Yang Yiqiang
Data verified as of Aug 31, 2026
CAS Space (Zhongke Aerospace) is a 2018 commercial spinoff majority-owned by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, led by founder and chairman Yang Yiqiang - former chief commander of the state Long March 11 solid rocket. Headquartered in Guangzhou, it operates the solid-fuel Kinetica-1 (Lijian-1), one of China's most-flown commercial rockets with 15 launches and 14 successes since 2022 (carrying 110 satellites - the first Chinese commercial rocket to top 100), and has committed to a monthly Kinetica-1 cadence for the second half of 2026. In March 2026 it successfully debuted the medium-lift kerolox Kinetica-2 (Lijian-2), a three-core, nine-engine rocket; its second flight, carrying 18 Qianfan constellation satellites, slipped from a September target to October 2026, with the Y2 vehicle departing CAS Space's Guangzhou factory for Jiuquan on August 26, 2026. The company holds ~63% of China's private launch market by volume. CAS Space filed for a $607M IPO on the Shanghai STAR Market in April 2026 at a target valuation of ~15 billion yuan (~$2.1B); the Shanghai Stock Exchange accepted the application, and on June 29, 2026 CAS Space refreshed its prospectus, disclosing full-year 2025 revenue of ~277M yuan against a ~1.12B yuan net loss and setting a 2029 profitability target for the first time. The application has since cleared the exchange's listing-committee review, with final CSRC registration, share pricing, and a trading date still pending as of early August 2026. It is scaling output at a new Zhejiang 'super factory' and developing first-stage reusability via the in-house Kinecore-2 engine (110 tf), which completed a 620-second cumulative long-duration qualification test - including a 400-second single burn, a new stability record - on June 30, 2026, en route to a phased plan targeting full first-stage recovery by Kinetica-2's tenth flight around 2028.
CAS Space completed a 566-second integrated compatibility hot-fire test of its Kinastra-1 upper stage's full propulsion system in mid-August, verifying pressurization, propellant feed and servo control across all subsystems. Kinastra-1 is designed to ferry satellites between orbits after a rocket delivers them to space, and the successful test clears the way for a maiden flight targeted in the first quarter of 2027.
LandSpace and CAS Space each refiled updated STAR Market IPO prospectuses on June 29, both setting a 2029 profitability target for the first time, contingent on higher launch cadence and mature reusable-rocket technology. LandSpace's filing disclosed its first full-year 2025 results (52.10 million yuan revenue against a 1.71 billion yuan net loss), as the two Chinese rocket makers race to become the country's first publicly listed commercial-launch company.
CAS Space launched its solid-fueled Kinetica-1 rocket on its 15th mission on July 24 from Jiuquan, placing five satellites into sun-synchronous orbit in what was China's 53rd orbital launch of the year. Alongside the flight the company committed to a monthly Kinetica-1 launch cadence for the second half of 2026, roughly double its historical rate of under four flights a year since the rocket's 2022 debut. Payloads included a demonstrator aimed at thermal-dissipation and power systems for future space-based data centers.
CAS Space launched its Kinetica-1 (Lijian-1) Y14 solid rocket from the Dongfeng Commercial Space Innovation Test Zone on June 15, placing eight rideshare satellites into orbit on the vehicle's 14th flight and third mission of 2026. The success lifted Kinetica-1's cumulative tally to 105 satellites and more than 15 tonnes delivered, making it the first Chinese commercial launch vehicle to loft over 100 spacecraft. The milestone lands as CAS Space pursues an IPO amid a national push toward roughly 140 orbital launches this year.
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Four-stage solid-propellant small/medium-lift launch vehicle developed by a team with Long March 11 heritage - one of China's most-flown commercial rockets.
Operational from Jiuquan since 2022 with 15 launches and 14 successes (one December 2024 failure). CAS Space has committed to a monthly Kinetica-1 launch cadence for the second half of 2026, including planned sea launches from the Eastern Maritime Spaceport.
Medium-lift kerosene-liquid oxygen rocket with a three-core (tri-body) first stage powered by nine YF-102 engines - CAS Space's first liquid launch vehicle, designed for future first-stage reusability.
