NATO holds out hand to the commercial space sector

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NATO’s agreed to open its wallet wider, and space and defense players are likely lining up to benefit. The military coalition’s brand-new commercial space strategy adds the cherry on top.

Now inked, at the vocal behest of U.S. President Donald Trump, is a pledge to more than double alliance members’ defense expenditure from 2% to 5% of their gross domestic product by 2035. Some 3.5% of that funding should be funnelled toward “pure” defense, while the remaining 1.5% should be slated for security-linked infrastructure, such as cyber warfare capabilities and intelligence.

Notably, NATO recognized space as one of five “operational” domains alongside air, land, maritime and cyberspace back in 2019. Two years later, it concluded that offensives to, from or within space can be a threat to the alliance and trigger the infamous Article 5 prescribing an attack on one member as an attack on all. Going into the fine print, the military coalition is expected to publish its new Space Doctrine 2026.

Whether allies — especially a reluctant Spain — can or will actually meet a 5% target is in the air.  Glancing over NATO’s numbers, only Poland came anywhere close to allocating that slice of its GDP to defense purposes last year, at 4.12%, while Washington itself devoted only 3.38% of its economic output to that purpose. Across the board, there’s ground to cover. In Europe, the writing’s been some months on the wall, after the 27-member European Union bloc proposed to mobilize 800 billion euros ($936 billion) for defense spending back in March, while Germany relaxed its fiscal debt rules to facilitate more security-linked purchases. The U.K. started the year with a pledge to hike defense expenditures to 2.5% by April 2027, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer has since rushed to pledge a 5% goal will be hit by  2035.

Communication, navigation and surveillance are obvious uses for space capabilities in defense, and that’s before you think about taking the war to the stars. Trump’s ambitious Golden Dome defense shield — which his administration bills at $75 billion, but some watchers say will cost many times over — already has the likes of Boeing, Lockheed Martin and even European players vying for a piece of the budgetary action. Just recently, satellite imagery provider Planet Labs clinched a seven-figure contract to deliver monitoring and intelligence capabilities to NATO itself.

And that’s the state of play among defense-geared space businesses before revisiting the controversial topic of whether Elon Musk’s Starlink can be successfully dethroned from Ukraine, where it has been facilitating access to internet data and communication for residential and military purposes alike. Russian bombing has devastated local mobile networks over its three-year invasion, making third-party satellite communication services indispensable — but Musk’s previously close relationship with a volatile Trump, whose support for Kyiv has been fluid, has raised concerns in Europe over Starlink’s long-term reliability. It remains to be seen whether the president and tech billionaire’s visceral public showdown will erase these worries among European leaders, who are largely in it to support Kyiv for the long haul.

Last we heard, Europe was still pursuing an alternative satellite champion to dislodge the overwhelming reliance on Starlink in Ukraine. France’s Eutelsat, which is already supporting government and institutional comms in the embattled eastern European country, has been benefitting from that venture. Since merging with Britain’s OneWeb in 2023, the French company commands over 650 OneWeb satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), along with more than 30 geostationary satellites.

The company gained a nice vote of confidence last week, when it announced a 1.35-billion-euro capital raise led by the French government — which will become the company’s largest shareholder with a 29.99% stake — and other investors, in a bid to boost its LEO capabilities. Shares rallied 31% as a result, building on gains logged after initial speculation that it could step into Starlink’s shoes in Ukraine. That’s a nice bump from the late-February lows hit in the days after a weaker-than-expected half-year profit report shaped by softer broadcast sales and firm costs.

And these kinds of private players are officially not just a fringe consideration for NATO. Just this week, the alliance released its first ever Commercial Space Strategy, stressing three goals – leveraging commercial solutions, ensuring continuous access during peace, crisis or conflict and bolstering coherent relationships with the commercial sector. The end game, ultimately, is to “help commercial partners to better understand NATO’s needs, invest and meet necessary security measures, including for cybersecurity, and expand manufacturing capabilities” — many steps short of NATO procuring its own space arsenal, but still a potential boon for private companies dealing with individual member governments.

France’s Macron says Europe must once more be a ‘space power’ — French President Emmanuel Macron called for additional investment to ensure the competitiveness of the European space industry before U.S. and Chinese rivals, urging the region to become “a space power once again, with France at its heart.” — AFP via France24China tests its own operating system in space — Seeking to minimize foreign dependencies, Beijing has successfully tested a home-grown operating system — an open-source version of Huawei’s HarmonyOS — in space aboard the Dalian-1 Lianli CubeSat. — Interesting EngineeringNASA budget cuts open path for China’s space ambitions — Proposed budget trims at NASA, which have already prompted warnings from the European Space Agency over project setbacks, could be paving the road for Beijing’s plans to deepen its foothold in space, amid plans to land on the Moon within the next five years. — UnherdTrump-Musk showdown shows risks of space dominance — Among other impacts, the public dispute between U.S. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk highlighted the extent to which NASA depends on the tech billionaire’s SpaceX for future launches. — Space NewsSouth Korea targets developing reusable space launch vehicle within decade — The Korea AeroSpace Administration intends to develop a next-generation reusable space launch vehicle by 2035, adjusting a roughly $1.53-billion project. — CybernewsFirst galactic images from largest observatory camera — The U.S. National Science Foundation has released some of the first test images produced by the Vera Rubin conservatory, which have captured light from distant galaxies. — CNN

Ax-4 crewed mission heads to ISS — SpaceX’s Dragon launched with the four-person Ax-4 crewed mission to the International Space Station, following delays amid concerns over a leak on the Russian side of the space lab. — Space.comSierra Space opens tech center in Colorado — Space and defense firm Sierra Space is building a new production facilitation for defense-hardened solar arrays in Broomfield, Colorado. — Sierra SpaceHALS to make India’s small satellite launch rockets — India’ state-run Hindustan Aeronautics will commercially make India’s small satellite launch rockets, after clinching the project with a bid of 5.11 billion rupees ($59 million). — Reuters

Airbus space business reversal going well, executives say — Turnaround at Airbus’ space business is progressing well, according to company executives, after the unit took 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion) in charges in 2024. — Space News Shares of Starlink rival Eutelsat rally after French government backs capital raise —European satellite operator Eutelsat’s stock added 31% after it announced France was backing a capital raise of 1.35 billion euros ($1.58 billion) set to support investment in its Low Earth Orbit capabilities. — CNBCHonda successfully tests reusable rocket — Carmaker Honda has completed a launch and vertical landing test of its ‘experimental reusable rocket’ in Japan’s Hokkaido prefecture. The company has yet to disclose its plans to commercialize or deploy the booster and rocket technologies. — NBC News

June 28 — SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets to launch with Starlink satellites out of Florida and California.June 28 — Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s H-IIA 202 to head out with GOSAT-GW satellites out of Tanegashima.June 29 — Blue Origin’s New Shepard to depart on a suborbital crewed flight out of Texas.July 3 — Roscosmos’ Soyuz to launch with supply cargo to the International Space Station out of Kazakhstan.