{"id":17102,"date":"2025-08-01T22:50:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T14:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/space-entrepreneurs-see-defense-projects-as-next-frontier-for-funding-and-innovation\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T22:50:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T14:50:19","slug":"space-entrepreneurs-see-defense-projects-as-next-frontier-for-funding-and-innovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/space-entrepreneurs-see-defense-projects-as-next-frontier-for-funding-and-innovation\/","title":{"rendered":"Space entrepreneurs see defense projects as next frontier for funding and innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
The Golden Dome is envisioned as a network of satellite sensors and interceptors that could protect America from incoming missiles. (Lockheed Martin Illustration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Will the Golden Dome be a golden opportunity for commercial space ventures?<\/p>\n

That may be a bit of an exaggeration. But at a Seattle Tech Week presentation on the space industry, a panel of entrepreneurs agreed that military projects \u2014 including a plan to create a missile defense shield along the lines of Israel\u2019s Iron Dome by as early as 2028 \u2014 seem to be the most promising vehicles for getting commercial space ventures off the ground.<\/p>\n

Part of the reason for that has to do with the uncertainty that\u2019s currently surrounding America\u2019s civilian space program. At the same time that the White House is pushing plans for the $175 billion Golden Dome project, it\u2019s seeking to trim billions of dollars from NASA\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so interesting right now, because I think there\u2019s more uncertainty around civil space funding than there\u2019s ever been before, and more bullishness on defense space funding than there\u2019s ever been before,\u201d said Erika Wagner, who left Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture last year to lead The Exploration Company\u2019s U.S. business development team.<\/p>\n

Seattle-area space companies have been among the beneficiaries of the Pentagon\u2019s surge of support \u2014 ranging from the $25 million in Space Force funding granted to Seattle-based Integrate in June to the $2.4 billion in Space Force launch contracts set aside for Kent-based Blue Origin earlier this year. Gravitics, Starfish Space and Portal Space Systems are among other Seattle-area space ventures benefiting from recent Pentagon contracts. <\/p>\n

\"\"
AE Industrial Partners\u2019 Eugene Kim, Starcloud\u2019s Philip Johnston, The Exploration Company\u2019s Erika Wagner, Portal Space Systems\u2019 Jeff Thornburg and Perkins Coie\u2019s Ben Straughan participate in a Seattle Tech Week panel on the space industry. (GeekWire Photo \/ Alan Boyle)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The typical route for defense-oriented space startups is to win a series of grants issued through the Pentagon\u2019s Small Business Innovation Research program, or SBIR. But SBIR grants can take you only so far, said Jeff Thornburg, Bothell-based Portal Space Systems\u2019 founder and CEO.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s just cool tech for cool tech\u2019s sake, you\u2019ll only get through about Phase 1 or Phase 2 SBIRs, and it\u2019ll never cross the \u2018Valley of Death,’\u201d Thornburg said at Thursday afternoon\u2019s session. \u201cThe Valley of Death is basically when you\u2019ve taken the idea as far as you can, you don\u2019t have any other customer pull, and it costs so much money to develop that you have no way to get there, and the company kind of folds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Portal and Gravitics managed to avoid the Valley of Death by winning support from SpaceWERX\u2019s STRATFI program, which can unlock tens of millions of dollars in public and private funding. Portal is using its funding to develop a sun-powered orbital transport vehicle called Supernova, while Gravitics is working on an orbital carrier for space vehicles. <\/p>\n

Thornburg said that the U.S. military can be \u201cthe world\u2019s most difficult and demanding customer,\u201d and cautioned that it\u2019s not easy to build relationships with the Pentagon officials who make the decisions on funding.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re going to take on the defense customer, and you should probably consider it if you\u2019re an entrepreneur out there, you really have to do the homework,\u201d he said. \u201cAre you answering a warfighter need?\u201d<\/p>\n

The AI connection<\/h3>\n

Artificial intelligence may well be one of those needs. At a Seattle Tech Week session held earlier in the day, a different set of space entrepreneurs suggested that there was a significant intersection between the AI frontier and the space frontier. <\/p>\n

For example, Planetary Systems AI is focused on using AI tools to help the Pentagon make sense of the flood of data streaming down from space sensors. \u201cWe help with some of the automation and decision making, from pre-launch all the way to in-orbit \u2026 in a battle management perspective as well as for space operations,\u201d said Cindy Chin, the New York-based company\u2019s founder and CEO.<\/p>\n

