Pro

Revenge of EO
The post Charts Defining the Space Industry in Q1 2026  appeared first on Payload Pro.

This week, we will cover another alternative to traditional SBIs: Directed energy. 
The post Directed Energy: An Alternative to Space-Based Interceptors appeared first on Payload Pro.

The Pentagon’s needs for Golden Dome are, in many ways, at odds with the engineering, procurement, and scaling realities of traditional space-based interceptors. That has opened the door to two alternative space-based approaches: A deep magazine approach and directed energy. 
The post High Fire Volume Systems: An Alternative to Space-Based Interceptors  appeared first on Payload Pro.

One day, two $500M+ raises.
The post The Investment Theses Behind Vast and Sierra’s $500M+ Mega Rounds appeared first on Payload Pro.

Falcon 9’s rideshare pricing has increased 40% over the last five years.
The post The Promise Of A World of Low Launch Prices Is Still Far Off appeared first on Payload Pro.

After only a two months of 2026, this year is already shaping up to be the year of space data centers. In January, SpaceX filed with the FCC for up to 1M satellites (wild). A few days later, Starcloud followed with plans for 88,000 satellites of its own.
The post Inside Starcloud and SpaceX’s Orbital Data Centers FCC Filings appeared first on Payload Pro.

TeraWave deep dive.
The post Blue Origin’s TeraWave Angle, Economics, and the Starlink / Amazon Leo Comparison appeared first on Payload Pro.

Space businesses continue their burn streak.

The investor playbook has flipped: In the era of AI, Asset-light, high-margin good businesses (software) start to look bad, while greasy, capital-intensive, bad businesses (hardware) now look good. That’s just as true in space as anywhere else.