Watch These Space Sector Leaders In 2023

Calvelli, the former principal deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office, is in charge of buying the nation’s space systems. In that role, his challenge is to retain the startup culture of the Space Development Agency while speeding up replacement programs for large legacy systems. And he is set to launch the next competition for national security space launches in 2023.

Relativity Space is aiming to launch its Terran 1 rocket on its first voyage in late January. Relativity has heavily relied upon proprietary 3D printers to build the rocket, and a successful launch would help prove the concept. The startup says it can print rockets with 100 times fewer parts than traditional launch vehicles and do it in 60 days as opposed to 18 months or longer.

Under Goenka, In-Space, an Indian government-backed agency, is seeding commercial space development for the first time. In-Space authorized several small launches in 2022, including the November flight of the Vikram-S suborbital vehicle made by startup company Skyroot. Goenka expects to see investment climb in the first two quarters of 2023.

SpaceX is aiming for 100 launches in 2023, which would include not just missions to launch its Starlink constellation but also to send its super heavy-lift Starship on its first test flight. With Elon Musk embroiled in very public battles on and about Twitter, Shotwell continues to keep business operations on an even keel.

Less than two years after Sierra Space was spun off from parent company Sierra Nevada Corp., Vice is steering the young company through a key phase as it sends its Dream Chaser spaceplane into orbit for the first time in 2023. The first of a planned family of crewed and uncrewed systems, the Dream Chaser is also the first element of a planned Sierra Space ecosystem that will include inflatable space habitats—a full-scale pressure-burst test of which is also set for 2023.

Krevor faces a crucial year ahead as Stratolaunch begins tests of its Talon hypersonic testbed. Early 2023 is planned to see separation tests of the Talon from Stratolaunch’s enormous Roc carrier aircraft followed, if all goes well, by the first rocket-powered Mach 5 flights of the testbed and—later in the year—the first recovery attempt of the reusable Talon. Routine hypersonic flights are targeted for the end of 2023 if plans go as hoped.