Private companies are rewriting the US–China race to the Moon

A new phase of space competition has emerged in which corporate speed, capital and systems integration matter as much as national budgets. Falling launch costs and reusable vehicles have turned low Earth orbit into a commercial battleground where startups and established aerospace firms iterate faster than traditional government programs. The U.S.–China rivalry remains the geopolitical spine of that contest, but it now runs alongside a dense ecosystem of private suppliers, service providers and platform builders who shape what’s possible and when. In the United States, NASA’s Artemis campaign is moving into a higher‑tempo phase — Artemis II’s integrated checkouts, transfer of the SLS and mobile launcher to Launch Complex 39B, and wet dress rehearsals are acting as both technical rehearsals and policy signals that reduce partner uncertainty and institutionalize operating practices. Congressional action to broaden NASA’s contracting authorities for deep‑space transport would further open competition for crew and cargo services, potentially allowing commercial end‑to‑end providers to compete with incumbent architectures. Parallel to U.S. activity, Beijing has formalized industry‑backed plans to deploy compute, storage and high‑throughput links in orbit — a coordinated five‑year push led by major state contractors to extend national cloud and edge infrastructure into space. Firms and regulators are pursuing different engineering paths for orbital compute — from massive constellations with on‑board accelerators to tethered modular arrays and large orbital power platforms — each with trade‑offs in launch cadence, thermal control, radiation hardening, servicing and debris risk. Technological frontiers now include on‑orbit AI and edge processing to reduce vulnerable downlinks, and proposals for scaling orbital solar and data centers that could become strategic assets if realized. The U.S. is also prioritizing continuous surface power: agencies and industry are accelerating plans for small fission systems — compact, transportable reactors aimed at delivering tens of kilowatts for sustained lunar operations — which would shift the calculus for industrial activities like mining and in‑situ resource processing. These converging trends heighten governance and safety imperatives: export controls, spectrum and traffic‑management regimes, debris mitigation, and nuclear licensing and fuel‑cycle decisions will shape both commercial fortunes and national‑security outcomes. Finance follows capability; investors back firms promising rapid orbit access, local processing and scalable platforms, altering who controls critical satellite services and data flows. The resulting hybrid race — state ambition setting objectives and private actors supplying speed, modularity and scale — will determine who writes operational rules and secures durable advantages in space over the next decade.