November 25, 2025 - Written by Caleb Henry   A common question we get at Quilty Space is to compare Amazon Leo (formerly Kuiper) to Starlink. More specifically, people want to know if Amazon is lagging Starlink, and if so, by how much.   At the surface level, there is a clear gap. Starlink has more than 8 million subscribers running on a network of more than 8,500 satellites. Amazon Leo is pre-service with 150 satellites in orbit.   But things get interesting when comparing both constellations using their ITU filing as the start date. Applying for spectrum with the UN agency is the first step towards realizing a constellation, making it an effective place to start the clock at T-0.   The ITU received Starlink’s first filing, named STEAM-1, on June 27, 2014. It took the operator 6.3 years to go from that filing to the “Better than Nothing” beta service in October 2020.    For Amazon Leo, the ITU first received a filing under the name USASAT-NGSO-8A on March 26, 2019. Amazon Leo announced its enterprise beta service today, Nov. 24, 2025, or 6.3 years after filing.   Technical note: national regulators apply on behalf of their host constellations, so the FCC filled for Amazon, and Norway’s Nkom filed for Starlink. Companies don’t file directly.  From this, we can see that while Amazon Leo got a later start, it is progressing at almost the same speed as Starlink, lagging by a mere four months. Amazon Leo made up significant time in 2025, going from first production satellite launch to beta in seven months, nearly twice as fast as Starlink. And Amazon Leo satellites already feature laser crosslinks, a technology Starlink introduced about two and a half years after its first production launch.  Amazon Leo still has more steps to go until it reaches Starlink’s present status. Major milestones include activating full commercial service and achieving global coverage (including polar). Not owning a launch vehicle like SpaceX remains a challenge. But the operator is moving at a compelling speed, and with the heft of parent company Amazon behind it, is very, very real. To learn more about Amazon Leo and its strengths and weaknesses versus other constellations, check out our report here .  Link: https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/amazon-leo/amazon-leo-satellite-internet-ultra-pro

October 17, 2025 - Written by Caleb Henry   Over the past 24 months, Iceye has won seven sovereign customers, many of them ministries of defense, for purchases of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites that the company historically built solely for its own constellation. The orders tally 21 firm satellites, plus options for 23 more (20 for Japan, 3 for Poland), excluding Iceye’s €158M domestic deal with the Finnish Defence Forces for an undisclosed number of satellites. Iceye’s latest deal, for four satellites to Japan-based IHI Corporation with options for 20 more, shows how Iceye is capitalizing on areas of geospatial growth. It's the second major foreign deal this year in Japan, following Planet Labs’ order for 10 satellites from Sky Perfect JSAT, Japan’s largest telecom satellite operator. Some satellite industry veterans have voiced concerns about manufacturing deals cannibalizing the EO customer base, as buyers of satellites may have less need to purchase third-party data from Iceye or others. This is a valid concern, but there are still compelling reasons for Iceye to continue with its current strategy. First, Iceye often sets up joint ventures with local partners (Space42 in the UAE, Rheinmetall in Germany), giving the company access to enduring revenue streams as domestic constellations are built. Second, and perhaps more importantly, there’s nothing stopping Iceye’s customers, many of them focused heavily on sovereign capabilities, from buying satellites from another manufacturer if Iceye had refused. While not every country can afford space programs with high-resolution satellites and accompanying ground infrastructure, we expect this trend to continue. Electro-optical imaging companies have signed several notable deals in the past 24 months (BlackSky with the Indonesian MoD,  Planet in Germany , and ImageSat with an undisclosed Asian customer).  Other geospatial companies have noticed this trend (Umbra, Albedo, Satellogic, etc.) and are increasingly offering space hardware deals alongside or in lieu of remote sensing data and analytics. Link: https://www.iceye.com/newsroom/press-releases/iceye-and-ihi-sign-agreement-to-build-an-earth-observation-satellite-constellation

October 7, 2025 - Written by Caleb Henry A Firefly engine hot firing. Credit: Firefly Aerospace Firefly’s surprise weekend announcement that it is buying software specialist SciTec shows how aggressively the company is moving to become a full-fledged space and defense company not defined solely, or even predominantly, by launch. The $855 million deal, comprised of $300 million in cash and $555 million in stock, is nearly as much as what Firefly raised in its IPO ($868 million) just two months ago. SciTec adds 475 employees to Firefly’s ~800, growing headcount by roughly 60% and reshaping Firefly into a bigger contender for Golden Dome work. Compared with the other U.S. launch companies that went public this decade – Rocket Lab and Virgin Orbit – Firefly’s evolution is the most rapid from a financial standpoint. In its first few months as a public entity, Firefly is outpacing what Rocket Lab spent in four years on M&A. Why the urgency? First, it’s conventional wisdom now that launch as a standalone offering is a hard business, especially absent a large government anchor contract, which Firefly lacks. The total market is only $5-7 billion dollars per annum, which is then divided into smaller buckets defined by launch mass, orbital inclination, and national sovereignty. Firefly already expanded beyond launch in years prior with its lunar landers and Elytra multi-mission spacecraft, but the foray into defense expands its total addressable market by an order of magnitude. Rocket Lab, a peer competitor, demonstrated the effectiveness of diversifying into spacecraft manufacturing and defense over the course of six acquisitions since 2021. Virgin Orbit, on the other hand, adopted the novel approach of making minority investments into potential customers (SatRevolution, Arqit, Horizon Technologies, etc.), which left the company with no tangible revenue-producing assets when its launch business stumbled. As a result, the company was liquidated two years after its IPO. (To be fair, Virgin Orbit was late to the SPAC IPO fad, and the $228M it raised was less than half the company's target, leaving it more cash strapped than comparable launch IPOs). Second, missile defense is hot, and that’s with or without Golden Dome. SciTec is a subcontractor under General Dynamics Mission Systems for the ground segment of the Space Development Agency’s PWSA missile warning constellation, and counts the Missile Defense Agency among its customers. Future spending on Golden Dome amplifies this market opportunity. Third, software talent is an increasingly needed but tough skill set for space companies to obtain, especially in the age of AI. Acquiring SciTech enables Firefly to quickly acqui-hire a talented pool of software engineers rather than manually scraping together the capability through a laborious and lengthy hiring process. SciTec is a cash-flow positive business, and as a software company, likely has margins that surpass what Firefly obtains from its hardware-centric business. The acquisition puts Firefly on an accelerated track to profitability with the workforce and product offerings needed to capitalize on the surge in U.S. missile defense spending. Link: https://investors.fireflyspace.com/events/event-details/firefly-aerospace-announces-acquisition-scitec