10 Tech Trends That Will Impact the Satellite Industry in 2025

As 2024 concludes on the heels of increasing global conflicts and a contentious U.S. presidential election, the satellite and space industry is poised for an interesting 12 months as LEO, launch, and lunar ambitions advance in the push for greater space resilience.

The World Economic Forum’s Space Economy report predicts that the industry will grow to $1.8 trillion over the next 11 years, and not surprisingly, 2025 stands to be a pivotal year for space capabilities, regulatory developments, and global engagement. Despite economic and geopolitical uncertainty on the ground, excitement for the final frontier remains strong.

“If the Apollo era was the golden age of space, then now we’re in the renaissance of space,” says Clay Mowry, CEO of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). “This is the most exciting time to be in space in the 30 years I’ve been in the industry.”

Via Satellite asked industry leaders to weigh in on the 10 trends that they are watching most closely in 2025. Here’s what they had to say.

1. Politics, Politics, Politics

Politics could well be the most closely scrutinized trend by the space sector in 2025, as the industry watches Donald Trump return to the White House for a second term in January.

“The first Trump administration was arguably the most consequential presidential term for the space industry since John F. Kennedy,” says Chris Quilty, co-CEO and president of space analysis firm Quilty Space. He cited notable accomplishments that included the establishment of the Space Force, the revival of the National Space Council and the Artemis Accords.

The Biden administration continued these initiatives, while also helping secure United Nations support to ban anti-satellite (ASAT) testing and promoting the responsible use of space internationally through the Accords.

Quilty continues, “While there is some consternation about Elon Musk’s relationship with Trump, the industry is generally optimistic that ‘Trump 2’ will once again prove impactful to the space industry.”

Laura Winter, award-winning host of the Defense & Aerospace Report’s The DownLink Podcast, which covers trends at the intersection of space, business and defense, raises a related issue that continues to plague administrations no matter which party is in office: Congress’s inability to pass a budget on time.

The long delays create a lag that is bad for national security as well as for space investors, who are already taking a leap of faith that their investment in space companies will pay off. Investors, military leaders, and policymakers must now factor in budget tardiness with the automatic reductions prescribed by the 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act, which together result in uncertainty and risk to investment, and ultimately risk to technological readiness, Winter says.

“By the time budgets are approved it’s based on information that is two years old, and by then there are capability gaps that puts the U.S. further behind,” Winter says. Considering the rapid advancements of near-peer rivals like China, the gaps pose serious threats to the U.S.’s ability to keep pace with evolving adversarial threats.

Another political trend concerns regulatory oversight of space policies. Audrey Schaffer, former space policy director of the White House National Security Council, who now leads strategy and policy at Slingshot Aerospace, predicts that in the second half of 2025, Congress may clarify which agencies have regulatory oversight of space activities, including mission authorization. The FCC has taken a more expansive interpretation of its oversight in recent years, especially regarding space sustainability, says Schaffer, who predicts a clarity of roles and potentially more control over space operations under the U.S. Department of Commerce.

“I think there’s going to be a lot of energy [by the new Congress] to get that right and that could have a significant impact on the industry,” she says.

2. Tempo of LEO Launches

By the end of this decade, the number of active satellites could reach as many as 50,000, most in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO).

Among the planned low-orbiting launches next year: the first production satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper, BAE Systems’ Azalea multi-satellite cluster and AST SpaceMobile’s Block 2 BlueBird satellites. These deployments come as SpaceX continues to add to more than 6,500 Starlink satellites in orbit and China’s Thousands Sails Constellation, which plans to launch 648 satellites by the end of 2025.

On the defense front, the Space Development Agency is funding $4.3 billion in its FY ’25 budget for Tranches 2 and 3 of its Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA), a network of satellites in LEO developed for advanced missile detection and tracking.

Rocket Lab Founder and CEO Peter Beck says that on both sides of the equation — launch and satellite — the program is accelerating. “There’s a number of big awards anticipated for 2025. Seeing the [PWSA] program gain more momentum is important for national security.”

