🚀 EchoStar Shares Double

View this email in your browser

The Space Scoop

Week Ended 08.29.2025

Happy Friday! And happy Labor Day weekend to our U.S. readers! Lets get to it.

Market Max-Q

Top Stories

1) EchoStar ($SATS) announced a spectrum sale and hybrid mobile network operator agreement with AT&T ($T).

• The $23 billion dollar sale will cover 3.45 GHz and 600 MHz spectrum license sale and end the company's bid to operate as a traditional mobile carrier in the U.S.

• Deal proceeds will also help pay down its current $25B+ debt load and finance a $5B constellation of direct-to-device satellites. EchoStar ordered 100 satellites from MDA Space earlier this month for said constellation.

• Shares gapped +70% higher on Tuesday and finished the week +109% higher.

2) It was a big week for Rocket Lab ($RKLB). The company:

• Announced expanded US Investments for national security programs and semiconductor manufacturing via a $23.9M award through the Department of Commerce.

• Successfully launched its 70th Electron mission.

• Opened Launch Complex 3 in Virginia -- its dedicated test, launch, and landing facility for its medium-lift reusable rocket Neutron.

3) Starship completed its 10th test flight, breaking string of failures and reaching new milestones.

• SpaceX completed a primarily successful test flight of its Starship vehicle Tuesday following scrubbed Sunday and Monday launches.

• This launch put the vehicle’s development program back on track after a handful of failures earlier this year. Vehicle ascent went as planned, excluding one premature shutdown of a Raptor engine, and reached its planned suborbital trajectory after a nominal burn of its six Raptor engines. The Super Heavy booster jettisoned from the upper stage rocket and performed a boost back burn to the Gulf before a soft landing.

• A massive positive for Starship, which is rumored to has lost an ~$500M+ in 2025 due to launch failures..

• Following the test flight, Elon Musk shared plans to significantly ramp up the launch vehicle’s size, weight, and power over the coming years, including vastly increasing total thrust to orbit, upping payload mass from ~35 to 200+ tons, and adding nearly 20m to the vehicles height.

In Other News

Redwire $25M Single Award IDIQ with NASA (Co)$RDW will focus on on fulfilling future task orders for biotechnology facilities, on-orbit operations support, mission integration, and related services for the agency on the ISS over a five-year period.Aerospacelab Raises €94M Series B (PS)The Belgian satellite maker will use the capital to expand manufacturing capacity via its "Megafactory" designed to produce up to 500 satellites a year by 2027. The startup is competing with Airbus to build 290 satellites for the LEO portion of IRIS². The round included new and existing investors and a €38M commitment from the European Investment Bank.ICEYE Secures $10.9M Funding (ESF)The capital was raised from from Vinci S.A., an investment vehicle of Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego (BGK), Poland’s National Development Bank. Vinci is tasked with investing in the commercialization and expansion of Polish startups, despite ICEYE not easily being defined as a Polish company as it was founded in Finland in 2014.

Image of the Week

Starship Flight 10: Successful ocean landing burn and splashdown (SpaceX)

Links

• Sec. Commerce Noted Government Weighing Equity Stakes in Defense Government Contractors• Spire ($SPIR) Receives NYSE Notice Regarding Late Form 10-Q Filing• Voyager ($VOYG) Appoints Paul Tilghman as Chief Technology Officer• Gilat ($GILT) Receives an Additional $25M Agreement with Peru’s National Telecommunications Program• Telesat ($TSAT) New CFO Effective October 20th• Planet ($PL) Launches Two Additional High-Resolution Pelican Satellites• Voyager ($VOYG) Announces Preliminary Inclusion in the Russell 2000 Index

Opinion

• Old Space Meets New Space: A Decade Later and Beyond• Intuitive Machines ($LUNR): Cash Rich, Execution Poor• Rocket Lab ($RKLB): SpaceX’s Loss Is Rocket Lab’s Gain• EchoStar ($SATS): AT&T Deal Pays Well, but Is Only Half the Story

Earnings Calendar

• $PL: Sep 8 - Before Market Open

*Company confirmed dates only.