AI at Risk

As AI becomes embedded across commercial space missions, radiation emerges as a critical design factor that can shape mission success or failure. The challenge is not the presence of radiation itself, but how effectively it is addressed through thoughtful engineering, balanced protection strategies, and mission-specific risk alignment. By treating radiation as a standard part of system design, the industry can unlock advanced AI capabilities in space while protecting performance, longevity, and commercial viability.

Critical Infrastructure – AI at Launch

Critical Infrastructure: AI at Launch – Streamlining the Path to Orbit By Guada CasusoVP of Technology & Innovation Parsons Corporation Spaceports have entered a new era of complexity. They now function as integrated transportation hubs where highways, rail lines, seaports, airports, and digital systems converge to support every stage of a launch.  As commercial space […]

Helium-3

As artificial intelligence expands across satellites, lunar systems, and orbital infrastructure, power becomes the defining constraint. Helium-3, embedded in the Moon’s surface after billions of years of solar exposure, is emerging as a potential energy source aligned with the needs of long-duration, autonomous operations. With the promise of compact, high-density power and reduced system complexity, it offers a new way to think about sustaining intelligent systems beyond Earth.

Nuclear Power on Off-world bases

Power is emerging as one of the defining challenges of sustained human presence beyond Earth. As NASA advances crewed missions to the Moon and Mars, traditional energy solutions face harsh limitations. Lunar base sites endure weeks without sunlight, and solar output on Mars drops to less than half of what is available on Earth.

Nuclear microreactors are stepping forward as a practical solution. These compact, transportable systems offer continuous, high-output energy capable of supporting surface operations, life support, and in-situ resource utilization. Under NASA’s Fission Surface Power initiative, industry teams are accelerating designs to meet ambitious deployment timelines, with plans to deliver scalable systems for Artemis Base Camp within the next decade.

This shift signals a transition from scientific possibility to engineering execution. Building and deploying nuclear power systems in extreme off-world environments introduces new challenges in infrastructure, logistics, and safety, both in space and here on Earth. As global competition intensifies and timelines compress, the ability to deliver reliable power will shape how quickly humanity can move from landing on the Moon to living and working there.

Data Shaping Commercial Space

Behind every milestone in commercial space, data tells the real story. Investment flows, revenue signals, and sector performance are revealing how the industry is maturing, from stable core markets like launch and satellites to emerging areas such as in-space servicing, lunar operations, and AI-driven autonomy. As transparency increases and capital becomes more targeted, data is shaping a clearer, more strategic path forward for the commercial space economy.

Orbital Data Centers 

Orbital data centers are emerging as a powerful solution to the growing demand for real-time processing, AI integration, and data resilience in space. By bringing high-performance computing directly into orbit, these platforms are enabling faster decisions, stronger security, and entirely new mission capabilities.

Mission Cadence Outruns Reality

Launch cadence across the space industry continues to accelerate, yet manufacturing realities remain governed by materials, qualification standards, and production timelines that cannot be rushed. As programs push forward with compressed schedules, critical components such as wire and cable harnesses often reveal the growing tension between mission ambition and manufacturing constraints. Insights from Paragon Manufacturing highlight how early engagement with manufacturing partners helps programs align design decisions, material choices, and lead times with the realities of building hardware that must perform flawlessly in space.

Building Better Alloy

Advanced manufacturing begins with the materials themselves. Metalysis is reshaping how high-performance alloys are produced through a solid-state process that avoids traditional melting and forging. This approach enables new alloy combinations, improves energy efficiency, and supports additive manufacturing methods that reduce waste while producing stronger, lighter components. As space systems demand materials that can withstand extreme heat, pressure, and operational stress, innovations in metal powder production are expanding what engineers can design for propulsion, aerospace structures, and next-generation space hardware.

Lunar Dust into Oxygen

Lunar regolith holds more than dust. It contains oxygen and valuable metals that could support the infrastructure of a future space economy. In this article, Dr. Ian Mellor of Metalysis explains how a solid-state electrochemical process can extract oxygen from simulated lunar rock while producing metal powders suitable for construction and additive manufacturing.

By generating two critical resources at once, oxygen for life support and propulsion, and metals for manufacturing, this approach supports the development of in-situ capabilities that reduce reliance on Earth-based supply chains. As research with the European Space Agency advances, technologies like these are helping transform lunar resources into the building blocks of sustained activity on the Moon.

Redwater to Regolith

The path to off-world resource use starts beneath the surface. Through missions on Mars, recent lunar payloads, and upcoming systems bound for Phobos and Titan, Honeybee Robotics, now part of Blue Origin, is advancing the drills, pneumatic samplers, and autonomous subsurface systems that make space resource development possible. Exploration hardware today is laying the groundwork for tomorrow’s space infrastructure.