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The Space & Defense Update is LIVE from the @NYSE
@itsmoislam and @JackKuhr are joined today by:
– @WillBruey, CEO of @VardaSpace
– @DanMagy, CEO of @Firestorm_Labs
– @mrtirman, CEO of @BedrockOcean
We're digging into:
– Varda's $251M Series D, how its reentry capsules are being used for hypersonic testing, and what's next for manufacturing in orbit.
– How Firestorm's xCell moves the factory floor to the front lines, building and repairing drones and parts where they're needed instead of waiting on supply chains.
– How Bedrock's autonomous ocean mapping works, why sea mines and subsea cables are back in focus, and where maritime intelligence goes next.
Comment if you love space and defense (help us share the show!) 👇
xitter.cf/i/broadcasts/1YxNrbnLw…
CO-based WarpWare closed its $1.2M pre-seed round today to expand what it calls an AI-enabled engineering platform for space missions.
WarpWare grew out of a question the founders had while working at Sierra Space: How much of the company’s flight software could be reused for a new vehicle? The answer—according to Reynolds and COO Michayal Mathew, also a cofounder—was almost none.
Payload reporter @vicky_woodburn spoke with Matthew about the future of WarpWare and how the funding round will help the company expand its customer base. Link to the full article below.
EraDrive, the Palo Alto, CA-based startup building autonomous capabilities for satellites, won a $13M DoD award, under which the @USSpaceForce will buy an undisclosed number of the company’s Era-Node vision-based autonomy modules.
The APFIT award is intended to provide direct procurement funding for new capabilities, unlike R&D-focused awards such as SBIR and STTR. EraDrive’s award creates an accelerated pathway for the Space Force to acquire Era-Nodes for future spacecraft.
Payload reporter @Douglas__Gorman spoke with EraDrive CEO Sumant Sharma about what the award means for the future of the business, and the space industry's ability to operate satellites autonomously. Link to the full story below.
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Bedrock CEO @mrtirman joined the show at the @NYSE to chat undersea intelligence, threats to critical infrastructure, and the Strait of Hormuz.
Matthew (former Satellogic president) on the market for undersea intelligence.
“I look at where we’re at right now in the space. It’s where Earth observation, where kind of space 2.0 was back in 2015, right?"
"You had a lot of commercial capabilities coming online, but the customers, they were just slowly starting to understand the needs and requirements and how they fit this into their CONOPS and their mission packages.”
Full interview, we covered:
00:00 Satellogic to Bedrock
03:12 Siren AUV
03:45 Oil & gas vs. defense
04:54 Bedrock vs. $100K/day ships
06:36 Hormuz mines
09:49 2027 capital plans
11:25 Subsea cables & GUGI
13:30 Subsea vs. space
15:45 Underwater comms
16:44 Undersea warfare future
18:19 Public vs. private life
With @itsmoislam and @BedrockOcean
The @spacegovuk is dressing up as a waste-management company for Halloween.
Yesterday, the agency announced its selection of @ClearSpaceToday, the in-orbit servicing startup with offices in the UK, to act as the prime contractor for UKSA’s first active debris removal (ADR) mission launching NET 2029.
Under the contract worth ~ÂŁ61M ($81M), ClearSpace will attempt to remove two UK-registered defunct satellites from LEO using giant robotic claws. The mission will require ClearSpace to demonstrate new capabilities including in-orbit inspection, proximity operations, and the capture and relocation of unprepared objects.
Read the full mission breakdown from Payload reporter @Douglas__Gorman. Link below.
RATLOG (YC F26) launched this week—but not from a pad.
The heavy-lift rocket startup debuted in Y Combinator as part of the Fall 2026 batch.
RATLOG’s pitch diverges from the traditional approach to rocket-engine design—starting with eliminating ~90% of the engine’s parts.
Read the full breakdown of what RATLOG is building, from Payload reporter @vicky_woodburn. Link below.
Today's 2026 Payload Pioneer spotlight: Ashling Sugarman!
Not many people can turn a childhood dream of being a “space cowgirl” into a career, but Sugarman is getting close. She’s just traded a lasso for law books.
Her first-year summer at the @spacecourtfdn convinced her she didn’t have to follow the big-law track. Instead, she ran straight to the @FCC's Space Bureau, where she was the Front Office’s first intern.
Back home, she’s finishing her final year at @PeppLaw while working remotely as a legal extern with @blueorigin legal team. She hasn’t fully hung up the lasso, though—she still rides horses at a ranch 10 minutes from campus.
