Space Symposium 2025

This week I attended the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. Space Symposium is the premier gathering of the global space community, bringing together more than 10,000 space professionals, business leaders, and decision-makers.

I was lucky to get a media pass so I spent part of the week learning about some of the edges of the space economy I was unfamiliar with. Here are 5 topics that were covered: 

Commercial space stations

VAST brought a replica of their Haven-1 station which we were able to walk through. I can’t wait to see this company continue to build out their capabilities over the next few years. They have plans to make a centrifugal station, which would create artificial gravity. Something you may be familiar with from 2001 A Space Odyssey (below). 

The security of space (cyber, geopolitics)

The presence of the US Department of Defense is unmissable at this event. As were the protestors who think the militarization of space is no good. That said, there are few things more interesting to me than how we strategize keeping space secure both physically and in cyber space.

Nuclear power

There is no way we can build out space without access to energy. NASA has stated a massive challenge to building out a presence on the moon is “surviving the lunar night”. Since the lunar night is 14 days, we need a non solar powered solution to running operations. L3 Harris presented on it’s FSP (Fission Surface Power) project it’s collaborating with Westinghouse on.

Advancements in propulsion

One of the most impressive commercial companies I saw was Phase4. Phase4 is building an ion thruster, which is a sci fi term that is becoming real. Their CTO Umair Siddiqui really stood out as someone who can communicate highly complicated propulsion tech in an easy to understand way. Hoping to get to their office in SoCal at some point to learn more. 

AI onboard satellites

AI is becoming embedded on satellite assets so that if ground communications are interrupted, a satellite would still be able to carry out its job. I like redundancy. But from there the idea that a satellite would have an AI might end up navigating against another satellite with onboard AI and how the AIs decide who gets priority or how to interpret action all became strange. AI vs AI in space feels like it’s bound to happen. 

Space ISAC

A final highlight for me was running into my old Cybersecurity professor from Georgetown, Sam Visner. Sam taught as an adjunct at Georgetown back in 2014. He even brought the head of the CIA to class one night. He spoke on a panel about cyber threats to space assets. 

Sam now heads up Space ISAC - The Space Information Sharing and Analysis Center, located at the National Cybersecurity Center. Their job is to bridge information from public sector agencies like the Space Force and NSA with private companies to exchange information about cyber threats. Space ISAC just announced a partnership with NASA during the conference. 

I was able to visit their “Watch Center” which monitors cybersecurity threats across both ground stations and satellite assets. There’s much more on the cyber security side that I’d like to get to. I’ll save it for a deeper dive.

Overall, the trip to Colorado was inspiring. There is a ton of activity happening on the frontier and getting to ask some questions of those influencing the future was fun. 

Expect to see some posts around some of these key topics from the Symposium in the next couple weeks and months. Subscribe below for the occasional email.