SPACE/COSMOS
Frankfurt (Germany) (AFP) – The head of Germany's Isar Aerospace voiced hope Tuesday that the company could one day overtake Elon Musk's SpaceX to become the world's premier space launch company.
Issued on: 10/11/2026 - FRANCE24
Isar launched a rocket into orbit from Andoya in Norway on September 5, 2026 © Handout / Isar Aerospace/AFP/FileDaniel Metzler, who founded the company with two fellow students in 2018, pointed to a huge backlog of launch orders, helped by European military clients.
"SpaceX was founded in 2002. Back then I was playing with Pokemon cards," he said. "Looking at what could happen in the next 18 years, I wouldn't rule out us being further ahead than SpaceX."
Isar became in September the first privately financed European company to get a rocket into orbit.
Europe is betting that competition between Isar and other players such as Rocket Factory Augsburg will bring down the price of satellite launches.
This would help ensure affordable access to space for sectors ranging from telecommunications to defence, independent of entities such as SpaceX, the sector leader valued at $1.9 trillion (1.7 trillion euros).
Speaking at a conference organised by the SZ newspaper, Metzler said Isar had already come a long way, noting that SpaceX needed four attempts to get into orbit compared to Isar's two.
Capacity rather than demand was now the big bottleneck, Metzler added.
He said the company was 15-times oversubscribed for 2028 launches as European governments now preferred European providers to put their defence satellites up as opposed to firms overseas.
"There's 14 customers for every rocket that we have to disappoint," he said.
"About 18 months ago 85 percent of inquiries were commercial and 15 percent were military, and that ratio has since flipped," he added.
Chief executive Daniel Metzler says 'looking at what could happen in the next 18 years, I wouldn't rule out us being further ahead than SpaceX' © RONNY HARTMANN / AFP/File
Isar is working on developing reusable rockets to boost capacity and bring launch costs down, hoping to catch up with SpaceX's reusable Falcon 9 rocket.
"Already with our next launch, for which we are currently finalising the launch vehicle, we will be taking initial measurements to assess the re-entry of the rocket's first stage," he said.
"Over the next three or four flights, we also plan to start flying hardware specifically designed for reusability."
Asked if Isar could one day be valued at 100 billion euros, Metzler said "people massively underestimate the potential of space".
"To be honest, I reckon the figure is much higher, but then people would be even more convinced that I'm completely mad."
pca-vbw/fz/js
Isar is working on developing reusable rockets to boost capacity and bring launch costs down, hoping to catch up with SpaceX's reusable Falcon 9 rocket.
"Already with our next launch, for which we are currently finalising the launch vehicle, we will be taking initial measurements to assess the re-entry of the rocket's first stage," he said.
"Over the next three or four flights, we also plan to start flying hardware specifically designed for reusability."
Asked if Isar could one day be valued at 100 billion euros, Metzler said "people massively underestimate the potential of space".
"To be honest, I reckon the figure is much higher, but then people would be even more convinced that I'm completely mad."
pca-vbw/fz/js
Is The Space Economy Driving The Weaponization Of Space? – Analysis
Key Takeaways:
Starlink, Chinese mega-constellations and others are creating hyper-redundant architectures that also serve as geopolitical tools, with non-state actors already using commercial satcom for grey-zone operations.
Treating satellite terminals as sensitive dual-use technology and imposing stricter international oversight are required to prevent commercial connectivity from enabling orbital conflict and empowering proxies.
From Orbital Warfare to Geopolitical Leverage
The weaponisation of orbits is a great-power game — and a space war is fast becoming a possibility. The more chronic issue, however, is that great powers use the placement of weapons in space to exploit space assets in pursuit of their geopolitical and geoeconomic goals. India should treat proxies, non-state actors, terror groups and criminal organisations with access to the downstream services of satellite constellations not as peripheral, anomalous actors but as strategic force multipliers of space powers.
With access to LEO satellite communications (satcom), these four groups have already shown several signs of engaging in grey-zone operations, in which their backers can claim plausible deniability or exploit the difficulty of attribution. They use LEO satcom in zones with a governance vacuum, where they trample the telecom sovereignty of legitimate but weak governments. In some situations, they could also create front enterprises with a digital backbone provided by LEO satcom, which then fund the larger terror and criminal enterprises
History has shown that proxies are rarely obedient to their benefactor states. At some point, they go rogue, having acquired weapons, wealth, power and self-interest. Their independent actions, which could be reckless given the absence of accountability, can force their sponsors into conflict with a major rival power while further eroding the international order and the institutions that safeguard the sanctity of space law.
