Ahead of World Space Business Week, Constellations and Novaspace released a limited podcast series featuring conversations with five space leaders. Each executive answered a handful of questions about the state of the industry, what drives their companies and the challenges that lie ahead.
The episodes cover a wide variety of space technologies, including commercial lunar launch, 5G for satcom, and the development of defense intelligence technology. But several of the executives noted similar trends across the industry. Geopolitical forces, for example, have informed the push for sovereignty across LEO and satcom, while also pressuring the U.S. to invest in space as a warfighting domain.
Several executives also noted an increase in defense spending, as well as increased investment in space technologies across the board. Even Rogers of True Anomaly went as far as to call this moment the “golden age of tech development in space.” But despite all this grand talk, there was also much discussion of the need for solid, dependable business cases informed by a customer’s spending ability, and focused on the needs of the end user—even for something as lofty as commercial lunar activity.
Listen to each mini-episode, or read our favorite quotes from each conversation below.
Jason Kim, CEO of Firefly Aerospace: Commercial Lunar Launch
Kim’s interview focused on Firefly’s major strides in the commercial lunar industry. “On March 2nd, 2025, Firefly Aerospace became the first commercial company to successfully land on the moon,” he said. After the successful landing, Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander went on to operate 10 NASA instruments for more than two weeks on the lunar surface—marking the longest commercial operation on the moon.
Looking forward, Kim also emphasized how Firefly’s unique approach of combining rocket and satellite capabilities in one company provides a strategic advantage. “[This] is allowing us to lead the way in end-to-end space services for the rapidly expanding defense, space explorations and commercial space markets,” he said.
Click to listen to the podcast.
John Serafini, CEO of Hawkeye 360: Defense Intelligence
The demand for defense intelligence is rising, claimed Serafini in his interview, as evidenced by the number of companies going public in the past six months, including recognizable names like Voyager and Firefly. “[This] indicates that there’s very excited public and private investors for the value proposition that defense technology companies offer.”
But what does it take to be successful in this rapidly growing space? “You have to be trusted,” Serafini said. “The customer, be it defense intelligence, national security, homeland security, international customers, they have to believe that what you you’re going to do, that you can actually achieve it.”
Click to listen to the podcast.
Jean-François Fallacher, CEO of Eutelsat Group: LEO Mega-Constellations
“OneWeb is fully operational,” Fallacher emphasized in his interview. “We have IRO antennas and IRO customers, we have maritime with a number of boats which are using OneWeb connectivity, and of course, we have fixed broadband antennas.”
With OneWeb making its foray into the LEO mega-constellation market, we asked Fallacher about the biggest challenges this massive new market will face in the next few years.
“The first biggest change is, of course, the geopolitical landscape,” he said. “I think governments have been realizing what it means to have a secure and a sovereign constellation, which obviously in this new geopolitical context makes use of OneWeb very attractive.”
Click to listen to the podcast.
Phil Carrai, President of Kratos Space: 5G for Satcom
5G for satcom may finally be making its way into non-terrestrial networks, with several promising new demonstrations making headway. At Kratos, a recent test of 5G NTN with industry partner Intelsat has proved to be substantial.
“5G, we believe, is the future of satcom,” Carrai said. “Certainly for air mobility, aerospace, ground mobility, Internet of Things. We think that connecting to the terrestrial infrastructure in a seamless way is the future of satcom.”
To make this vision a reality, however, Carrai emphasized the importance of building realistic business structures. “The people who make it [in this industry] tend to be the people who deliver real capability, who match how their customer spends—and their business model can survive how their customer spends,” he said.
Click to listen to the podcast.
Even Rogers, CEO and co-founder of True Anomaly: Space as Warfighting Domain
The United States and its allies, including NATO, have recognized space as a warfighting domain. To this end, Rogers emphasized how investments in warfighting space capabilities will follow.
“The United States is making serious investments, for the first time at scale, and we’re in a great position to take advantage of that, and build a company that’s entirely focused on solving space superiority problems for the United States and its allies,” he said.
Rogers also discussed how iteration is built into the process of technology design at True Anomaly. “It is one thing to use the language of fail fast, fail forward, or fly, fix, fly. It is another to really develop a culture around that and a talent base around that. What we’re doing at True Anomaly is very difficult. It’s never been done before,” he said.
Click to listen to the podcast.
