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The United States space enterprise is undergoing a sweeping transformation: commercial innovation is progressing at an incredible pace, with profound implications for national defense, economic competitiveness and industrial resilience. The shift represents unprecedented urgency across all levels of government to drive greater commercial space integration.
At our annual 2025 State of the Space Industrial Base (SSIB) Conference April 29 – May 1, this message was clear. If we want to win the second space race and make the biggest changes to acquisition reform in decades, we must go all-in on building a commercially-enabled defense enterprise that delivers at the speed of relevance.
Speed is the strategic advantage
Lt. Gen. Shawn Bratton, who recently became the third Vice Chief of Space Operations of the U.S. Space Force, and other senior officials reinforced a message that echoed throughout the conference: space superiority is essential to peace through strength. As adversaries ramp up investments in space, speed has become a strategic differentiator. And yet, for too long, legacy procurement systems and old ways of building capabilities have impeded the pace of commercial innovation.
That’s changing. Fast.
Acquisition reform is a priority in Washington. The SPEED Act and FORGED Act working their way through the deliberations of the Senate and House versions of the National Defense Authorization Act will be vital to cutting red tape and delivering capabilities to servicemembers as quickly and effectively as possible. The acquisition reform proposals in each bill will ensure that we incentivize innovation, strike the balance needed between regulation and efficiency and strengthen the defense industrial base to enable space superiority.
The shift toward dual-use innovation and commercial-first thinking is now mainstream throughout government, extending far beyond the White House and congress. Leaders from the Space Force, Space Command, the Defense Innovation Unit and the Space Development Agency underscored throughout the conference the need to remove commercial integration barriers, such as delays in security clearances, limited access to rapid contracting tools and inconsistent follow-on funding, while also stressing that speed, scale and trust in supplier commitments are now strategic imperatives.
Speed requires doubling down on commercial integration
With space leaders sharing that more contracts went to non-traditional vendors last year, commercial integration is clearly no longer an early-stage venture. Innovations that once stalled in the “valley of death” — where companies struggle to secure funding to scale beyond their initial developments — are finding their way across it. Yet, much more needs to be done to ensure our progress matches the vision, and that more promising companies have access to the resources they need. Acquisition reform will play a vital role here. Also essential, is helping more companies grow faster by providing them with support and resources across the end-to-end innovation pipeline. NewSpace Nexus was founded for this purpose. For instance, our flagship NewSpace Ignitor program is designed to progress companies in moving their innovations beyond R&D, with product acceleration support that includes access to expensive equipment for prototyping and navigation services to the agencies needing their innovations. It’s working. Companies participating in the program have received over $110M in funding and customer contracts.
Enabling commercial integration requires tackling the hard issues preventing faster progress. At NewSpace Nexus, this led to our partnering with our ecosystem to provide accessible secure facilities to our companies. The Albuquerque Business First reported on the $15 million investment to build NewSpace Nexus’ NewSpace Center, a secure facility critical for startups and scaleups needing access to the 95% of military space systems that operate at classified levels. Not only will the center enable more capabilities to make it into space, the center will support an estimated 1,000 new jobs in New Mexico over the next decade and has already attracted interest from companies across the U.S.
We have been relentless in setting up resources and support for our incubator companies. But the last thing has been funding the secure facility to provide companies with access to classified security systems. We must continue to work to address and remove the barriers space companies face so more innovations actually make it into space. It is imperative we enable more companies to enter, grow and thrive in the industry.
What’s needed next: building industry-wide advantages
Ensuring U.S. leadership in space requires more than an ecosystem of suppliers, we need co-innovators, and in some cases, we need commercial industry to come together to lead. It’s not enough for companies to deliver capabilities quickly if we want to sustain our leadership. They must work together to shape interoperable architectures, define interfaces and develop solution sets that deliver industry-wide advantages that translate into military advantages.
At the SSIB Conference, this was another repeated theme: deterrence requires systems that work together and can scale fast. That means greater levels of collaboration than ever before.
As one space leader at the conference said, “Speed matters. Speed saves lives. Speed wins wars. And right now, speed is what our adversaries are betting we can’t do.”
From my perspective, there are three reform priorities we must address urgently if we want to scale-up commercial integration to win the second space race. First, we must standardize and accelerate the security clearance process for emerging space companies, this is a major bottleneck. Second, we need to expand rapid contracting authorities that work for small businesses, not just the primes. And third, we must push for consistent, more accessible follow-on funding pathways so more companies can scale their value quickly. These steps would unleash innovation that is currently being stifled by bureaucracy. At NewSpace Nexus, we’re moving industry progress forward alongside our partners and ecosystem within today’s constraints, but systemic change is needed to break down these barriers for all companies.
The good news? The SSIB Conference made it clear: bold, coordinated reform is already underway — with more urgency and unity than we’ve seen in decades.
Casey Anglada DeRaad is CEO and Founder of NewSpace Nexus, a non-profit established to grow the commercial space industry from New Mexico for the nation with a mission to Unite & Ignite Space by accelerating the pace of innovation, creating a bigger voice for the space industry stakeholders and leveraging the significant R&D investment from federal, state and local organizations. She was a 30-year executive of the Air Force Research Laboratory leading programs in space technology, strategic business development, technology engagement and workforce development for Air Force, NASA and private industry.
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