Reached orbit on its successful March 30, 2026 maiden flight from Jiuquan, deploying a prototype of the Qingzhou cargo spacecraft. Reusability is in development, with around ten demonstration flights planned through 2028 (aerodynamic control, in-flight reignition, then landing).
Scale Kinetica-2 and deploy constellations
Ramp Kinetica-2 production at the new Zhejiang super factory (up to 12-20 vehicles per year) and fly its planned 2026-2027 manifest as the line enters serial production across Guangzhou and Shaoxing. The second flight (Y2), carrying 18 Qianfan (Thousand Sails) mega-constellation satellites, has slipped from a September to an October 2026 target - the vehicle departed the Guangzhou factory for Jiuquan on August 26, 2026 - with a third flight (another 18 Qianfan satellites) targeted for December 2026 and a fourth mission planned for January 2027; the first operational Qingzhou cargo flight to the Tiangong station remains expected around Q4 2026.
Demonstrate Kinetica-2 first-stage reusability via Kinecore-2 engine
The in-house Kinecore-2 engine (110 tf) completed a 620-second cumulative long-duration qualification test - including a 400-second single burn, a new stability record - on June 30, 2026, en route to replacing the off-the-shelf YF-102 on Kinetica-2's first stage; no further Kinecore-2 test milestones have been reported as of Aug 31, 2026. CAS Space's phased reuse plan adds a full grid-fin system on Kinetica-2's third flight for aerodynamic reentry control, integrates Kinecore-2 capabilities (multiple engine firings, thrust control, cluster recovery) across flights four through seven, and targets complete first-stage recovery by the rocket's tenth flight around 2028; a roughly 100 km VTVL test of the Lihong-2 demonstrator is also planned for later in 2026.
Hit monthly Kinetica-1 cadence, begin sea launches, and clear final STAR Market IPO registration
Sustain the monthly Kinetica-1 launch cadence CAS Space committed to on July 24, 2026 for the second half of the year - roughly double its historical rate. The first sea-launch vehicle, Kinetica-1 Y17, completed final assembly and passed factory review on August 13, 2026, and is slated to carry three satellites from waters near Guangdong 'in the near future' - the Lijian-1 family's first-ever maritime launch (additional sea launches using the Lijian-1H variant from the Eastern Maritime Spaceport in Shandong are separately planned later in 2026); no Kinetica-1 flight has been confirmed since the July 24 Y15 mission as of August 22, 2026. On the IPO, CAS Space's $607M STAR Market application has cleared the Shanghai Stock Exchange listing committee's review, a step beyond the June 29, 2026 prospectus refresh (still targeting ~$2.1B valuation and a 2029 profitability target); final CSRC registration, share pricing, and a trading debut date remain pending as of late August 2026, with CAS Space positioned to potentially become China's first listed commercial-launch firm after LandSpace's listing was suspended.
Advance suborbital space tourism vehicle
Lihong-1 completed China's first parachute-assisted commercial suborbital capsule recovery from above 100 km on January 12, 2026 (120 km altitude, ~300s microgravity, landing within 100 m of target). The fully reusable, seven-passenger Lihong-2 - powered by three Liqing-1 engines - has finished design and entered engineering development; CAS Space has opened a global call for experimental payloads for Lihong-2's maiden flight, with the flight and a ~100 km-class recovery verification still targeted within 2026 (accelerated from the prior ~2027 estimate) and commercial suborbital tourism service still planned from 2028; space tourism is listed as a stated business line in the IPO prospectus.
Fly the Kinastra-1 orbital transfer vehicle
CAS Space's in-space upper stage/orbital transfer vehicle, which ferries satellites between orbits after a rocket delivers them to space (it is separately due to fly on a CASC Long March 10A mission carrying a Space-Time Reference Satellite, and CAS Space has signed a letter of intent with Interstellar Datalink to launch a geostationary relay-satellite constellation using Kinetica-2 plus Kinastra). The 20 kN-thrust, 20-plus-restart engine's PV-001 integrated compatibility hot-fire test ran 566 seconds in mid-August 2026, verifying pressurization, propellant feed, propellant management and servo control across all subsystems and validating its high-thrust multi-restart engine, multi-tank parallel feed and integrated electrical design; the engine has now accumulated 5,211 cumulative seconds of ignition time across testing, clearing the way for a maiden flight targeted in Q1 2027.
