Rocketdyne, Kratos Advance Defense

Capital flows to sensors & propulsion. Satellite Spotlight, Edition 51.

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space brew

weekly deal flow

government

  • Lockheed Martin wins $328M DoW award for sensor pods for Taiwan Air Force for PNT (AT).

  • Karman wins $5M DoW award for solid rocket motor nozzles for missile defense (BW).

series A+

  • DSShield raises $54M by Merak Capital to expand digital trust across enterprise & government customers (FG).

  • Pixxel raises $25M by Deepinder Goyal for earth observation (MC).

  • MangoBoost raises $6.8M by Ion, AMD, Samsung for DPU to address server inefficiencies (MSN).

m&a

  • AE Industrial acquires 60% stake for $500M in Rocketdyne, L3Harris propulsion and power arm for rocket engines (SN).

IPO / public

  • Landspace seeks $1B IPO for reusable launch vehicles (SN).

  • Sidus Space seeks $25M public offering to scale satellite production (ST).

  • Kratos wins $30M C5ISR production awards for military avionics and counter-UAS hardware (SN).

  • SES projected $917M - $1.6B in incentives from FCC on Intelsat spectrum transaction (SN).

  • ParaZero wins counter-UAS order from Israeli defense (AT).

headlines

  • Chevron rallies as sole oil major presence in US-led $100B Venezuela rebuild (BBG).

  • Terran Orbital & Lockheed Martin partner on satellite buses & avionics for Space Development Agency’s missile-tracking program (SN).

  • Desert Works Propulsion & Jaguar Precision Machine partner to expand electric engine fabrication, & vacuum testing (SN).

  • Former ULA CEO, Tory Bruno, heads Blue Origin’s national security arm (ST).

  • Lucid Motors doubles 2025 EV output in juxtaposition to Tesla Model Y & Rivian R2 (TC).

  • Rheinmetall & MBDA Deutschland partner on naval laser weapons (AT).

  • Longevity TAM forecast to reach $43.7B by 2033 led by supplements & cellular repair therapies (LT).

  • Radiant, Brookfield’s cloud business, with $10B AI fund to build out end-to-end AI infrastructure (RT).

community spotlight

weekly industry meetups

view calendar - it’s CES week!

today, 01/06
  • CES party (Vegas).

  • Pitch & roast (NY).

  • Crypto market x SVB outlook (SF).

wednesday, 01/07
  • YC alumni + founders (NY).

  • Founders basketball (NY).

  • Female founders lunch (LA).

  • Climate stand up (LA).

  • AI engineers tech talk (SF).

thursday, 01/08

  • SPACEWERX launchpad (LA).

  • Tech happy hour (LA).

  • Design & development meetup (LA).

  • Pitch event (SF).

friday, 01/09

  • Founders breakfast (SF).

  • Deeptech x neurotech JPM pregame (SF).

saturday, 01/10
  • Networking run (SF).

sunday, 01/11
  • Founder game night (NY).

  • Longevity pitch event (SF).

where the community converges in 2026

  • CES (Jan).

  • CSC-SEDS (Jan).

  • SmallSat (Feb).

  • Satellite x GovMilSpace (Mar).

  • Boston TW (May).

  • MilSatCom (Jun).

  • NYTW (Jun).

  • IAS (Sep).

  • SFTW (Oct).

  • LATW (Oct).

orbital classifieds

2026 thematic forecasts.

1) physical AI

2) quantum internet

3) nuclear power & propulsion

4) lunar land grab

5) golden dome push

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