Issued on behalf of Starfighters Space, Inc.
As the post-ISS era approaches, a handful of public-market operators are building the infrastructure — launch cadence, test platforms, satellite constellations, and research consortia — that will define the next decade of space commerce.
CAPE CANAVERAL, April XX, 2026 – Baystreet.ca News Commentary — For most of the last sixty years, the economics of space have been dictated by a small number of government agencies and prime contractors. That’s changing, and faster than most market participants appreciate. The space technology market is now projected to grow from $466.1 billion in 2024 to $769.7 billion by 2030, a compound annual growth rate of 9.3%, per Grand View Research.[1]
Within that, the in-space manufacturing submarket is projected to grow even faster — from roughly $4.6 billion in 2030 to $62.8 billion by 2040, a CAGR of nearly 30%, according to a MarketsandMarkets report published in November 2023.[2] The driving factors: microgravity-enabled materials, pharmaceutical crystallization, advanced electronics, and the slow but steady transition of low-Earth orbit from a government-run laboratory to a privately-operated industrial zone.
What’s less appreciated is the extent to which the public sector is deliberately accelerating this transition through university-industry research consortia. That’s the backdrop for an announcement this week from Starfighters Space, Inc. (NYSE American: FJET), a Kennedy Space Center-based operator of the world’s fastest fleet of supersonic aircraft.
The C-STARS announcement
Starfighters has announced its intent to join the Center for Science, Technology, and Advanced Research in Space (C-STARS), a proposed National Science Foundation Industry–University Cooperative Research Center focused on biotechnology, advanced materials, electronics, and in-space manufacturing. The consortium is led by the University of Florida, with partner sites at Florida Institute of Technology, Florida A&M University, and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.[3]
Per the NSF’s description of the planning grant, C-STARS is specifically designed to pair academic researchers with spaceflight providers to help industries transition into the space manufacturing sector and improve the production of specialized medicines, therapeutics, electronics, and materials for use on Earth.[4] If the consortium is selected for full NSF funding, Starfighters intends to join as a full member, committing $50,000 annually with an additional contribution to demonstrate support regardless of the award outcome.
The value proposition for Starfighters is straightforward. The company operates a fleet of modified F-104s capable of sustained Mach 2+ flight, configurable to carry payloads up to 45,000 feet for air launch to space. Its Kennedy Space Center base provides direct access to the country’s busiest spaceport. And its flight platform can simulate launch profiles, support zero-gravity and sensor testing, and act as a testbed for payload development — capabilities that map directly onto the six research areas C-STARS has identified, which include cell and tissue tools, bioenergy systems, advanced material electronics, AI and machine learning, lab-on-a-chip systems, and recycling and sustainability.[5]
For researchers, Starfighters provides something increasingly valuable: a rapidly reusable suborbital platform that costs a fraction of orbital access and can be turned around between experiments in days, not months. As Tim Franta, Starfighters Space’s CEO, noted in the announcement: “As the industry moves beyond access toward cadence, flexibility, and mission readiness, platforms that can bridge research, testing, and operational deployment will become increasingly critical.”
Why research consortia matter to public-market investors
NSF-backed IUCRCs are not boutique academic exercises. They are long-duration, federally subsidized programs that pair seed funding with industry membership fees, typically granting members access to research output, early-stage intellectual property, and direct collaboration with graduate-level researchers. In aerospace and biotech, they’ve historically played an outsized role in translating basic science into commercial products.
Dr. Siobhan Malany, C-STARS Center Director and associate professor at the University of Florida College of Pharmacy, described the operating model this way, per a UF Astraeus Space Institute post: the consortium is built on the IUCRC structure, with the near-term goal of evolving from concept to an established Phase 1 center with five years of funding.[6] Dr. Jamie Foster, UF Site Director for C-STARS, added that industry partners gain “access to fresh talent and shared knowledge in microgravity research” through the consortium structure — a meaningful workforce advantage in an industry where specialized talent is scarce.[7]
For a company the size of Starfighters, that kind of integration with a federally-backed, multi-university research network is a significant operational de-risking event. It reduces the cost of developing new payload capabilities, expands the network of potential customers and partners, and embeds the company in a workforce pipeline that will matter more, not less, as the commercial space sector scales.