Kinetica-1 has flown 15 times with 14 successes since 2022, deploying 110 satellites and becoming the first Chinese commercial rocket to top 100. On July 24, 2026 CAS Space committed to a monthly Kinetica-1 launch cadence for the second half of 2026, roughly double its historical rate; still no confirmed flight since the July 24 mission as of Aug 31, 2026. The medium-lift kerolox Kinetica-2 debuted successfully in March 2026; its second flight (18 Qianfan constellation satellites) has slipped from a September to an October 2026 target, with the Y2 vehicle departing the Guangzhou factory for Jiuquan on August 26, 2026 as the line enters serial production between Guangzhou and the Zhejiang super factory. CAS Space holds ~63% of China's private launch market by volume; its $607M STAR Market IPO application - tutoring completed January 2026, application accepted April 2026, prospectus refreshed June 29, 2026 (valuation target: ~$2.1B) - has cleared the exchange's listing-committee review, with final CSRC registration, pricing and a trading date still pending as of end of August 2026. It is scaling production at its new Zhejiang super factory, and the Kinecore-2 engine (110 tf) completed a 620-second long-duration qualification test on June 30, 2026, part of a phased plan to achieve full first-stage reuse by Kinetica-2's tenth flight around 2028.
Dedicated and rideshare small/medium-lift launches on the solid-fuel Kinetica-1 from Jiuquan for Chinese and international commercial payloads, with sea launches from the Eastern Maritime Spaceport planned for 2026.
Medium-lift kerolox launches for satellite-internet mega-constellation deployment (including Qianfan batches) and cargo missions such as the Qingzhou spacecraft to China's space station.
Suborbital test platforms - the solid-fuel Lihong-1, which completed China's first commercial suborbital capsule recovery from above 100 km on January 12, 2026, and the fully reusable, seven-passenger Lihong-2 (three Liqing-1 engines) - underpin a planned crewed suborbital space-tourism vehicle. Lihong-2 has finished design and entered engineering development, with a maiden flight and ~100 km-class recovery demonstration now targeted within 2026 and commercial service still planned from 2028.
Est. Annual Revenue
Not yet profitable: STAR Market IPO prospectus (refreshed June 29, 2026) shows revenue growing from ~5.95M yuan (2022) to ~77.72M yuan (2023), ~244M yuan (2024), and ~277M yuan (~$40.9M) in full-year 2025 (about 89% CAGR 2023-2025), against net losses of ~1.76B yuan (2022), ~512M yuan (2023), ~861M yuan (2024), and ~1.12B yuan (2025) - cumulative net losses of roughly 4.25B yuan since 2022. Management now targets profitability by 2029 (2030 under conservative assumptions), contingent on higher launch cadence, mature first-stage reuse, and large constellation orders.
Valuation
~15B yuan (~$2.1B) (STAR Market IPO target, filed April 2026 and unchanged in the June 29, 2026 prospectus refresh; ~11B yuan last private round); management now targets profitability by 2029
Kinetica-1 Launches
15 launches, 14 successes (110 satellites, 15+ tonnes) - the 15th flight (Y15) on July 24, 2026 opened a committed monthly cadence for August-December 2026; still no confirmed flight since, as of Aug 31, 2026
On June 15, 2026, the 14th Kinetica-1 flight (Y14) lifts eight rideshare satellites from the Dongfeng Commercial Space Innovation Test Zone, bringing the series' cumulative total to 105 satellites and making Kinetica-1 the first Chinese commercial launch vehicle to deploy more than 100 spacecraft. It is the rocket's third flight of 2026.
