Firefly Aerospace

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.

SpaceX

Rockets +2

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) designs, manufactures, and launches reusable rockets and spacecraft. The company operates Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, Dragon, Starlink, and the government-focused Starshield line while continuing to develop Starship for high-cadence heavy-lift missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Starlink crossed 12 million customers across 160+ countries on June 4, 2026 and the constellation now exceeds 10,400 working satellites in orbit. Following the February 2026 xAI merger, SpaceX also operates the Memphis Colossus supercomputers as an AI hyperscaler, disclosing $14.1B of new Cloud Services Agreements signed in Q2 2026 alone (on top of the Anthropic, Google, and Reflection AI compute deals). SpaceX completed the largest IPO in history on June 12, 2026, debuting on Nasdaq under ticker SPCX at its fixed $135-per-share price for a roughly $1.77 trillion valuation and about $75B in proceeds, with Elon Musk retaining ~82% voting control; SPCX slid as low as $107.01 in late July before rebounding to close above its $135 IPO price on August 10, 2026 for the first time since mid-July. Starship returned to flight after the FAA closed the Flight 12 mishap investigation on July 13, 2026: on July 24, 2026 Flight 13 - the second flight of the Version 3 vehicle - deployed the program's first 20 operational Starlink V3 satellites and made the softest ship splashdown yet, and recovery crews towed the intact upper stage (Ship 40) through rough seas to Christmas Island, Australia by August 18, 2026 - the first Starship upper stage ever recovered intact after flight - before the semi-submersible vessel Forte departed Christmas Island on August 28, 2026 to carry it roughly 20,000 km back to Starbase, Texas. Days after its IPO, SpaceX agreed on June 16, 2026 to acquire AI coding startup Cursor's parent Anysphere for $60B in an all-stock deal - the largest acquisition of a venture-backed startup ever - and closed the deal on August 15, 2026, ahead of its late-August target, giving Cursor access to SpaceX's GPU fleet including the Colossus supercomputer. SpaceX posted its first earnings as a public company on August 4, 2026 (Q2 revenue of $7.8B, up 92% year over year, narrowing its net loss to $541M), and on August 11 Elon Musk told employees SpaceX's AI compute business would exceed all its other revenue by September 2026 and account for 99% of the company's value within five years, targeting 10 gigawatts of AI compute capacity - up from 1.4 GW at the end of Q2 - by the end of 2027. On August 25 SpaceX announced a $100 billion Starbase Louisiana spaceport in Vermilion Parish, with construction expected in 2027 and a first launch targeted as soon as 2029. A Falcon Heavy flew its 13th mission on August 30, 2026, launching NASA's Roman Space Telescope with both side boosters landing intact at Cape Canaveral, a day after NASA and SpaceX postponed the planned September 12 Crew-13 ISS launch when an oxidizer leak was found in Dragon's propulsion system during prelaunch processing. A mid-August 13F filing also disclosed Nvidia holds roughly $21B of SpaceX stock via its earlier xAI investment, as SpaceX committed on its August 4 earnings call to building its future AI compute exclusively on Nvidia's Vera Rubin architecture. SPCX shares climbed about 7% to close at $150.84 on September 3, 2026 after Oppenheimer raised its price target to $280 from $250 on growing confidence in the AI-compute business, with investors also looking ahead to the approaching Starship Flight 14 test.

Boeing

Rockets +1

Boeing is one of the world's largest aerospace companies, spanning commercial airplanes, defense and space systems, and aftermarket services. The 2026 turnaround gathered pace through the first half of the year: 314 commercial deliveries in H1 2026 (its best first half since 2018), a Q2 net loss of $428M on $24.6B of revenue that nonetheless produced the company's first positive free cash flow quarter (+$631M) in over a year, and a record total backlog of $715B including more than 6,200 commercial aircraft. The 737 MAX line reached rate 47 per month in May 2026 and gained a fourth final-assembly line - the Everett 'North Line' - in July, with rate 52 targeted for early 2027. At the Farnborough Airshow (July 20-24, 2026) Boeing booked 170+ aircraft led by SMBC's 100-jet 737 MAX order, while the long-delayed 777X neared its certification finish line even as Emirates declined to accept the first 10-11 early-build 777-9s over their age and GE Aerospace temporarily paused GE9X engine shipments pending a durability fix. The FAA certified the 737 MAX 7 on August 3, 2026, clearing the smallest MAX variant after nearly a decade of review, and on August 10 Boeing agreed to sell its Wisk Aero, Insitu, and SkyGrid subsidiaries to Archer Aviation for a near-20% equity stake. July's delivery pace cooled to 53 aircraft (down 17% from June and now trailing Airbus by 51 aircraft year-to-date, 367 vs 418), and on August 21 Boeing's roughly 17,000 SPEEA-represented engineers and technicians rejected the tentative contract their own bargaining councils declined to endorse (64.3% and 71.9% against, respectively) and authorized a strike if no new deal is reached before the current contracts expire October 6. Boeing shares fell about 7.5% on the news, cutting market cap to roughly $170B (from ~$183B in mid-August). On August 26 the FAA finalized an airworthiness directive requiring inspections of certain 787 Dreamliners over shim gaps at lower side-of-body splice plates. Boeing remains one of the two central global commercial-jet manufacturers alongside Airbus, with its trajectory now hinging on sustaining the 737 ramp without reintroducing defects, closing out 737 MAX 10 certification, avoiding an engineers' strike, and steering the 777X's remaining ETOPS testing toward 2027 certification.

CAS Space

Rockets +1

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.