. Increasingly, they are testing ways to hold these chokepoints at risk, not in open war, but in the murky space called the gray zone.
Consider the seabed. Nearly all intercontinental internet traffic runs not through satellites, as many imagine, but along the ocean floor. The “cloud” is, in truth, anchored to the seabed. These cables are resilient in some respects, yet highly vulnerable in others. Russia has long deployed specialized vessels (such as the Yantar) to loiter near critical routes, mapping them and raising concerns about sabotage. The People’s Republic of China has taken subtler approaches. On several occasions, cables linking Taiwan’s outlying islands have been cut by Chinese vessels in incidents they described as accidental. Taipei viewed them, by contrast, as deliberate acts of pressure that left communities offline for weeks.
Nature has been no less disruptive. A volcanic eruption severed Tonga’s only international cable in 2022, cutting off connectivity entirely. A landslide off Côte d’Ivoire in 2024 damaged four cables at once, leaving more than a dozen African states scrambling to restore service. These episodes remind us that chokepoints need not be destroyed to reveal their importance.
For China, the issue is a strategic one. Through its Digital Silk Road initiative, Beijing has financed and built cables across Asia, Africa, and Europe. Chinese firms now sit at landing stations and repair depots. In times of peace these investments look like connectivity. In times of crisis, they can become instruments of leverage or coercion.
Sign up for the Cyber Initiatives Group Sunday newsletter, delivering expert-level insights on the cyber and tech stories of the day – directly to your inbox. Sign up for the CIG newsletter today.
The same logic applies in orbit. Satellites and global navigation systems act as the nervous system of modern life. They time banking transactions, guide aircraft, and support military operations. Disrupting them unsettles the rhythms of daily existence. Russia previewed this dynamic in 2022 when it launched a cyberattack against the Viasat KA-SAT network on the first day of its invasion of Ukraine. Thousands of modems across Europe went dark, cutting off critical communications. More routinely, Russian jamming and spoofing around Kaliningrad and Moscow have disoriented navigation systems, with civilian pilots suddenly reporting the loss of GPS mid-flight.
China has created its own path through BeiDou, a rival to GPS that is already woven into infrastructure and commerce across large swaths of the world. Countries adopting BeiDou for civilian uses also create dependencies that, in a crisis, could become channels of influence. China’s so-called inspector satellites, capable of shadowing Western systems in orbit, serve as a reminder that the domain is contested and difficult to police. Jamming, spoofing, or orbital surveillance are rarely attributable in real time. They can be dismissed as interference or technical glitches even when deliberate. That ambiguity is precisely what makes them effective tools of gray-zone leverage.
Vulnerability also extends to the factories that produce the silicon chips powering the digital age. No chokepoint illustrates fragility more starkly than semiconductors. Advanced chips are the foundation of artificial intelligence, modern weapons systems, consumer electronics, modern automobiles, and more. Yet their production is concentrated in very few hands. One company in Taiwan manufactures most of the world’s leading-edge chips. A single Dutch firm produces the extreme ultraviolet lithography machines needed to make them. And China has demonstrated repeatedly how control over upstream minerals can be wielded as leverage. Restrictions on gallium, germanium, and graphite have caused immediate price spikes and sent Western companies scrambling for alternatives.
The global chip shortage during the pandemic provided a glimpse of how disruption can have cascading impacts. Automotive plants shut down, electronics prices soared, and entire supply chains stalled. That was the result of market forces. In a geopolitical crisis, disruption would be intentional, targeted, and likely more devastating.
The Cipher Brief brings expert-level context to national and global security stories. It’s never been more important to understand what’s happening in the world. Upgrade your access to exclusive content by becoming a subscriber.
None of these vulnerabilities exist in isolation. Together, they form part of a broader and comprehensive strategy, particularly for China, where digital infrastructure has become a deliberate instrument of national power. Through the Digital Silk Road, through export controls on critical minerals, through investments in semiconductor capacity, through an ambitious national AI strategy, and BeiDou’s global adoption, Beijing is systematically building positions of leverage.
Is this preparation for an open assault on global systems? Maybe not, but it is a strategy designed for options in the gray zone. By holding digital chokepoints at risk, China can complicate allied decision-making and cast doubt on the reliability of critical systems, thereby slowing or obstructing responses at moments when speed is decisive. The ambiguity of each incident – whether it appears to be an accident, a policy choice, or something more calculated – becomes a tool of coercion.
The reality is that these risks cannot be eliminated. The very efficiency of the digital age depends on concentration. A single company leads in chipmaking, a limited set of satellites provides global timing, and relatively few cables carry the world’s data vast distances across the open ocean. Efficiency brings tremendous capability, but it also brings fragility. And fragility invites exploitation.
The counterweight must be resilience. That means redundant routes and suppliers, pre-positioned repair capacity, diversified supply chains, hardened infrastructure, and rehearsed recovery plans. The point is to recover and regain capacity as quickly as possible. To do so requires deeper public-private partnerships and closer coordination among allies, since no nation can protect these domains on its own. Resilience is not a one-time investment but a cultural shift. A culture that assumes disruption will come, prepares for it, and ensures that no single outage or shortage can paralyze us.