On March 30, 2026, the medium-lift kerolox Kinetica-2 (Lijian-2) reaches orbit on its debut from the Dongfeng commercial site at Jiuquan, deploying its payloads including a prototype of the Qingzhou low-cost cargo spacecraft - CAS Space's first liquid-propellant rocket.
On April 1, 2026 the Shanghai Stock Exchange accepts CAS Space's IPO application targeting a 4.18 billion yuan (~$607M) raise at a ~15 billion yuan (~$2.1B) valuation. On April 28 the company opens a 2 billion yuan Kinetica-2 'super factory' in Keqiao, Zhejiang, targeting up to 12 vehicles per year (up to 20 combined with Guangzhou).
On May 28, 2026, ground is broken on Guangzhou Aerospace Town, a commercial-aerospace industrial cluster in the city's Huangpu district on a river-adjacent, 574,100 sq m site with two 5,000-tonne berths for large aerospace equipment. CAS Space's reusable launch vehicle, spacecraft, and liquid-engine production base is the project's first flagship tenant, targeted for completion and production start in 2027 - a second manufacturing expansion alongside the Zhejiang 'super factory.'
On July 24, 2026 the 15th Kinetica-1 flight (Y15) lifts five satellites to sun-synchronous orbit from Jiuquan, bringing the series' cumulative total to 110 spacecraft in what was China's 53rd orbital launch of the year. Alongside the flight CAS Space commits to a monthly Kinetica-1 launch cadence for the second half of 2026, roughly doubling its historical rate of under four flights a year since the rocket's 2022 debut.
On January 12, 2026, the solid-fuel Lihong-1 flies a suborbital test from Jiuquan to roughly 120 km, giving its payload capsule about 300 seconds of microgravity before a parachute-assisted landing about 150 km downrange within 100 meters of the target - the first recovery of a Chinese commercial payload capsule from above 100 km, validating reentry, deceleration, and booster descent guidance ahead of the crewed Lihong-2 suborbital tourism vehicle.
On June 30, 2026, the in-house Kinecore-2 engine (110 tf kerolox) completes a long-duration qualification test totaling 620 seconds of cumulative burn time - about 3.5x its actual flight duration requirement - including a single 400-second ignition that sets a new stability record for the engine, under simulated high-temperature, high-rotational-speed, and vibration conditions. The engine is intended to replace the off-the-shelf YF-102 on Kinetica-2's first stage to enable reusability.
On August 26, 2026, the second Kinetica-2 vehicle (Y2) completes its departure review and leaves CAS Space's Guangzhou factory, with its three first-stage booster cores, second stage, and fairing convoyed to the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The flight, carrying 18 Qianfan mega-constellation satellites, has slipped from a September to an October 2026 target as Kinetica-2 enters serial production across Guangzhou and the Zhejiang super factory.
Blue Origin
Rockets +2
Blue Origin is a privately held aerospace company founded by Jeff Bezos that develops reusable launch vehicles, rocket engines, lunar landers, in-space mobility systems, and satellite communications infrastructure. Its current programs span the New Shepard suborbital system, the New Glenn heavy-lift rocket, the BE-4 engine family that also powers ULA's Vulcan, the Blue Moon lunar lander family, the Blue Ring spacecraft platform, and the TeraWave network. The FAA closed its NG-3 mishap investigation and lifted the New Glenn grounding on May 22, 2026 - pinning the BlueBird 7 deployment failure on a cryogenic leak that froze a hydraulic line - but six days later, on May 28, a New Glenn exploded during a hotfire at Cape Canaveral's LC-36, destroying the transporter-erector at Blue Origin's only New Glenn pad. CEO Dave Limp said the rocket will fly again before year-end via a hybrid horizontal-integration/crane-erect path that skips replacing the destroyed transporter-erector, with the propellant farm, a second flight-ready booster, and three upper stages intact; on July 24, 2026 NASA and Blue Origin agreed to conduct New Glenn