BryceTech

BryceTech is an analytics and engineering firm based in Alexandria, Virginia, in the United States. It is best known outside government contracting circles for its space industry reports and data, which are widely cited by space news services when they report on launch activity, small satellites, start-up financing and the growth of the commercial space economy. The firm also works in biosecurity, defence and other complex technology domains, delivering systems engineering, advanced analytics and strategic advisory support to United States government clients that include NASA, the Department of Defense, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security.

Overview

BryceTech presents itself as a firm that delivers data-driven solutions for complex national challenges. Its work combines technical knowledge with quantitative analysis: counting launches and spacecraft, modelling markets, assessing technologies, supporting acquisitions and helping agencies manage programmes. In the space sector that combination has produced an unusually public body of work. Many consulting firms publish little of what they produce for clients, but BryceTech's reports page carries a large library of studies, many of them free to download as PDFs, and its recurring briefings supply figures that journalists, investors and policymakers use as common reference points.

The company is headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, close to the federal agencies and defence and aerospace organisations concentrated in the Washington, D.C. area. That location matters for a business whose clients include civil and national security agencies and whose analysts may be called on to explain commercial space developments to Congress, programme managers and procurement officials as well as to industry readers.

Founding and leadership

BryceTech was founded by Carissa Bryce Christensen. Company histories date the founding to 2016, while some professional directory listings give 2017; the firm operated earlier as Bryce Space and Technology before adopting the shorter BryceTech name. Christensen, who serves as chief executive officer, also co-founded The Tauri Group, a defence and space consulting firm, and she has been a prominent public voice on commercial space markets for many years. She has testified before the United States House Science, Space and Technology Committee on the commercial space landscape, discussing innovation, markets and policy, and she is regularly quoted by space trade media as an industry expert.

In March 2021 the company, then known as Bryce Space and Technology, announced that it was changing its name to BryceTech. The company said the new name better aligned with its future growth strategy as it broadened its capabilities and client base. It retained Bryce Space and Technology as a business unit within the company, offering space industry data, insight and analysis. At the time of the rebrand the firm reported that its business portfolio had grown 30 percent year over year in 2020, driven in part by new civil space contracts and by additional work providing expertise on countering weapons of mass destruction, cyber analytics and software integration to civil and defence agencies. Its named points of contact on later reports have included Ryan Puleo as Start-Up Space project lead and Carie Mullins as director of analytics, alongside Christensen.

Space industry reports

The core of BryceTech's public reputation is its report catalogue. A catalogue of space economy market intelligence publications notes that the firm has produced publicly available space economy research since at least 2009, through its predecessor and related work, with studies ranging from commercially focused satellite market analyses to NASA-sponsored exploration forecasts. Its recurring annual series cover global satellite revenues, small satellite deployment trends, commercial investment in space start-ups, launch site inventories and orbital launch activity. One-off studies commissioned by the Federal Aviation Administration, NASA and foreign governments address commercial space transportation, exploration economics and supply chain questions.

Because most of the reports are free downloads, they circulate far beyond the firm's client base. University researchers, start-up founders preparing investor materials, journalists checking a figure and government staff in other countries can all use the same underlying counts. That accessibility is unusual in market research, where headline findings are often released while the detailed data remain behind a paywall, and it helps explain why BryceTech charts appear so often in presentations and news articles about the space economy.

Global space activity briefings

Among the firm's most widely cited products are its quarterly Global Space Activity briefings. BryceTech produces four such briefings each year, presenting infographic-style snapshots of global orbital launch rates, payload deployments and spacecraft statistics. Each briefing counts orbital launches by country and provider, spacecraft launched, total upmass, spacecraft by mass class, spacecraft by service type and spacecraft by operator type, noting where mass figures are estimates for spacecraft whose mass has not been publicly disclosed.

The briefings make long-term trends visible in a simple form. In the second quarter of 2023, for example, BryceTech counted 797 spacecraft launched, with small satellites representing 97 percent of spacecraft and 62 percent of total upmass, and most spacecraft operated by commercial companies, driven by continued deployment of SpaceX's Starlink constellation. By 2025 the pattern had intensified. BryceTech data covering the 2025 activity cycle reported that satellites weighing less than 1,200 kilograms, the threshold the firm uses for smallsats following the FAA definition, accounted for 98 percent of all spacecraft launched, and in the second quarter of 2025 it counted 1,198 spacecraft launched globally.

