Weekly Recap #35 + Juno Propulsion Interview

Main Topics Dr. Alexis Harroun, CEO of Juno Propulsion (https://www.junopropulsion.com/) , joins Space Times this week to explain how their Rotating Detonation Combustion thruster will change the game for in-space mobility! Headliners Starship v3 launched on May 22nd with mixed success, the booster lost 3 engines and landed but not as expected, while Starship lost an RVAC engine but still accomplished its landing in the Indian Ocean. 22 mass dummies were deployed in space, including 2 Dodger Dogs that had Starlink hardware for testing and imaging of Starship. [source (https://edition.cnn.com/2026/05/22/sc...) ] York acquired Solestial for their silicon based solar array technology, their third acquisition for core component production since York’s IPO. [source (https://solarbuildermag.com/products/...) ] Vast announced their expansion from commercial space stations into high power buses, providing a 15kW spacecraft. They have an anchor customer who has so far purchased 4 satellites, with an option for 200 more. [source (https://www.vastspace.com/updates/vas...) ] Defense The United States Space Force awarded $437M to Viasat and SES for 2 satellites each for Protected Tactical Satcom Global. [source (https://spacenews.com/space-force-awa...) ] The United States Space Force awarded $398M to Northrop Grumman for a Protected Tactical Satcom Prototype that can resist GPS jamming. [source (https://www.govconwire.com/articles/s...) ] The United States Space Force awarded $90M to Rocket Lab for Heimdall, a space domain awareness program that was being worked on by Geost prior to its acquisition last year. [source (https://rocketlabcorp.com/updates/roc...) ] Helsing, OHB, Hensoldt, and Kongsberg formed the KIRK joint venture to develop space-based AI-enabled space domain awareness for detection and tracking of in-orbit threats. [source (https://www.reuters.com/science/helsi...) ] The UK Space Agency inaugurated their new space domain awareness software Borealis 6 months ahead of schedule, demonstrating it with their existing on-orbit asset Noctis-1 for space-based detection. [source (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ne...) ] Iceye delivered 4 SAR satellites to the Polish Ministry of Defense within 12 months. [source (https://www.iceye.com/newsroom/press-...) ] Commercialization Iceye launched their new catastrophe monitoring solution focused on the banking sector to provide more accurate insurance and pricing of property and assets. [source (https://www.iceye.com/newsroom/press-...) ] Amadeus IT selected Spire’s aircraft tracking data for airport tools to improve management and planning. [source (https://ir.spire.com/news-events/pres...) ] Sky Perfect JSAT invested in Astroscale to partner on on-orbit servicing. [source (https://www.astroscale.com/en/news/as...) ] Business Moves SpaceX filed their S-1 with the SEC in preparation for their upcoming IPO. The filing revealed over 200 pages of details about SpaceX’s business including their $1.75B price target, their $18.67B in revenue last year, $4.94B of operational losses, and a massive $28.5T TAM. [source (https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da...) ] Blue Origin is rumored to be considering accepting outside money for the first time, this comes from internal all-hands meeting and could mean they will be seeking private investors or an IPO. [source (https://www.geekwire.com/2026/jeff-be...) ] Tomorrow.io (http://tomorrow.io) extended their Series F by $35M, bringing their total raised to $210M focused on delivering on their DeepSky AI-enabled weather satellite constellation. [source (https://www.tomorrow.io/blog/tomorrow...) ] Zenk Space raised $26M in preparation of its debut launch of the medium lift Zhihang-1 rocket in June. [source (https://www.china-in-space.com/p/zenk...) ] Mach Indus...