Quantum Space, a startup with plans to build highly maneuverable spacecraft for the U.S. military, announced plans to go public through a $1.2 billion merger with a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC.

In a season of mega-IPOs, there’s something almost quaint about a SPAC — in 2021, a fad for going public through the vehicle began in the space sector and spread throughout the tech world. Many SPACs proved disastrous for retail investors who wagered on immature companies, but a few deals, notably Rocket Lab and Planet, proved successful.

Another positive outcome was Intuitive Machines, a purpose-built NASA contractor launched by Kam Ghaffarian, a long-time space investor who backed a team of former NASA officials eager to sell their expertise back to the agency. Today, Intuitive Machines is a $6.4 billion company sending a regular cadence of robotic missions to the moon.

Now, Ghaffarian is trying to do it again with Quantum Space, a startup he launched in 2020 to capitalize on the founding of the U.S. Space Force and the growing need for vehicles that can move between orbits and rendezvous with other spacecraft.

“Defense spending, space infrastructure, and America’s strategic priorities in orbit are converging at exactly the moment Quantum Space is ready to scale,” Ghaffarian told TechCrunch. “The Space Force’s requirements are growing rapidly, and demand for maneuverable spacecraft is accelerating. Ranger is purpose-built to meet both.”

At the helm is CEO Jim Bridenstine, a former member of Congress and the NASA administrator during President Donald Trump’s first term. A champion of public-private partnerships, Bridenstine will aim to leverage his knowledge of the space industry to win key contracts.

Quantum Space is involved in six government development programs, including one that may see its vehicle head for the moon. But the company has a simple focus.

“We are designed specifically for the national security,” Bridenstine said. While most satellites only carry enough fuel to alter their position slightly and eventually dispose of themselves, a newer generation of spacecraft — including some fielded by Russia and China — are designed to move rapidly between orbits and remain in place for sustained surveillance work.

Ranger, the company’s spacecraft, is designed to match and exceed those competitors. It is expected to carry significant fuel, allowing it to remain in high orbits over long periods to watch rival satellites. The vehicle also has to be refuellable in order to qualify for Andromeda task orders.

Quantum Space was selected to join the Andromeda contract, a $6.2 billion effort that will task companies to develop vehicles for space-based reconnaissance. Now it has to win task orders for actual funded missions starting in 2030.

The SPAC transaction is expected to raise $300 million in private investment alongside any public proceeds, which will be used to build manufacturing facilities in Tulsa, Oklahoma, capable of producing one Ranger per quarter by the end of 2028. The next step is launching the first Ranger prototype to orbit in 2027. The deal is sponsored by Mike Blitzer, the financier who helped bring Intuitive Machines and USA Rare Earth to public markets.

Still, the decision to leave private markets behind highlights the competition Quantum Space faces. True Anomaly, a startup that is also competing for Andromeda task orders, has raised $1 billion from venture investors. The company is also looking to beat out established defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Boeing’s Millennium Space Systems, among others.

SpaceX has added new language to its IPO filing that warns prospective investors about the company’s access to a potentially scarce resource: water.

The company, which now includes Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, wrote in an amended version of the filing on Monday that access to water — required to cool its data centers — is just as important as SpaceX’s ability to secure power, processors, and other critical resources.

The addition comes amid an ever-evolving debate about how much water data centers use, and whether that usage is contributing to localized droughts that are being made worse by climate change.

Deep in the “risk factors” section of SpaceX’s IPO filing, the company added language about water to a section about the challenges of scaling AI infrastructure.

Previously, SpaceX focused on telling investors that its data centers were primarily constrained by access to “power at economically feasible prices,” along with long construction timelines and material shortages. The amended filing adds multiple lines about water access. SpaceX now tells prospective investors in the IPO that data center buildouts are constrained by the “availability of power and water at economically feasible prices.”

The company goes on to say that “significant water resources may be required for cooling large-scale data center operations.” Water availability is such a concern that SpaceX says it has become a “critical consideration in data center site selection, development and operations.”

SpaceX also says that “water scarcity, drought conditions, competition for local water resources, or regulatory restrictions on water use could limit our ability to obtain sufficient water for cooling, constrain data center cooling capacity, increase our costs, delay or limit expansion of our data center infrastructure, or require us to implement alternative cooling techniques that may be more costly or less available.”

It’s not clear what inspired SpaceX to add this language about water to its filing, or why it was left out of the initial version. The company is in the pre-IPO period, during which the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been sending SpaceX “comment letters” seeking clarification or additional details about the filing. It’s possible that questions from the SEC led to this particular change, though we won’t know until those comment letters are made public in the weeks following the IPO.

Adding more detail about SpaceX’s access to water was not the only change the company made in this first amended filing. SpaceX also revealed that it is setting aside up to 5% of the stock being sold in the IPO for employees and friends of executives. SpaceX also added language that warns investors that the company may issue a “significant” number of shares in future transactions following the IPO — a hint at a potential merger with Tesla — which could create dilution for existing shareholders.