second-stage (GS2) hot fire testing at Stennis Space Center's B-2 stand beginning this fall while LC-36 recovers, and NASA's Pegasus barge is due at Kennedy Space Center around August 10-12, 2026 to carry the completed GS2 to Stennis. The Blue Moon MK1 'Endurance' cargo lunar lander has completed thermal vacuum testing at NASA Johnson, but with New Glenn grounded its launch to the Moon has slipped from a fall-2026 target to early 2027. Separately, a February 2026 NASA Artemis architecture overhaul reassigned the crewed Blue Moon Mark 2 lander to compete with SpaceX's Starship for the program's first Moon landing (now targeted for Artemis IV, as soon as early 2028) following a 2027 crewed low-Earth-orbit docking test on the restructured Artemis III. In a landmark shift after 26 years of near-total self-funding (roughly $30B cumulative), Blue Origin raised about $10B at a $130B valuation in July 2026 - its first-ever outside round, led by Coatue (~$4B) with Jeff Bezos adding ~$2B - to bankroll Limp's target cadence of roughly 100 launches a year against an estimated ~$4.8B 2026 spend. The company broke ground on a new ~120,000-square-foot Cape Canaveral payload processing facility on August 31, 2026, and on September 1, 2026 NASA awarded it a $700M contract to build and deliver a Mars Telecommunications Orbiter - built on the Blue Ring platform - by December 31, 2028, extending Blue Origin's business beyond Earth-orbit launch and lunar landers into deep-space communications infrastructure.
CASC
Rockets +2
China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) is the state-owned prime contractor for China's space program and the world's most prolific launch organization by missions flown. Wholly owned by the central government through SASAC and led by chairman Chen Mingbo, it develops and operates the Long March (Changzheng) rocket family - which flew its 661st cumulative mission on August 4, 2026, delivering a 23rd batch of GuoWang broadband satellites - along with the Shenzhou crewed spacecraft, Tianzhou cargo vehicles, the Tiangong space station, BeiDou navigation and GuoWang broadband satellites, the Chang'e lunar and Tianwen planetary probes, and China's strategic missiles. After a national-record 73 launches in 2025, CASC is targeting over 100 launches in 2026 amid an industry-wide national push toward ~140, debuted the partially reusable Long March 12B in June 2026, and saw its Tianwen-2 probe reach the quasi-moon asteroid Kamo'oalewa on July 6, 2026. On July 10, 2026 it made China the second nation ever to recover an orbital rocket first stage, when the new single-stick, partially reusable Long March 10B flew its maiden mission from Hainan and captured its booster in a sea-based net - a landmark step toward closing the reusability gap with SpaceX, with a reflight of the recovered booster still targeted before the end of 2026. That momentum was interrupted on August 10, 2026, when a Long March 7A broke apart shortly after liftoff and lost its satellite payload - only the vehicle's second failure ever - triggering an engine investigation that put a question mark over the timing of Chang'e 7; CASC kept other Long March variants flying through the investigation, with a Long March 5B launching an eighth GuoWang satellite batch on August 13, 2026, and on August 19, 2026 rolled the Chang'e-7 probe and its Long March 5 (Y14) rocket out to the Wenchang pad ahead of a planned August 24, 2026 launch, but the mission was then postponed by Typhoon Narra and, per an August 23 China Manned Space Agency statement, cannot fly within the 2026 window at all - multiple outlets report a possible slip into 2027 - with no root cause or formal fleet clearance yet announced for the 7A investigation either. CASC is also advancing the triple-core Long March 10 toward a crewed Moon landing before 2030: the Long March 10A's own orbital debut is separately reported to carry a lunar navigation satellite ahead of the uncrewed Mengzhou 1 capsule test, still targeted around September 2026 but flagged in one report as at risk of slipping into early 2027.
