The Space Development Agency grabs the industry's attention. A relatively unknown Pentagon agency stood up just 18 months ago sent a message to the space industry that defense procurement can be nimble when it wants to be. SDA laid out plans to deploy 28 satellites in low-Earth orbit in 2022 as the starting point of a much larger constellation. In 2020 the agency selected vendors to produce 20 data communications and eight missile-tracking satellites. Alas the missile-tracking satellite procurement ground to a halt this month after Airbus and Raytheon protested the SDA contract awards made to L3Harris and SpaceX. SDA expects the problem to get sorted out soon and for satellite deployments to stay on schedule but that seems ambitious. What to watch in 2021: How this protest gets resolved — and what the outcome says about the SDA's ability to disrupt military satellite procurement by selecting a nontraditional vendor like SpaceX in a market dominated by traditional defense contractors. 

Small satellites gain traction in the defense market. DoD and the intelligence community in 2020 talked up the idea of a "hybrid space architecture." That means the government would continue to build expensive dedicated satellites but also use smaller and cheaper satellites to make space-based services more resilient to disruptions or hostile attacks. The Space Development Agency, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Space and Missile Systems Center are all in various stages of developing and testing capabilities based on small satellites. What to watch in 2021: SDA's and DARPA's progress with their low-Earth orbit demonstrations and whether SMC starts to move the hybrid space architecture from Powerpoint charts to actual programs.

The pandemic creates newfound appreciation for the role of government. When venture capitalists pulled back in 2020, DoD and NASA contracts became a lifeline for many space companies. By the same token, the crisis made government space buyers more aware of their dependence on commercially funded innovation. One topic frequently discussed this year at industry conferences, mostly via Zoom, was the need for public-private partnerships and for a continuation of efforts by the Pentagon and NASA to nurture startups that have promising technologies. What to watch in 2021: The Space Force is making efforts to open the door to new entrants but it remains to be seen if emerging commercial vendors can transition from developing prototypes to winning larger military procurements. 

Here's to a safe and happy New Year!