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00:00 Today's headlines
00:44 Rocket Lab's supplier role, FCC review
02:18 AT&T and AST SpaceMobile phone handoff test
03:39 SoftBank Sceye airship fleet over Japan
05:05 Germany building its own system too
05:43 Trump's space proclamation and its limits
08:10 Proclamation sets goals but no funding yet
The money, missions, and power shaping space. Space Stakes is a daily briefing on the business of the new space race — launches, contracts, constellations, and the capital behind them. Every episode cuts through the industry's hype: signed contracts vs. paper constellations, funded orders vs. "up to" ceilings, launch dates vs. track records. Who pays, who profits, and who actually delivers — told so both aerospace insiders and curious newcomers finish feeling it was made for them. Space Stakes is an AI-voiced podcast, created and built by a real human, Brian Lampert. Nothing on this show is financial advice.
Also from Brian Lampert: Quickly Quantum and Concrete Compute.
President Donald Trump signed a proclamation declaring space open to exploration, development, use and a permanent presence by American citizens under U.S. law and the nation’s international obligations. The same document says the United States will return to the Moon by 2028 and establish a permanent American lunar presence, while leaving the practical question hanging: what agency actions or funding follow? Today we’re looking at the difference between declaring a destination and paying to build the route there. Welcome back to Space Stakes, your daily brief on the business of space. It's Wednesday, November 4, 2026. Let's get into it.
Rocket Lab’s supplier role is at the center of a competitive concern from Globalstar, which has asked the FCC to examine what might happen if Rocket Lab acquires Iridium. Via Satellite reports that Globalstar filed its concerns as the FCC reviews that acquisition. Rocket Lab built satellite buses for Globalstar’s network refresh as a subcontractor to MDA Space, supplies flight and ground software, and developed Globalstar’s satellite operations control center.
Globalstar says those arrangements could give Rocket Lab influence over a future rival’s constellation and access to its spacecraft architecture, engineering requirements, operations workflows and delivery schedules. It also accuses Iridium of repeated attempts to capture Globalstar’s licensed mobile satellite service spectrum through regulatory filings. That’s Globalstar’s argument to regulators, not an FCC finding.
The companies have exclusive operating rights in a portion of spectrum called the Big LEO band, which the FCC affirmed earlier this year while rejecting Iridium’s request to revise it. Globalstar says it doesn’t oppose the acquisition, but wants the FCC to scrutinize incentives created by Rocket Lab’s supplier role. Via Satellite reports that Rocket Lab, in a separate filing, said the deal would cause no harm to competition or the public interest, arguing that it holds no Big LEO spectrum and has no near-term ability to enter that service market.
The FCC is weighing two different questions here: whether a supplier’s relationship creates a conflict for a customer, and whether the acquisition changes competition in the service market. Those aren’t automatically the same thing—and the filing is one company’s case for why the distinction matters.
From a dispute about satellite-network control to a test of how those networks might work together: AT&T and AST SpaceMobile demonstrated a handoff from AT&T’s cellular network to AST’s direct-to-device satellite network during a call in late October, Via Satellite reports. Direct-to-device means a satellite connects with an ordinary phone, rather than requiring a dedicated satellite handset.
The companies say the call transferred when the phone moved out of cellular coverage. Ericsson combined radio and core technology in AT&T’s network, while Nokia provided radio access technology and mobility software. AT&T’s Brian Walsh compared the complexity to going from a highway to a moving plane, and said the connection worked “perfectly.”
But the milestone is still a test. AT&T executive Robert Walters said the next phase is expected to include beta services under real-world conditions, allowing the companies to refine performance; the broader objective is commercial service. AT&T has a commercial agreement with AST through 2030, using a revenue-share model. AST expects to be able to start initial commercial service with around 45 satellites in orbit, and expects to hit that number around early 2027.
For you, the useful part is the handoff itself: the phone call moved between networks as coverage changed. The next step is proving that experience under real-world conditions.
Meanwhile, SoftBank has signed a five-year master-services agreement with Sceye to manufacture, launch and operate a fleet of high-altitude platform systems over Japan, Payload reports. These are airships designed to operate in the stratosphere, roughly 20 kilometers in the air, between ground-based communications and satellites.
Sceye says the agreement builds up to “a very significant fleet of at least 40 units” over five years. Sceye will own and operate the platforms and sell SoftBank the service; most of the fleet is intended to provide mobile broadband, while a subset would form a free-space optical laser network in the stratosphere. The agreement’s fleet target is the company’s stated plan, and Payload doesn’t give a funded value.
There’s a real service result behind the proposal: in September, Sceye completed a 30-day mission with SoftBank, traveling from New Mexico to Japan and back. The company said its SceyeCell system delivered texts, voice calls, internet and video streaming to standard phones, including indoors. Payload also reports that the mission tested stratospheric laser ranging and edge computing, with the latter reducing latency by 40 percent compared with cloud computing, according to Sceye’s founder.
The constraint is endurance and turnaround. Payload reports Sceye’s current flight record is 30 days, and recovered platforms are currently broken down and tested before parts are reused, with turnaround currently “in the months.” A five-year agreement gives the plan a commercial frame; repeatable operations will have to do the rest.