Rocket Lab
Rockets +2
Rocket Lab is an end-to-end space company spanning launch, hypersonic test launch, spacecraft, payloads, satellite components, laser optical communications, and space robotics, with total headcount reaching 3,217 by the end of Q2 2026 after the Mynaric and Motiv acquisitions. Electron remains the second most frequently launched U.S. rocket - Rocket Lab reached 94 missions with the September 2, 2026 'Owl Around the World' Synspective StriX launch, following the August 21 'Lightning God Defends' iQPS flight, putting it on track for a record year and its 100th launch - and Rocket Lab is developing the medium-lift Neutron rocket for constellation, national-security, and exploration missions; first launch is still guided to Q4 2026, though CEO Peter Beck told analysts on the August 10 earnings call that the end-of-year window is narrowing and a slip into 2027 is a real possibility. The company posted record Q1 2026 revenue of $200.3M and record Q2 2026 revenue of $234M (+62% YoY), guiding to $250M-$265M in Q3 2026 revenue, and completed the $155.3M Mynaric and the Motiv Space Systems acquisitions in April and May 2026 to add laser comms, a European footprint, and Mars-proven robotics in-house. On May 27, 2026 Rocket Lab cleared the System Requirements Review for the Space Development Agency's $816M Tracking Layer Tranche 3 missile-defense constellation, taking total SDA awards above $1.3B, and on June 22, 2026 the company joined the Nasdaq-100 Index. On June 29, 2026 Rocket Lab announced its largest-ever deal - an agreement to acquire satellite-communications operator Iridium Communications for about $8B in cash and stock ($54.00/share, roughly half cash and half Rocket Lab stock), adding an operational 66-satellite L-band constellation, ~2.55M subscribers, $871M of 2025 revenue, and globally harmonized spectrum; the deal has since cleared U.S. antitrust review, Rocket Lab filed a Form S-4 registration statement and a $1.94B at-the-market equity program to help fund the cash portion and reduce its $3.6B bridge loan, and Iridium stockholders are set to vote at a September 24, 2026 special meeting, with closing still expected in mid-2027. On July 27, 2026 Rocket Lab won a $266M U.S. Space Force RSLP contract for 12 (plus an option for six more) HASTE suborbital missile-defense launches through 2028, opening a fourth launch pad at Kodiak, Alaska, and on August 4, 2026 the U.S. Space Force awarded Rocket Lab a $397M contract under the Space-Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator program to build, launch on the still-unflown Neutron rocket, and operate 'Flatellite' tracking satellites. Rocket Lab also added a second GEO satellite production award (Viasat's PTS-G program, August 17), was onboarded to the Space Force's $981M-ceiling NITE-STAR space test infrastructure IDIQ (August 17), and was selected for the Space Force's Space Data Network Consortium with $12M in initial delivery orders (August 18). On August 10, 2026 Rocket Lab reported record Q2 backlog of $2.36B and unveiled GHOST, a containerized Deployable Launch System giving Electron and HASTE launch-anywhere responsive capability, with its first site standing up at Kodiak, Alaska.
Cosmoleap
Rockets +1
Cosmoleap (大航跃迁), legally Dahang Yueqian Technology, is a Chinese launch startup founded in March 2024 by Chen Shuguang to build the Yueqian-1 ('Leap-1') - and notably is the first Chinese company to pursue a SpaceX Starship-style 'chopstick' tower-catch recovery instead of landing legs. The roughly 70 m-tall, 4.2 m-diameter, methane–liquid oxygen two-stage rocket is designed to lift about 18,000 kg to LEO when expended or ~12,000 kg with the first stage recovered, on a cluster of nine ~80-ton-class engines reusable up to 20 times. It initially flies the YF-209 engine sourced from CASC's Academy of Aerospace Liquid Propulsion Technology while developing its own 100-ton-class Qingyu-11 methalox engine (targeting ~150 t thrust, deep throttling, and up to 50 reuses); Qingyu-11 cleared a round of core-component tests (torch ignition, low-temperature and liquid-flow testing) in June 2026 and is moving toward full-system test firing. Cosmoleap raised roughly 100 million yuan (~$14M) in November 2024 and a 500 million yuan (~$73M) Series A in April 2026 - about 600 million yuan (~$84M) total - led by Qianhai Ark and Puhua Capital. On March 3, 2026 the company signed a strategic supply-chain cooperation agreement with Beijing Aerospace Guanghua Electronic Technology, becoming the first commercial rocket firm to partner with the state-linked aerospace-electronics supplier. With its design review passed and a tower-catch verification platform and drop tests underway, the company plans final assembly and integrated testing in the second half of 2026 and a debut orbital flight in 2027, racing domestic tower-catch rival Astronstone, which is pursuing a similar late-2026/early-2027 debut. Ground testing kept pace through mid-2026: the first-stage liquid-methane pressurization and delivery system passed China's first dedicated natural-circulation precooling test for a reusable methalox rocket in June, and the second-stage frame and propellant-tank rear-bottom structure passed a combined static-load test in August.