Such tools are expected to play an increasing role in space traffic management as more and more satellites are launched into low Earth orbit. Over the course of just six years, the Seattle area has become the world\u2019s most prolific producer of such satellites, primarily due to the rise of SpaceX\u2019s Starlink constellation and preparations for Amazon\u2019s Project Kuiper constellation.<\/p>\n

Starfish Space co-founder Austin Link said AI tools are already built into his company\u2019s satellite navigation systems. \u201cIt\u2019s not like we\u2019re going and asking ChatGPT, \u2018Hey, should we burn the thrusters now?\u2019 At least, not yet,\u201d he said. \u201cBut there are a lot of autonomous decision making and a lot of complex algorithms that are flying the vehicle. That is effectively AI, at least in certain definitions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Starfish Space\u2019s Austin Link, Planetary Systems AI\u2019s Cindy Chin, Radian Aerospace\u2019s Livingston Holder and Wilson Sonsini\u2019s Curt Blake discuss the state of the space industry at a Seattle Tech Week event. (GeekWire Photo \/ Alan Boyle)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Space infrastructure could also ease the pressure that power-hungry AI data centers are putting on earthly resources. Two companies that have a significant presence in the Seattle area, Starcloud and Sophia Space, are developing systems that could open the way for solar-powered satellites to operate as orbital data centers.<\/p>\n

Starcloud CEO and co-founder Philip Johnston said his company initially set up shop in Southern California but relocated to Redmond, Wash., after a month. \u201cIf you want somebody who knows about building a satellite \u2026 90% of them are specifically in Redmond, because you have Kuiper and Starlink,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Shifts in the market for space services \u2014 due to the AI angle as well as America\u2019s evolving national security needs \u2014 could well lead to long-term tectonic shifts in the space industry, Thornburg said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m kind of excited to see what happens with these \u2018neo-prime\u2019 relationships, Anduril and Palantir, and their partnerships with up-and-coming entrepreneurs to offer a different solution space for defense, and then how that can get applied to commercial [space applications]. Because I think that might be an X factor here that maybe everyone\u2019s not always contemplating,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Other space shots from Seattle Tech Week<\/h3>\n
    \n
  • Mining on the final frontier:<\/strong> It\u2019s been seven years since the Redmond-based asteroid mining venture known as Planetary Resources fizzled out, but Johnston said that space mining might be a market niche whose time has finally come. For examples, he pointed to Seattle-based Interlune, which aims to harvest helium-3 and other resources from the moon; and California-based AstroForge, which is setting the stage for extracting resources from asteroids. \u201cThat is going to be an absolutely enormous business. It\u2019s very dependent on low-cost launch, though. Whether that happens in the next five years or the next 10 years is up for debate,\u201d he said.<\/li>\n
  • What about an orbital smash-up?<\/strong> The afternoon session\u2019s panel was split on whether a catastrophic satellite collision event known as the Kessler syndrome would occur in the next five years, but the panelists agreed that international efforts would be made in the next five years to try to head off such an event.<\/li>\n
  • When will we put people on the moon?<\/strong> When the panelists were asked to project when astronauts would once again land on the moon, they guessed dates ranging from 2030 to 2035. For what it\u2019s worth, NASA\u2019s current timetable calls for the Artemis 3 mission to put a crew on the lunar surface in 2027.<\/li>\n
  • What about Mars?<\/strong> The panelists\u2019 projections for the first crewed landing on the Red Planet ranged from 2040 (or earlier) to 2060 \u2014 which is much later than Elon Musk\u2019s current goal of putting humans on Mars in 2028 or so. Johnston said he made a bet with someone that billionaire techie Jared Isaacman would \u201cbe the first person on Mars before 2040.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The Golden Dome is envisioned as a network of satellite sensors and interceptors that could protect America from incoming missiles. (Lockheed Martin Illustration) Will the Golden Dome be a golden opportunity for commercial space ventures? That may be a bit of an exaggeration. But at a Seattle Tech Week presentation on the space industry, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[41,4431,332],"class_list":["post-17102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-defense","tag-seattle-tech-week","tag-space-force"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17102"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}