Weaponised LEO constellations are becoming a Sword of Damocles over international security. While the space economy drives global digital connectivity, that connectivity transcends jurisdictions and becomes a geopolitical weapon. Commercially, it grants bad-faith actors the status of data subscribers, giving them secure, high-speed communication backbones that outpace the capabilities of traditional national law enforcement. Closing this security gap requires a paradigm shift: satellite terminals must be treated not merely as commercial consumer electronics but as sensitive weaponised technology, demanding strict international regulatory oversight, cooperative corporate governance and constructive international diplomacy.
None of these seems to be working despite the rise of the space economy, since great powers are becoming autarkic and hegemonic, relinquishing their responsibilities towards shared international well-being and being driven more by domination in space. The question is whether the global space economy, beyond the trillions of dollars it aims to generate, will deny bad-faith actors access to space and commit to accountability, impartial justice and the well-being of those in need, a necessity in today’s world, or whether it will continue to abet space weaponisation unchecked.
Source: This article was published by the Observer Research Foundation.
About Observer Research Foundation
ORF was established on 5 September 1990 as a private, not for profit, ’think tank’ to influence public policy formulation. The Foundation brought together, for the first time, leading Indian economists and policymakers to present An Agenda for Economic Reforms in India. The idea was to help develop a consensus in favour of economic reforms.
View all posts by Observer Research Foundation →
By Chaitanya Giri
Key Takeaways:
The global space economy’s boom in proliferated low-Earth-orbit constellations originated in the 2007–08 Chinese and U.S. anti-satellite tests and is accelerating orbital weaponisation.
Starlink, Chinese mega-constellations and others are creating hyper-redundant architectures that also serve as geopolitical tools, with non-state actors already using commercial satcom for grey-zone operations.
Treating satellite terminals as sensitive dual-use technology and imposing stricter international oversight are required to prevent commercial connectivity from enabling orbital conflict and empowering proxies.
The biggest driver of the global space economy is the bias towards proliferated satellite architectures, which emerged from China’s and the US’s anti-satellite (ASAT) tests in 2007 and 2008, respectively. While the space economy promises services never achieved before, it is also driving the weaponisation of Earth’s orbits, creating the conditions for orbital warfare and, more chronically, turning satellite constellations into geopolitical weapons.
The term ‘space economy’, which now features in a broad range of policy and strategy discussions, is not very old. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) codified it in 2012, defining it as, “The space economy is the full range of activities and the use of resources that create and provide value and benefits to human beings in the course of exploring, understanding, managing, and utilising space.”
The OECD coined the term ‘space economy’ to draw private capital and commercial capacities into space activities and to boost the national economies of member states. While commerce appears to be the central driver, the rise of the “space economy” was triggered by two anti-satellite (ASAT) kinetic kill weapons tests: China’s test on 12 January 2007 and the US’s response on 21 February 2008. Both tests pitted the US and China against each other in a comprehensive contest across all of Earth’s orbits. This time, it was not merely a space race but one involving the weaponisation of orbit.
The Military Origins of the Space Economy
China’s ASAT test showed the US a stark picture, which it reciprocated: standalone satellites of that era were not only large and expensive, but also sitting ducks and single points of failure that could cripple the whole military architecture, especially for globally expeditionary military activities. It was well known before the term ‘space economy’ was coined that countries intending to maintain dominance in space, or even to be keepers of exclusive capabilities, would need to carry out military activities under the guise of dual-use commercial activities. Commercial players build the assets, militaries are the end users, and the whole orbital architecture gets laid out, with weaponisation occurring smoothly while hiding in plain sight. The US Defence Intelligence Agency’s (DIA) 2026 public release of an image of China’s secretive spaceplane, Shenlong, operating in Earth’s orbit shows that the weaponisation race has been under way for more than a decade but is coming to the fore only now through in-orbit intelligence gathering.
The Race for Orbital Dominance
In August 2013, the US Air Force Space Command released a paper titled “Resiliency and Disaggregated Space Architectures” which advocated for a disaggregation approach by moving from standalone and exquisite satellites to constellations of small satellites. Constellations have been preferred since then as a deterrent to ASAT tests. They introduced hyper-redundancy, removed single points of failure, established a mathematical deterrent by lowering the cost of making and launching satellites, put the onus of orbital destruction entirely on the ASAT attacker, and created a proliferated warfighting architecture.
