SDA Director Fred Kennedy steps down, amid turmoil within the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Mike Griffin.

The R3D2 spacecraft’s cutting-edge antenna is “compressed into a small volume and then blooms on orbit,” explains Northrop Grumman’s Scott Stapp.

Large networks of small, cheap satellites derived from commercial technology would be harder for China or Russia to kill than a handful of expensive, exquisite military-unique birds. But who gets to build it?

As commercial activities such as mining expand from Earth to the Moon, there will be “a need for the equivalent to a Navy or Air Force” to protect that region of space, says SDA chief Fred Kennedy.

Venture capital funds are pouring money into space start-ups — including a number of firms being eyed by DoD –with investment in 2018 hitting a record high of $3.2 billion.