Read more of Ashling's story from @vicky_woodburn: payloadspace.com/ashling-sug…
The space investment market is booming. This year has seen some of the largest influx of private capital into the industry in history, and for @seraphim_space, that boom is paying off.
Seraphim Space Investment Trust ($SSIT) published its FY26 financials this week, revealing a valuation of £605.5M (€716.3M)—more than double its value in June 2025.
The investment strategy behind Seraphim’s portfolio is one focused on the digital infrastructure underlying the space industry—on the companies that can build a vertically integrated, IP-protected business leveraging space. It's major holdings @iceye_global, @allspaceltd, @D_Orbit, @hawkeye360, and @XonaSpace, which together represent more than 75% of the firm’s portfolio, show this strategy in action.
Payload reporter @Douglas__Gorman spoke with Seraphim Space CEO Mark Boggett for this week's Payload Europe story—both how the portfolio has grown YoY, and what lies ahead for the space VC firm. Link in the comments
Payload 🚀 retweeted
Our full interview with Varda CEO @WillBruey at the @NYSE on the company's $251M Series D and being a space, biotech, and defense biz.
“We now have drugs that are required to get to market via microgravity. And when that happens, what’s fascinating is now we have a perpetual demand for launch."
"And so, I think that is like the inflection point where industry has gone from confined to our home planet to slightly off our home planet in orbit."
"And I think that’s the most exciting thing to me. To me, that’s on the scale of when life went from sea to land."
"So my goal is to be like Muddy the Mudskipper, the first fish that went from sea to land."
"It was ugly. It was not beautiful. It was not glorious. He’s flopping around in the mud."
"And that’s kind of what we’re doing. We’re just shipping bioreactors to space and back. But that is literally the epic transition.”
We covered:
0:49 $251M Series D
1:51 Varda’s two business lines
1:55 Microgravity drugs
5:12 Changes since Series C
5:58 United Therapeutics
7:45 AI as an accelerant
9:01 Investors view
9:58 Modeling revenue
11:21 Hypersonic testing
14:02 Delivery from orbit
16:26 Heat shield
18:36 Vehicles 8 and 9
With @itsmoislam and @VardaSpace
.@BlackSky_Inc ($BKSY) inked a seven-figure deal to extend its partnership with Australian non-Earth imaging (NEI) provider @heospace for another year. The expanded partnership will help advance low-latency NEI.
As the number of objects in orbit grows, so does operators’ hunger to know where those objects are—and what they’re doing. Ground-based radar and telescopes can track a satellite’s position, but are limited by the level of available detail. HEO puts eyes in the sky instead—borrowing time on cameras already in orbit to photograph other spacecraft up close.
Payload reporter @vicky_woodburn has the details of the deal. Link below.
Today’s Moon explorers won’t have the luxury of GPS-like tech for navigation. But @JAXA_en is trying to change that for future lunar visitors.
The space agency tapped Japanese space startup @ArkEdgeSpace for two projects designed to improve navigation on the Moon. These awards build on work the startup is already doing with the Japanese space agency, including designing a constellation of small satellites around the Moon to enable navigation.
Payload editor @jacqfeldscher dives into what the two projects will study, and how they'll move forward humanity's vision for an off-world future. Link below.
@InOrbitAero has swapped reentry vehicles for autonomy software, and NASA and the Space Force are funding the shift.
The Torrance, CA-based startup has won new government contracts for its onboard AI system, INTELLECT, which the company says can run a spacecraft’s operations without waiting on ground control.
Payload reporter @vicky_woodburn spoke exclusively with CEO Ryan Elliott and CTO Ishaan Patel to learn more about the company's pivot and new contracts ⤵️
Read more here: payloadspace.com/exclusive-i…
@reflectorbital, the startup attempting to offer sunlight on-demand with in-space mirrors, announced the purchase of two launches today from Indian launcher @SkyrootA.
The deal includes:
- One launch on Skyroot’s Vikram-1 launch vehicle, which debuted in July, and can carry ~350kg to LEO.
- One launch on Skyroot’s upgraded Vikram-1U vehicle, which is expected to fly its first mission in Q1 2027, and will be capable of carrying ~550kg to LEO.
Payload reporter @Douglas__Gorman breaks down the details of the buy below ⬇️
Dallas-based @balerionspace has surpassed its $200M target for its second fund, the firm announced Thursday. Fund II—which remains open—is more than five times the size of the firm’s debut fund, which came in at just under $40M.
Payload reporter Victoria Woodburn spoke with Balerion's cofounder and GP @DanielKleinman4 about what the VC's plans for Fund II. Link below.
