Flight-Proven Spacecraft Bus

Space Doesn't Need You to Choose Between Buying a Satellite and Building One

For most of the last decade, spacecraft procurement has been a binary choice. Either you buy a complete spacecraft bus from a prime and accept whatever architecture comes with it, or you build one from scratch and absorb years of architecture work, flight-software development, supplier qualification, and testing before you ever get to the part of the mission that actually differentiates you. Two stories this week suggest that binary is finally breaking down, and not because anyone decided it should on principle. It’s breaking down because the cost of pretending it isn’t binary just got measured in months of delayed revenue.