Rocket Lab is the prime contractor to develop 18 satellites for the Tranche 2 Transport Layer Beta variant.

Gen. Stephen Whiting, commander of the U.S. Space Command, observes that as launches become more frequent, it leads to both proliferated constellations, and a more resilient space sector for national security.

He cites the successful test launch of SpaceX’s Starship, the planned certification of ULA’s Vulcan for National Security missions, and the expected launch of Blue Origin’s New Glenn in the near future, as launches that will drive down the cost of getting mass to orbit.

Proliferated LEO “affords us opportunities to continue to make our National Security satellite constellations more resilient and easier to replenish,” Gen. Whiting says.

Quilty notes that the western space industry has become uncomfortably dependent on SpaceX for heavy launch services, but new launch vehicles from ULA, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, and Arianespace “aim to ramp up their launch cadence in 2025 to meet burgeoning industry demand.”

And the industry is depending on it. “If these rockets are unable to meet their planned launch cadence, numerous satellite operators will see their growth plans delayed,” he says.

While consolidation has been a major theme in the satcom market in recent years, the launch market could see consolidation as well. Boeing and Lockheed Martin, which jointly own United Launch Alliance, were reportedly in talks this year to sell the launcher.

“You’ll continue to see the consolidation of launch. It will be interesting to see what happens to ULA,” Beck said. “For us, it’s a big year because we’re bringing Neutron [the company’s partially reusable two-stage launch vehicle] to market. For the first time there will be something in medium launch in LEO besides a Falcon 9.”

Beck also says that there will be enough small launch vehicles deployed next year to overcome the launch vehicle shortage felt by the industry over the last few years. Some of the causes include the deployment of megaconstellations in the face of launch startup failures, new vehicle delays, Europe’s launcher crises and Russia’s withdrawal from the commercial market launch after its invasion of Ukraine.

3. The Disruptive Impact of Starship

SpaceX marched forward with progress on Starship flight tests in 2024, completing four flight tests for the 400-foot-tall vehicle. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) could soon approve Starship for up to 25 launches in 2025 and beyond.

Several thought leaders agree that Starship will disrupt the industry with lower costs and increased capacity both for up mass and down mass.

“Starship will be an important disruptor for the sector in terms of the capacity that it can offer, both in up mass and down mass,” says Nikolai Khlystov, thematic lead for Future of Space Technologies at the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution of the World Economic Forum in Geneva, Switzerland.

How SpaceX will use this vehicle beyond completing its Starlink constellations “will be an interesting dynamic to monitor in 2025 and beyond,” as well as how quickly they begin offering this service and at what cost, predicts Khlystov.

“SpaceX has even called Starship its own commercial space station, so longer term there could be further disruption in what it can do,” he adds.

4. Direct-to-Device Momentum

Connecting satellites directly to standard smartphones, once a pipe dream, is now becoming reality, as several thought leaders expressed excitement for the Direct-to-Device (D2D) market gaining market traction in the coming year.

“D2D has become the next great holy grail for the industry, offering satellite operators the potential to target billions of mobile terrestrial devices for the first time,” notes Quilty.

Tarun Gupta, co-founder and chief product officer of Skylo Technologies, the company with commercial D2D partnerships in place with Verizon and Google, predicts that in 2025, devices that can work in both satellite and cellular modes will become more ubiquitous – whether as IoT sensors, dongles, or smartphones.

According to Gupta, use cases will be defined and third-party apps will begin to recognize they can offer connectivity where cellular doesn’t exist. “People are no longer concerned about ‘Does my device connect?’ Now, it’s about: What are the use cases? How can I use it? How much does it cost?”

Gupta notes that the satellite and cellular industries have historically been very separate in terms of hardware, connectivity protocols and modulation schemes. He and his co-founders have spent years creating an ecosystem to democratize connectivity, using the protocols set by the cellular industry and bringing that to the satellite forefront, while taking advantage of the rapid drop in silicon and computer costs and the rapid rise of cloud computing.