History offers some perspective. Nations once fought to control straits, canals, and oil fields. They still do so today, but increasingly our chokepoints are digital, hidden from sight yet just as consequential. Whoever shapes them, shapes the balance of global power.
Global stability today depends on foundations that are often invisible. Fiber-optic cables under the sea, satellites crossing the skies, and factories producing chips with microscopic precision form the backbone of our digital age. They showcase human ingenuity while highlighting profound vulnerabilities. Recognizing the duality of innovation’s promise alongside its fragility may be the most important step toward protecting what matters most in the digital age. And, yes, we must defend these technologies. But it’s about something bigger. It’s about ensuring that the digital world we depend on remains a source of strength, and not a lever of coercion.
All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official positions or views of the U.S. Government. Nothing in the contents should be construed as asserting or implying U.S. Government authentication of information or endorsement of the author's views.
The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals.
Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.
Have a perspective to share based on your experience in the national security field? Send it to Editor@thecipherbrief.com for publication consideration.
Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief
Working as a cybersecurity engineer for many years, and closely following the rapid evolution of the space ecosystem, I wholeheartedly believe that space systems today are targets of cyberattacks more than ever.
The purpose of this article is to give you a glimpse of cybersecurity threats and challenges facing the New Space economy and ecosystem, with a focus on smallsats in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), as well as some technologies to assess space cybersecurity risks.
The article series is divided into four parts: Introduction to New Space, Threats in the New Space, Secure the New Space, and finally New Space Future Development and Challenges.
The Aerospace and Defense industry is a global industry composed of many companies that design, manufacture, and service commercial and military aircraft, ships, spacecraft, weapons systems, and related equipment.
The Aerospace and Defense industry is composed of different key segments: large defense prime contractors/system integrators, commercial aerospace prime contractors or system integrators, first-tier subcontractors, second-tier subcontractors, and finally third-tier and fourth-tier subcontractors.
The industry is facing enormous challenges that stem from the COVID-19 pandemic, concerns over sustainability, disruptions from new technologies, heightened regulatory forces, radically transforming ecosystems, and, above all, the cyber threats and attacks that are getting more and more worrisome.
The increase of space cyberattacks and cybersecurity risks is stemming from the evolution of the space ecosystem to the New Space Age.
In this first article of the series, we will focus on the New Space notion and the definition of space system architecture.
Earlier, the space industry was a nation-level domain — and not just any nation; the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics dominated the industry. Space was related to governments and defense departments, and the objectives were essentially political and strategic ones.
Now, there is more involvement in space globally than ever before in history. This new era, led by private space efforts, is known as “New Space Age” — a movement that views space not as a location or metaphor, but as well of resources, opportunities, and mysteries yet to be unlocked.
New Space is evolving rapidly with industry privatization and the birth of new ventures to achieve greater space accessibility for different parties.
Nevertheless, this development in technologies and the fast growth of New Space projects make the space attack surface larger and increase the threat risks in terms of cyberattacks.
LEO is a circular orbit around the earth with an altitude of 2,000Km or less (1,200 miles).
Most LEO Space Vehicles (SV) are small satellites, also known as CubeSats or Smallsats.
A CubeSat is a small, low-cost satellite that can be developed and launched by colleges, high schools, and even individuals. The 1U (Unit) size of a CubeSat is (10cm x 10cm x 10cm) and weighs about 1Kg. A CubeSat can be used alone (1U) or in groups (up to 24 U).
CubeSats represent paradigm shifts in developing space missions in the New Space Age.
Nowadays, CubeSats, and all the other SV types, are facing different challenges: environmental challenges, operational challenges, and cybersecurity challenges.
Any space system is composed of three main segments: ground segment, space segment, and link segment. In addition, we have the user segment.
Space System Design (Source: Space Security Info)
Ground segment: The ground segment includes all the terrestrial elements of the space systems and allows the command, control, and management of the satellite itself and the data coming from the payload and transmitted to the users.
Space segment: The space segment includes the satellites, tracking, telemetry, command, control, monitoring, and related facilities and equipment used to support the satellite’s operations.
Link/communication segment: The link or communication segment is the data and signals exchanged between the ground and space segments.
User segment: The user segment includes user terminals and stations that can launch operations with the satellite in the form of signal transmissions and receptions.
The New Space age makes the space field more accessible to everyone on this planet. It’s about democratizing access to space.
This new age was characterized by the increase of Smallsats development and especially CubeSats in LEO. These types of satellites are part of the space architecture in addition to the ground, communication, and user segments. Nevertheless, is this space system design threatened by cyberattacks?
In the next article in the series, we will explore the answer to this question.
The post Cybersecurity in the Next-Generation Space Age, Pt. 1: Introduction to New Space appeared first on Security Intelligence.
Login