SpaceX was the first company to file with the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for an orbital shell of more than 1,000 satellites, specifically 4,425 satellites, in 2016. China filed for an enormous constellation of 12,992 satellites in September 2020. This was also the period when China began nurturing many quasi-private commercial space players under the watchful eye of its state-controlled industries, under the State Council. While China’s Belt and Road Initiative has always had a space component, the first explicit mention of a satellite constellation as a national priority came in the 14th Five-Year Plan, which was approved in March 2021.
At present (as of October 2026), Starlink has more than 10,783 satellites, followed by OneWeb with 654 satellites, Amazon’s Kuiper with 394 satellites, and Qianfan with 238 satellites. In the next few years, the world could see more than 20,000 satellites hovering around in low Earth orbit, but that is not all: unmitigated numbers are envisaged. E-space, founded by OneWeb founder Greg Wyler, has registered with ITU for a satellite constellation of a whopping 116,640 satellites. China’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council has filed for an enormous constellation of more than 200,000 non-geostationary satellites. This raises questions about the limits to the growth of orbital constellations, whether this expansion is a mad rush, a zero-sum game or a race to nowhere, and where this orbital ‘great power’ rivalry for absolute dominance is ultimately headed.
In the past year, several governments have issued strongly worded statements urging states to step back from an escalation ladder that could lead to a space war. In October 2026, Russia’s former President Dmitry Medvedev warned that if the US blocks Russian satellites, the Ukraine-Russia conflict would escalate into a full-fledged space war, with Russia targeting Starlink.
In September 2026, UK Defence Secretary Wes Streeting cautioned that space-based threats are growing at an alarming rate and in sophistication, including lasers, electromagnetic pulses and kinetic ASAT weapons. After US Air Force Secretary Troy Meink made the startling revelation that the US has placed “on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action,” China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Guo Jiakun, urged the US to stop preparing for war in space and turning the orbits into a battlefield. The US is certain that its space dominance is being challenged by Russia and China through a strategy of deceiving, disrupting, denying, degrading and destroying. In a 2024 statement, the US Space Force’s Space Systems Command argued that proliferated LEO constellations are the way to avert a single point of failure. Moreover, each of them intends to complicate its adversary’s targeting calculus.
The term ‘space economy’, which now features in a broad range of policy and strategy discussions, is not very old. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) codified it in 2012, defining it as, “The space economy is the full range of activities and the use of resources that create and provide value and benefits to human beings in the course of exploring, understanding, managing, and utilising space.”
The OECD coined the term ‘space economy’ to draw private capital and commercial capacities into space activities and to boost the national economies of member states. While commerce appears to be the central driver, the rise of the “space economy” was triggered by two anti-satellite (ASAT) kinetic kill weapons tests: China’s test on 12 January 2007 and the US’s response on 21 February 2008. Both tests pitted the US and China against each other in a comprehensive contest across all of Earth’s orbits. This time, it was not merely a space race but one involving the weaponisation of orbit.
The Military Origins of the Space Economy
China’s ASAT test showed the US a stark picture, which it reciprocated: standalone satellites of that era were not only large and expensive, but also sitting ducks and single points of failure that could cripple the whole military architecture, especially for globally expeditionary military activities. It was well known before the term ‘space economy’ was coined that countries intending to maintain dominance in space, or even to be keepers of exclusive capabilities, would need to carry out military activities under the guise of dual-use commercial activities. Commercial players build the assets, militaries are the end users, and the whole orbital architecture gets laid out, with weaponisation occurring smoothly while hiding in plain sight. The US Defence Intelligence Agency’s (DIA) 2026 public release of an image of China’s secretive spaceplane, Shenlong, operating in Earth’s orbit shows that the weaponisation race has been under way for more than a decade but is coming to the fore only now through in-orbit intelligence gathering.
The Race for Orbital Dominance
In August 2013, the US Air Force Space Command released a paper titled “Resiliency and Disaggregated Space Architectures” which advocated for a disaggregation approach by moving from standalone and exquisite satellites to constellations of small satellites. Constellations have been preferred since then as a deterrent to ASAT tests. They introduced hyper-redundancy, removed single points of failure, established a mathematical deterrent by lowering the cost of making and launching satellites, put the onus of orbital destruction entirely on the ASAT attacker, and created a proliferated warfighting architecture.
SpaceX was the first company to file with the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for an orbital shell of more than 1,000 satellites, specifically 4,425 satellites, in 2016. China filed for an enormous constellation of 12,992 satellites in September 2020. This was also the period when China began nurturing many quasi-private commercial space players under the watchful eye of its state-controlled industries, under the State Council. While China’s Belt and Road Initiative has always had a space component, the first explicit mention of a satellite constellation as a national priority came in the 14th Five-Year Plan, which was approved in March 2021.
