THE SIGNAL
The Signal is our editorial vantage point—focused and tuned to what moves the market. It delivers analysis and perspective from SatNews, focused on signal over noise.
When AWS Grew Wings: The “Boring” Genius of Amazon Leo
Twenty years ago, Wall Street laughed at an online bookstore trying to rent out its excess server capacity. They called it AWS. Today, Amazon isn't trying to win the space race for the headlines; they are trying to win the ...
The Pentagon’s Real Estate Play to Break the West Coast Launch Monopoly
In a move that signals a shift in the Pentagon's long-term orbital logistics strategy, Space Launch Delta 30 (SLD 30) released a Request for Information (RFI) soliciting industry interest in Space Launch Complex 14 (SLC-14) at Vandenberg Space Force Base ...
The Pentagon’s Faustian Bargain: Buying Speed, Building a Monopoly
The integration of xAI serves as a proof-of-concept for the DoW’s aggressive push to modernize its regulatory framework. By treating a foundational large language model (LLM) as a modular insertion rather than a monolithic program of record, the DoW has ...
The “Delete” Agenda Hits Space
In Washington, modernization is usually a euphemism for forming a committee to study a problem. For FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, it appears to be a euphemism for a demolition crew. In a statement released Tuesday, Carr summarized his first year ...
Bruno’s Exit Leaves ULA at the Mercy of Math
The timing of Tory Bruno’s resignation, announced Monday and effective immediately, strikes a discordant note in an industry that prizes orchestrated stability ...
The “Smart Money” Blinked. Why Infrastructure Giants Are Losing Patience with Direct-to-Device
Abbey White | Staff Writer, SatNews — On Monday, American Tower Corp (Tower Corp) officially signaled it was done waiting for the "cell tower in the sky" narrative to pay rent. In a regulatory filing disclosed December 15, the terrestrial ...
Congress Blocks the “Easy Button”: The Strategic Logic Behind Restoring Tranche 3
The fight over the Space Development Agency's (SDA) budget was actually a proxy war between two acquisition philosophies: the SDA's open shop vs. a classified sole source alternative ...
Europe’s Vanishing Rocket Capability
Chris Forrester — An Arianespace cargo ship, the spectacular hybrid Canopée (wind and fuel), is this week making the final rounds off the French coast picking up various elements of its next rocket ahead of the VA267 launch on a ...
When Playground Metaphors Drift into Warfighting Doctrine
The space industry is splitting into two distinct cultural identities: commercial players utilizing meme-friendly branding versus a defense sector aggressively adopting lethal nomenclature ...
Musk’s next step could be expensive
By Chris Forrester — The past few days have seen the business pages full of reports that Elon Musk’s SpaceX could have a value of some $800 billion. The reports had plenty of credibility and built on the truly fabulous ...
Congress desires LEO, but threats are real
By Chris Forrester — Just before the holiday the U.S. Congressional Research Service (a non-partisan research operation) released a study which addressed the potential to bridge the ‘digital divide’. There are filings with the International Telecommunication Union for some 1 ...