The firm's 2025 Year in Review, reported by Via Satellite in April 2026, recorded 325 orbital launches and 4,544 spacecraft deployed in 2025, increases of about 25 percent in launches and 54 percent in spacecraft compared with 2024. It found that United States providers conducted nearly 60 percent of launches, and that SpaceX completed 165 orbital launches, accounting for nearly 51 percent of the global total and launching 85 percent of all satellites in that year. China’s CASC was second with 68 orbital launches, followed by Rocket Lab with 18 and Roscosmos with 17. Whatever view readers take of that concentration, BryceTech's counting is the mechanism by which much of the industry discusses it.

Start-Up Space and small satellite studies

Another signature series is Start-Up Space, which tracks investment in emerging space companies. The first report in the series was released in 2016 and was supported in part by the NASA Ames Emerging Space Office, through a programme later operated by the NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate. The reports count venture capital and other financing flowing into space start-ups, the number and size of deals, exits through public offerings and acquisitions, and the questions facing investors in each period.

The 2022 edition, covering 2021, reported a record year: about $15.4 billion in total financing for space start-ups, more than double the previous record of $7.7 billion in 2020, including about $9 billion in venture capital across 120 venture deals. Ten space start-up companies went public through special purpose acquisition companies in 2021, raising nearly $4 billion, and a record 13 mergers and acquisitions were completed. The firm also cautioned that future performance risks remained for some ventures because of unproven business models, uncertain customer bases and the long time horizons typical of space businesses. The 2025 edition framed its questions around uncertain financial markets, evolving United States defence acquisition policies, government budgets and international sovereign space capabilities.

BryceTech's annual smallsat reporting follows a related trend. Its report on 2023 activity, covered by Payload, found that operators launched 2,860 smallsats, representing 97 percent of all satellites launched that year and 63 percent of upmass. Of those, 79 percent were for satellite communications, 13 percent for remote sensing, 7 percent for technology development and the remainder for science and other uses. The number of unique operators that launched spacecraft grew from 212 in 2022 to 267 in 2023. Such breakdowns are the kind of data that turn a general impression, that small satellites dominate modern launch activity, into a measurable claim.

Government analytics and engineering work

Alongside its published research, BryceTech performs contract work for government agencies. In 2019 it announced a NASA contract with a ceiling value of nearly $10 million, and its client list has included the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as well as private sector customers. The firm describes specialities that include space and satellite work, advanced research and development, cyber security, acquisition support, financial management and programme management and support.

In biosecurity and emergency preparedness, a later example is a five-year contract from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to support its Office of Emerging Threats. Under that award BryceTech provides data analytics and risk assessment to help the office identify and evaluate emerging threats, coordinate intelligence and risk assessments and strengthen response and recovery capabilities. The firm has framed that work as requiring operational planning and strategic risk assessment as threats become more sophisticated. This side of the business explains why the firm's own descriptions emphasise aerospace, biosecurity and defence together, even though its public fame rests mainly on space data.

How its data are used

BryceTech data appear in space news coverage in several ways. Sometimes the firm is the subject of the story, when a new briefing or annual review is released. Sometimes its charts are reproduced or credited as the source for a graphic in another outlet's article. Sometimes its chief executive is quoted as an independent expert on a market development, a panel discussion or a congressional hearing. The firm's media page collects examples ranging from trade publications to national newspapers and broadcast outlets, showing commentary on subjects such as NASA's strategy for commercialising low Earth orbit and the prospects for human spaceflight markets.

For journalists, the appeal is practical. Launch and spacecraft data are scattered across company announcements, government licences, launch manifests and tracking sources. A firm that maintains a consistent counting method over many quarters gives reporters a way to compare periods without assembling the entire dataset themselves. For investors and companies, the same consistency supports market sizing and competitive analysis. For agencies, the reports provide an outside view of an industrial base they regulate, fund or buy from.

Audience and significance

BryceTech's audience is therefore broader than the readership of a typical trade news site. Its direct clients are government agencies and companies that commission analysis or programme support. Its indirect audience includes everyone who relies on its public numbers: space start-ups, established aerospace firms, investors, conference organisers, academics and the space press. Professional listings describe a privately held company in the range of a few hundred employees, headquartered in Alexandria, which places it in the mid-sized government services category rather than among the largest defence contractors.

The significance of BryceTech lies in standardisation. In a fast-growing industry where companies promote their own milestones and definitions vary, a recurring independent count of launches, spacecraft, smallsats and investment creates a shared factual baseline. Readers may dispute a forecast or an interpretation, but they can argue from the same quarterly figures. That is why BryceTech reports have become a standard reference for space news coverage, and why the Alexandria firm is listed in this directory not simply as a consultancy, but as a news and data service in its own right.