Space Logistics

The Space Economy Needs a Supply Chain – 5 Companies Who Are Making it Happen

The rocket gets the glamor shot, but a launch is only one leg of a much larger network. I follow five pieces of the emerging space supply chain.

A Series from Everything is Logistics

Space Logistics

The new silk road is being built in orbit.

An ongoing collection on how the global supply chain is moving off-world. From inside NASA's Kennedy Space Center to conversations with the companies building orbital warehouses, refueling depots, re-entry capsules, and cislunar trade routes — this series maps the freight lanes, manufacturing, and infrastructure forming above our heads, and what it means for the supply chains we run on Earth.

8 episodes4 on-site episodes from KennedyHosted by Blythe (Brumleve) Milligan

Episodes

Across podcasts and YouTube videos

NASA Trip Episodes

From 4 on-site storylines at Kennedy Space Center

Remote Interviews

With CisLunar, Inversion, and the Space Foundation

Behind the Series

Inside Our NASA Trip

Kennedy Space Center, FLSummer 2024

We spent four days inside Kennedy Space Center as part of NASA Social — embedded with the engineers and mission planners laying the first miles of an orbital silk road. From building weather satellites to growing food for a nine-month Mars transit, every storyline came back to one thing: the freight backbone keeping America's space cadence on schedule.

Days inside Kennedy

NASA episodes

Trip coverage

Storylines

Each with an episode

Mission

GOES-U

From the camera roll

What we covered on the trip

Four days at Kennedy turned into four distinct storylines — each with a dedicated episode you can watch below.

Falcon Heavy on the pad ahead of the GOES-U launch

Story 01

Getting Satellites Into Orbit

What it actually takes to manufacture, transport, and launch a satellite — from clean room to launch pad.

"Before 2020, there were about 2,500 satellites in space. From 2020 to 2024 we added another 8,000. The next 10 years projects out to 200,000."

— Blythe Milligan
"Kennedy has 22 active launch pads — not the one or two I always assumed. Cape Canaveral now sees roughly three launches a week, sometimes more."

— Blythe Milligan

GOES-U: a school-bus-sized satellite shipped clean-room-to-launch-pad

Story 02

Weather Satellites & Why They Matter

GOES-U is the satellite that watches the storms that shut down ports, airports, and trucking lanes. Inside the supply chain that builds them — and ships them to orbit.

"GOES-U is the size of a small school bus and weighs over 6,000 pounds. NOAA shipped it from Colorado to Florida inside a high-tech container that doubles as a mobile clean room."

— Episode recap
"Weather satellites underpin every supply chain on Earth — the storms that shut down ports, airports, and trucking lanes are the ones GOES-U is built to see first."

— Editor's note

Story 03

Growing Food in Space

Feeding astronauts on long-duration missions is a logistics problem. NASA is solving it in grow rooms on Earth first.

"Astronauts lose weight in orbit and run into 'menu fatigue' on a packaged diet. Fresh crops aren't a luxury — they're a psychological supply line."

— Matthew Mickens, NASA
"NASA was vertical farming before vertical farming existed — the Biomass Production Chamber ran at Kennedy from 1987 to 2000, growing potatoes hydroponically a decade before The Martian made it famous."

— Matthew Mickens, NASA

Deep Space Logistics: Fly · Supply · Explore

Story 04

Deep Space Logistics

NASA's Deep Space Logistics program — Fly. Supply. Explore. — is the freight backbone for a sustained presence beyond Earth.

"Artemis is Apollo 2.0 — not just a return to the Moon, but a base on the Moon, used as a relay point for Mars. Like a layover, on the way to another planet."

— Episode recap
"The Orion spacecraft is a joint build — Lockheed Martin in the US, the European Space Agency overseas. Lockheed had to engineer an adapter for the two halves to talk to each other, the way you need a converter plug to use US electronics in Europe."

— Episode recap

Beyond the trip · Building the silk road

The companies laying orbital freight lanes

Before we have a base on the Moon, we need the freight lanes that get us there. These remote interviews go inside the new silk road forming in cislunar space — re-entry capsules from Inversion, in-space refueling from CisLunar, and the $570B economy the Space Foundation is tracking.

The Space Economy Needs a Supply Chain – 5 Companies Who Are Making it Happen

The rocket gets the glamor shot, but a launch is only one leg of a much larger network. I follow five pieces of the emerging space supply chain.

Building the New Silk Road in Space with CisLunar's Joe Pawelski

Before we can build a base on the Moon, we need something even more important — the freight lanes that get us there. Joe Pawelski on the new silk road forming in cislunar space.

Featuring Joe Pawelski, CisLunar

"Before we can build a base on the Moon, we need something more important — the freight lanes that get us there. Cislunar space is the new silk road."

How to Do Business in Space with Kelli Kedis Ogborn

What if the final frontier isn't as far away as it seems? Kelli Kedis Ogborn on what it actually takes to build a company in the space economy today.

Featuring Kelli Kedis Ogborn, Space Foundation

"There's a $570 billion economy producing real economic return for countries all over the world — and people just forget about that and think only about the exploration aspect."

Inversion's Plan to Build Warehouses in Space

Inversion is building re-entry capsules that turn low Earth orbit into a warehouse. Here's how the economics — and the engineering — actually work.

Featuring Inversion Space

"Their pitch: become the fourth transportation layer for Earth — air, land, sea, and now space — with a Y Combinator-backed team of 25 doing what Boeing-scale contractors haven't."

— Episode recap

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