The broader aerospace ecosystem
Starfighters is one piece of a broader public-market story. Several other names are executing adjacent strategies worth tracking.
Rocket Lab Corporation (Nasdaq: RKLB) is the clearest example of how a small-launch company can scale into a multi-segment aerospace platform. After completing a record 21 Electron launches in 2025 — with no failures — the company is preparing for the debut of its medium-lift Neutron rocket, which is expected to arrive at its Wallops Island, Virginia launch complex in Q1 2026, with first launch targeted no earlier than mid-2026.[8]
Rocket Lab also secured an $816 million prime contract from the U.S. Space Development Agency for the Tracking Layer Tranche 3 missile-warning satellite program in December 2025. The company reported fourth-quarter 2025 results with roughly $1.85 billion of backlog — up sharply year over year — and about $1.10 billion of liquidity heading into an investment-heavy 2026, per a Zacks-sourced Qz.com analysis.[9] A Stage 1 tank for Neutron ruptured during hydrostatic pressure testing earlier in the year, per a Simply Wall St summary, but management has characterized the issue as part of expected development risk rather than a thesis-breaking setback.[10]
Also worth noting: Rocket Lab operates its HASTE (Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron) platform out of Virginia for U.S. government hypersonic flight testing. That’s a capability that overlaps conceptually with Starfighters’ F-104-based testbed mission — both are designed to move government and commercial customers from laboratory to flight at lower cost and higher cadence than traditional prime contractors.
Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq: KTOS) takes the test-platform thesis into the defense domain. On October 23, 2025, the company announced a $68.3 million contract through the Department of War’s Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment Program to design and build a state-of-the-art mid-tier arc jet and coupled fiber laser facility for hypersonic materials evaluation — a facility Kratos refers to internally as Project Helios.[11] Per the announcement, the project is designed to address critical gaps in U.S. hypersonic materials testing infrastructure.
On February 18, 2026, Kratos followed up with a separate contract through the Department of War’s Joint Hypersonics Transition Office to support test and evaluation of thermal protection systems for hypersonic vehicles.[12] The company’s broader portfolio includes the XQ-58A Valkyrie tactical unmanned aircraft — of which Kratos expects to deliver 15 to 20 aircraft in 2026, per a Defence-Industry.eu summary of an August 2025 earnings call — alongside the Erinyes and Dark Fury hypersonic glide vehicles and the Zeus solid rocket motor family.[13]
The read-across for Starfighters is less about direct product overlap and more about thematic positioning. Both Kratos and Starfighters are building the test-and-evaluation infrastructure that the hypersonic economy will run on — Kratos through ground-based arc jet facilities and tactical UCAVs, Starfighters through a supersonic crewed flight platform that can carry payloads into the upper atmosphere.
AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (Nasdaq: ASTS) represents the operational, constellation-buildout phase of the space thesis. The company is constructing a space-based cellular broadband network accessible directly from standard smartphones, and is currently scaling up a constellation that it aims to bring to approximately 45 satellites in orbit by the end of 2026, per the company’s April 2026 disclosure.[14]
That plan took a visible hit on April 19, 2026, when AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird 7 satellite was placed into a lower-than-planned orbit during Blue Origin’s New Glenn 3 mission out of Cape Canaveral. Per the company’s 8-K filing, the satellite separated from the launch vehicle and powered on, but the orbit was too low to sustain operations with its on-board thruster, and the satellite will be de-orbited. AST SpaceMobile noted that the cost of BlueBird 7 is expected to be recovered under its insurance policy, and the company reiterated its production plans through BlueBird 32 with BlueBird 8 through 10 expected to be ready to ship in approximately 30 days.[15]
For context on what Starfighters can contribute to an ecosystem like AST’s: launch failures and upper-stage anomalies remain a meaningful risk factor for constellation operators, which is part of why flight-proven test platforms and suborbital qualification services have become commercially valuable in their own right.