And a brief turn from commercial networks to European security: @ZelenskyyUa posted on X: “Different countries are now building their own versions of Starlink. And Germany is building its own system too. That is the right thing to do. Because the key question is who controls the on and off buttons.” @ZelenskyyUa also posted on X: “Nobody can handle that alone. Security really is a shared European interest.”
That’s a statement about control and collective security, not a report of a new contract or system. It lands alongside today’s other connectivity stories as a reminder that communications infrastructure carries questions of who operates it—and who can rely on it.
That's the rest of the rundown. Now, the story that deserves the long look. Trump’s proclamation puts American space ambitions in formal presidential language, but the business consequences depend on what follows from it. The White House proclamation declares the solar system and outer space beyond Earth the province of all humans, and says they’re open to exploration, development, use and a permanent presence by American citizens consistent with U.S. law and international obligations.
The document also sets out the administration’s goals: return to the Moon by 2028, lay the foundation for a permanent American lunar presence, and hasten the day when an American first sets foot on Mars. It says Artemis II carried astronauts around the Moon and farther from Earth than any human had ever traveled before, and says Artemis III will undertake a complex test flight campaign next summer. Those are distinct steps in the proclamation’s account: a mission it says has succeeded, a future test campaign, and longer-term ambitions for the Moon and Mars.
The language is expansive, and the stated destination is unmistakable. The proclamation says space is open to exploration, development, use and settlement, while naming freedom and individual liberty as the principles behind an interplanetary civilization. In plain terms, it asserts a broad American role in what people can do in space, within the limits the proclamation itself names: U.S. law and international obligations.
There’s a tension inside that wording. The White House calls outer space the province of all humans, then says the United States will lead and establish a permanent presence through its citizens. Dan Diamond, a White House reporter at The Washington Post, posted on X: “Trump just issued an Election Day proclamation that the galaxy is free to all humans.” He also quoted the proclamation: “Today, my Administration reaffirms that our solar system and all of outer space beyond Earth are the province of all humans, and that our Nation will lead the way.”
That pairing captures the document’s central proposition: a shared human domain, with American leadership as the declared project. The practical scope in the proclamation is explicit too—it says American citizens may establish a permanent presence consistent with U.S. law and the nation’s international obligations. It doesn’t itself spell out a new licensing rule in the text we have here. So for someone encountering this debate for the first time, the important distinction is simple: a presidential proclamation can state a direction, while a mission, a budget decision or a regulatory action is a separate act.
Still, a declaration of direction doesn’t by itself tell you what gets built or paid for. The White House says the United States will return to the Moon by 2028 and establish a permanent American lunar presence, but the proclamation’s specific operative language is that space is open to exploration, development, use and permanent presence by American citizens, subject to U.S. law and international obligations. It also points to executive orders and directives without detailing their provisions here.
So what would make this matter beyond the wording? A concrete agency action or funding decision tied to the stated goals. The proclamation gives a policy statement and a destination; its text does not set out a new appropriation, a funded task order or a changed treaty obligation. That distinction matters because a lunar presence means facilities, resources and sustained activity, all of which the proclamation describes as goals rather than delivered capabilities.
The same goes for Mars. The document says it will hasten the day when an American becomes the first human to set foot on the red dunes of Mars, but it doesn’t give a schedule or a funded mission in the proclamation. That is an ambition with a powerful national frame, not a line item you can track from this document alone.
I think the proclamation is useful as a statement of administration priorities, especially because it explicitly connects exploration, commercial development and national security. But I wouldn’t treat its language as evidence that the Moon or Mars plans are funded or that the rules governing them have changed. What would move my view is a specific agency action or funding that connects these goals to a mission and a schedule.
And there’s a question underneath the phrase “permanent presence”: who bears the cost, and what capability arrives in return? The proclamation says the United States will build facilities, develop resources and establish a permanent presence, but the text doesn’t identify a payer, a contract or a delivery schedule for those steps. That leaves the business case open. The goal is clear; the mechanism still needs to show up in decisions that can be budgeted, contracted and carried out.
Time for the Hype Check. In my view, this earns a 4 out of 10 for substance: the strongest point against that score is the proclamation’s explicit commitment to return to the Moon by 2028 and lay groundwork for a permanent lunar presence, but the document itself supplies no funding or mission-level commitments for those goals. I’m scoring the policy signal, not the ambition; the ambitions are plain, and the operational path is not here yet.
The Moon-return goal and the proposed permanent American presence now sit in a presidential proclamation; what agency action or funding will connect those words to a mission?
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This has been Space Stakes, an AI-voiced podcast, created and built by a real human using today's cutting-edge technology. Nothing you heard on this show is financial advice. I'm Brian Lampert, and I'll catch you all tomorrow — take care!
Watching on YouTube? Hit subscribe, and tomorrow's briefing will be waiting for you. I also host Quickly Quantum: a daily quantum computing briefing you don't need a physics degree to follow. The breakthroughs, the funding rounds, and how much substance is really under each claim. Find it wherever you get your podcasts.