Firefly Aerospace
Rockets +1
Firefly Aerospace is a public space and defense company that launches the Alpha small-lift rocket, is co-developing the Eclipse medium-lift vehicle with Northrop Grumman, flies Blue Ghost lunar landers, and builds Elytra orbital vehicles for maneuvering, communications, imaging, and other cislunar services. After becoming the first commercial company to complete a fully successful Moon landing, Firefly expanded further into defense software and data systems through its SciTec acquisition, which won a U.S. Space Force Space-Based Interceptor OTA agreement in May 2026 and a $5.5M Air Force CBC2 data-fusion option in June 2026 as part of the Golden Dome architecture. Firefly doubled its Cedar Park campus to 144,000 sq ft to industrialize Blue Ghost and Elytra production, closed a 12M-share follow-on at $48/share on June 1, 2026, and - per June 23, 2026 Reuters reporting - is set to secure a ~$110M EXIM loan to fund further Texas production expansion. In July 2026 Firefly also won a $13M NASA JPL subcontract - the first out of its new Gloworks innovation lab - to build the aeroshell for NASA's SkyFall Mars helicopter mission, extending it into planetary entry-descent-and-landing hardware. On August 11, 2026 Firefly reported record Q2 2026 revenue of $117.7M (up 659% YoY, its first quarter above $100M) and ~$1.5B backlog, reaffirmed full-year guidance of $420M-$450M, and said the first full Alpha Block II flight (Flight 8) has slipped from a late-summer target to Q4 2026. The same day SciTec won a $93.7M Space Force contract to digitize ground-based radar systems and Firefly extended its Lockheed Martin multi-launch deal to up to 25 Alpha missions through 2031; CEO Jason Kim said in late August that Alpha production is at an all-time high even as launch cadence continues to lag sustained, industry-wide demand for launch capacity.
Space Epoch
Rockets +1
Space Epoch (箭元科技), legally Beijing Jianyuan Technology and branded 'Sepoch', is a Chinese commercial launch startup founded by Wei Yi (a former CALT and i-Space/Interstellar Glory engineer) to develop the Yuanxingzhe-1 ('Hiker-1') - a stainless-steel, methane–liquid oxygen, partially reusable medium-lift rocket whose sea-recovery, low-cost design draws frequent comparisons to a smaller SpaceX Starship. On May 29, 2025 it pulled off China's first sea-based vertical-takeoff/vertical-landing recovery test: a single-engine demonstrator flew a ~125-second suborbital hop to roughly 2.5 km and executed a controlled splashdown off Haiyang, Shandong, with the stainless stage recovered largely intact. Rather than build its own engines, Space Epoch buys methalox powerplants from engine maker Jiuzhou Yunjian (its LY-70 'Longyun' engine). In January 2026 it broke ground on a 5.2 billion yuan (~$740M) sea-recovery rocket plant in Hangzhou sized for up to 25 vehicles a year, aiming to cut launch costs toward 20,000 yuan/kg; the plant's first vehicle, named 'Qiantang-hao,' is targeted for final assembly and testing by the end of August 2026 ahead of a debut orbital launch and first-stage recovery attempt by year-end. The company has expanded its footprint with a new Wenchang, Hainan launch-and-recovery site (acquired July 2026) and a Shandong manufacturing/R&D subsidiary in Haiyang (May 2026), alongside an existing Yantai engine facility. It has also signed a headline-grabbing Taobao/Alibaba partnership exploring rocket-based parcel delivery and a strategic cooperation with Shifang Xinglian (Suzhou) Aerospace Technology toward a new MEO satellite constellation.