The integration thesis
What ties these names together is a structural shift in how the space economy is being built out. For most of the sector’s history, capability was concentrated in a small number of vertically integrated primes. What’s emerging in 2026 looks different: a federated ecosystem of specialized operators, each handling a piece of the value chain, knitted together by launch providers, regulatory frameworks, and now — increasingly — by research consortia like C-STARS.
Florida’s role in this shift is hard to overstate. The state is home to more than 17,000 space-related companies, and nearly 70% of all U.S. orbital launches last year occurred at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral, per a Daytona Times summary of the original C-STARS announcement.[16] The proximity advantage matters: launch providers, satellite manufacturers, research universities, and commercial operators are increasingly co-locating within a 60-mile radius, which compresses development cycles in a way that’s difficult to replicate elsewhere.
Starfighters sits in an unusual position in this map. It’s not a launch vehicle provider, not a satellite manufacturer, and not a pharmaceutical R&D company. But its supersonic flight platform — operating from the same 15,000-foot runway that NASA’s Space Shuttle used to land on — can function as a bridge asset across multiple segments: payload development, astronaut training, hypersonic testing, and now, via C-STARS, applied university research.
The takeaway
The C-STARS announcement on its own is not a transformative event for Starfighters. The $50,000 annual membership commitment is modest. The full NSF funding decision hasn’t been made yet. And the consortium is still in its planning phase, with a path to Phase 1 designation that will play out over the next year or so.
What it does signal is alignment. Starfighters is placing itself at the intersection of commercial spaceflight, academic research, and federal workforce development — three streams of capital and talent that are flowing into the Space Coast at an accelerating pace. For public-market investors building exposure to the commercial space thesis, that kind of positioning is worth paying attention to, even when individual news items look incremental.
As Jamie Foster of C-STARS put it in the announcement: “By creating a focused hub where researchers, companies, and federal agencies all interact, C-STARS is laying the foundation for a thriving space manufacturing economy.”
That foundation is being laid right now, on the Florida coast, in the quiet gaps between launch windows and earnings reports. And the operators building infrastructure in those gaps are the ones most likely to look materially larger when the next cycle of the space economy arrives.
CONTINUED…
For a snapshot of Starfighters Space, Inc. (NYSE American: FJET), click here to access the company profile: https://usanewsgroup.com/fjet-profile/
Article Sources:
[1] https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/space-technology-market-report
[2] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/in-space-manufacturing-market-worth-62-8-billion-by-2040—exclusive-report-by-marketsandmarkets-301982796.html
[3] https://iucrc.nsf.gov/centers/center-for-science-technology-and-advanced-research-in-space-c-stars/
[4] https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2024nsf….2413189R/abstract
[5] https://news.fit.edu/academics-research/florida-universities-launch-joint-effort-to-boost-space-manufacturing/
[6] https://astraeus.ufl.edu/c-stars-looks-to-the-future-building-the-low-earth-orbit-economy/
[7] https://astraeus.ufl.edu/c-stars-looks-to-the-future-building-the-low-earth-orbit-economy/
[8] https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2025/12/rocket-lab-2025-overview/
[9] https://qz.com/rocket-lab-s-backlog-provides-a-clear-path-to-2026-revenue-growth
[10] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/neutron-test-rupture-record-launch-160931873.html
[11] https://www.kratosdefense.com/newsroom/kratos-awarded-single-award-68-3-million-contract-to-build-next-generation-hypersonic-materials-testing-center
[12] https://www.kratosdefense.com/newsroom/kratos-awarded-contract-to-streamline-hypersonic-materials-development
[13] https://defence-industry.eu/kratos-to-deliver-up-to-20-valkyrie-drones-in-2026-as-u-s-marine-corps-eyes-contract/
[14] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001780312/000178031226000005/asts-ex99_1.htm
[15] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1780312/000149315226018012/ex99-1.htm
[16] https://www.daytonatimes.com/community/embry-riddle-partners-with-florida-universities-to-boost-space-manufacturing/article_b6e30ef6-5024-11ef-99d8-43863c1d11a7.html
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