At present (as of October 2026), Starlink has more than 10,783 satellites, followed by OneWeb with 654 satellites, Amazon’s Kuiper with 394 satellites, and Qianfan with 238 satellites. In the next few years, the world could see more than 20,000 satellites hovering around in low Earth orbit, but that is not all: unmitigated numbers are envisaged. E-space, founded by OneWeb founder Greg Wyler, has registered with ITU for a satellite constellation of a whopping 116,640 satellites. China’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council has filed for an enormous constellation of more than 200,000 non-geostationary satellites. This raises questions about the limits to the growth of orbital constellations, whether this expansion is a mad rush, a zero-sum game or a race to nowhere, and where this orbital ‘great power’ rivalry for absolute dominance is ultimately headed.
In the past year, several governments have issued strongly worded statements urging states to step back from an escalation ladder that could lead to a space war. In October 2026, Russia’s former President Dmitry Medvedev warned that if the US blocks Russian satellites, the Ukraine-Russia conflict would escalate into a full-fledged space war, with Russia targeting Starlink.
In September 2026, UK Defence Secretary Wes Streeting cautioned that space-based threats are growing at an alarming rate and in sophistication, including lasers, electromagnetic pulses and kinetic ASAT weapons. After US Air Force Secretary Troy Meink made the startling revelation that the US has placed “on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action,” China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Guo Jiakun, urged the US to stop preparing for war in space and turning the orbits into a battlefield. The US is certain that its space dominance is being challenged by Russia and China through a strategy of deceiving, disrupting, denying, degrading and destroying. In a 2024 statement, the US Space Force’s Space Systems Command argued that proliferated LEO constellations are the way to avert a single point of failure. Moreover, each of them intends to complicate its adversary’s targeting calculus.
From Orbital Warfare to Geopolitical Leverage
The weaponisation of orbits is a great-power game — and a space war is fast becoming a possibility. The more chronic issue, however, is that great powers use the placement of weapons in space to exploit space assets in pursuit of their geopolitical and geoeconomic goals. India should treat proxies, non-state actors, terror groups and criminal organisations with access to the downstream services of satellite constellations not as peripheral, anomalous actors but as strategic force multipliers of space powers.
With access to LEO satellite communications (satcom), these four groups have already shown several signs of engaging in grey-zone operations, in which their backers can claim plausible deniability or exploit the difficulty of attribution. They use LEO satcom in zones with a governance vacuum, where they trample the telecom sovereignty of legitimate but weak governments. In some situations, they could also create front enterprises with a digital backbone provided by LEO satcom, which then fund the larger terror and criminal enterprises
History has shown that proxies are rarely obedient to their benefactor states. At some point, they go rogue, having acquired weapons, wealth, power and self-interest. Their independent actions, which could be reckless given the absence of accountability, can force their sponsors into conflict with a major rival power while further eroding the international order and the institutions that safeguard the sanctity of space law.
Weaponised LEO constellations are becoming a Sword of Damocles over international security. While the space economy drives global digital connectivity, that connectivity transcends jurisdictions and becomes a geopolitical weapon. Commercially, it grants bad-faith actors the status of data subscribers, giving them secure, high-speed communication backbones that outpace the capabilities of traditional national law enforcement. Closing this security gap requires a paradigm shift: satellite terminals must be treated not merely as commercial consumer electronics but as sensitive weaponised technology, demanding strict international regulatory oversight, cooperative corporate governance and constructive international diplomacy.
None of these seems to be working despite the rise of the space economy, since great powers are becoming autarkic and hegemonic, relinquishing their responsibilities towards shared international well-being and being driven more by domination in space. The question is whether the global space economy, beyond the trillions of dollars it aims to generate, will deny bad-faith actors access to space and commit to accountability, impartial justice and the well-being of those in need, a necessity in today’s world, or whether it will continue to abet space weaponisation unchecked.
About the author: Chaitanya Giri is a Fellow at the Centre for Security, Strategy, and Technology at the Observer Research Foundation.
Source: This article was published by the Observer Research Foundation.
About Observer Research Foundation
ORF was established on 5 September 1990 as a private, not for profit, ’think tank’ to influence public policy formulation. The Foundation brought together, for the first time, leading Indian economists and policymakers to present An Agenda for Economic Reforms in India. The idea was to help develop a consensus in favour of economic reforms.
View all posts by Observer Research Foundation →