5. Lunar Missions Kick into High Gear

Moon missions will continue to ramp up in 2025. Last February, Intuitive Machines (IM)’s Odysseus became the first commercial spacecraft to land on the Moon, which marked the first time an American spacecraft had completed a lunar landing since 1972. 2024 also marked a major milestone for China, when it brought back lunar samples from the far side of the Moon.

This January NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer is set to rocket to the Moon’s south pole in search of so-called “water ice,” solid water in the form of hexagonal crystalline structure that exist in areas of the lunar surface never exposed to sunlight such as the bottom of deep craters. NASA’s Artemis mission needs water ice to make oxygen and hydrogen, critical for supporting life and producing rocket fuel. IM-2 is expected to launch at the same time as Trailblazer, carrying a drone that uses propulsion to measure the lunar surface for hydrogen, a key indicator that water is present.

Also in January, Firefly Aerospace is expected to launch its first Blue Ghost mission to the Moon carrying 10 scientific experiments for NASA to the Mare Crisium, a basin on the Moon’s near side.

In September, NASA plans to launch Artemis 2, a 10-day crewed flyby mission around the Moon. In addition, Blue Origin plans to launch their MK1 Lunar Lander pathfinder mission and the European Space Agency (ESA) is set to begin orbital test flight of Space Rider, its uncrewed spaceplane. 2025 could also be the year the first commercial space station is set to launch.

Mowry says NASA’s efforts have created an ecosystem of communication companies that are looking at how to communicate on the lunar surface and make the most of the resources available there.

“It’s really an interesting time because you’ve got our partners also engaged, with 48 countries signed up for the Artemis Accords [as of November]. There’s a new race to go back to the Moon – you’ve got cooperation and competition to see who’s going to get to the Moon and that’s an exciting time for all of us.”

6. AI for Autonomous Operations in Space

Space organizations will increasingly leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) to process the sheer volume of data being collected about space or from space. In 2025, the industry will see the use of AI for autonomous operations as well as in edge-compute applications, being able to compute in space and only send relevant insights down to the ground. Schaffer sees autonomous operations as the next big AI application for the space sector.

“As the space environment gets more crowded and you’re trying to make real-time decisions about operations, you may want to leverage AI tools to help make those decisions,” she says.

Space maneuver and on-orbit logistics advances are a big focus in the Department of Defense, with the industry looking at the emergence of more maneuverable spacecraft that can perform on-orbit logistics, aided by more powerful rockets.

Gen. Whiting notes, “As we continue to see higher-performing rockets enter the operational fleet, we also see the opportunity for advancements in sustained space maneuver and on-orbit logistics to enable dynamic space operations given the extra fuel and performance margin these rockets have. This gets to the joint warfighting functions of sustainment, movement, and maneuver needed to enable the operations of our satellites, just like we do any other domain,” he adds.

The goal, says Whiting, is “to get to a place where we can maneuver in space knowing we can refuel if needed, opening up new tactics, techniques and procedures and extending operations until the mission is complete.”

While Starlink spacecraft use a version of autonomous systems for collision avoidance, there are indications that space operators are looking at how they can use this technology to make smarter, more efficient decisions.

“AI for space is of great interest due to its ability to enhance spacecraft autonomy, enabling faster decision-making and more efficient mission operations without constant human intervention,” says Simone D'Amico, founding director of the Space Rendezvous Lab (SLAB) as well as founding co-director of the Center of AEroSpace Autonomy Research (CAESAR) at Stanford University.

He notes that AI also improves space domain awareness, helping monitor and manage the growing complexity of space traffic and debris.

“By advancing remote sensing and Earth's digital twinning, AI can transform environmental monitoring, disaster response, and resource management on Earth, offering new insights and more precise models for addressing global challenges,” he explains.

7. China’s Growing Influence

China’s ambitions to be a dominant power in space will accelerate in 2025. The world’s most populous country already has a space station and in 2024, returned samples from the lunar surface.

The competition between the U.S. and China for space supremacy will result in growth in the industry globally, says Beck.

“2025 will be a big year for Beijing,” Beck adds, saying that he wouldn’t be surprised if China gets the first outpost on the Moon. “I think we’ll continue to be surprised at the complexity and scale of programs that they will execute.”

Audrey Schaffer expects China will become a more visible player in the commercial space market, which could result in the country embracing being a more responsible space steward.

“It will be really interesting to see if China has a shift in mindset in terms of space sustainability once it becomes one of the largest contributors of objects in space and has these economic interests at play,” Schaffer says.

8. Nations Want a Seat at the Table

Khlystov sees more and more countries engaging on the space front in 2025. To date, more than 100 countries have signed the Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, and over 80 nations have space programs, including most recently, South Korea, which launched its own space agency, the Korea Aerospace Administration, in 2024.

“Countries are signaling on the international stage that they don’t want to be left behind; that they want to be part of the international dialogue and indeed, be included in formal discussions,” says Khlystov.

He notes that the World Economic Forum’s space efforts include regional focus areas in India and Japan. The Forum also has launched a new initiative to help support younger and emerging spacefaring countries.

9. Leading with Lasercom

Several experts see 2025 as a big year for the rise of laser communications for greater resilience and broadband speed in space. Laser has advantages on multiple fronts, both with defense and commercial use cases, and in space and on the ground.

Mowry with AIAA notes that as commercial space stations are built in LEO, they will be fueled not only by traditional satellite operators, but also from LEO constellations that will increasingly have laser links.

“What’s really exciting is some of these constellations will be able to provide both broadband and lasercom links to these space stations in Low-Earth Orbit,” says Mowry. “It really changes how you think about the science and other things on board these stations or how you design a space station that doesn’t need compute power and the onboard capability because you’ve got these amazingly fast, high-speed inks that you can get up and down really fast.”

Lasercom isn’t limited to in-space communications; it also has utility on the ground by giving satellite operators a competitive edge over terrestrial providers through terrestrial service backhaul.

Finally, the defense requirements for more resilient comms also depend on laser capabilities. It’s key for the U.S. DoD’s vision of Joint All-Domain Command and Control. Unlike traditional radio frequencies, lasers can transfer more data faster, using less power. Its shorter wavelengths enhance speed and signal security.

In September, the Space Development Agency (SDA) demonstrated laser communications between two of its satellites for the first time, laying the groundwork for the “mesh network” that will link hundreds of its satellites in LEO.

“We’re seeing more and more companies looking at that capability. It could help satellite operators to actually not rely on terrestrial firms,” says Khlystov.

The benefit of laser communications as backhaul also extends to undersea cables, which are becoming easier to undermine, he explains, noting that “in-space communication backhaul becomes a critical capability for resilience.”

10. The Rise of VLEO

In reaction to an increasingly crowded LEO environment, the space industry will see the maturation of a new space regime: Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO), which commonly operates at an altitude of 250 to 350 kilometers.

Known as a “self-cleaning orbit,” VLEO could help alleviate the space debris problem since space junk in VLEO gets pulled into the atmosphere and safely burns up in hours or days. By operating at a lower altitude, VLEO spacecraft are twice as close to the action on the ground, and therefore better able to observe it.

In 2025, the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), working with partners, including DARPA and Redwire Space, will accelerate understanding of the VLEO environment, as well as the nuances of VLEO spacecraft operations.

“Flying spacecraft lower has potential advantages, including near-zero space debris, as a direct result of the increased drag at lower altitudes,” says Seth Lacy, senior scientist for space mobility and precision maneuver in the AFRL’s Space Vehicles Directorate at Kirkland Air Force Base. “The challenge is that we don’t understand this regime as well as we’d like to.” VS