Andy Lapsa
Data verified as of Sep 4, 2026
Stoke Space is a Kent, Washington rocket company developing Nova, a fully and rapidly reusable medium-lift launch vehicle built for low-cost, on-demand transport to, through, and from space. Its architecture pairs a full-flow staged-combustion first stage with a reusable upper stage whose actively cooled metallic heat shield is integrated into the engine, enabling downmass capability, high-energy missions, and minimal-refurbishment reentry. Backed by $1.34 billion raised to date (including an $860M Series D) and a spot in the U.S. Space Force's NSSL Phase 3 Lane 1 pool, Stoke completed proto-qualification of Nova's first stage in June 2026 (46 structural verification tests at Moses Lake) and is finishing activation of the rebuilt Space Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral ahead of Nova's first orbital flight, targeted for late 2026. In July 2026 former OpenAI chief product officer Kevin Weil - an early Stoke investor - joined the board of directors, and NASA selected Stoke for a Space Technology Mission Directorate collaboration with Ames Research Center to mature Nova's reusable upper-stage entry, descent, and landing (EDL) technologies. On August 3, 2026 Stoke announced a 324-acre expansion of its Moses Lake, Washington test site to add capacity for testing more rocket components in parallel, with construction expected to begin later in 2026.
Company OverviewRead the long-form profile of Stoke SpaceBring Nova through its first flight
With SLC-14 rebuilt and the first stage now through proto-qualification (46 structural verification tests completed at Moses Lake in June 2026), Stoke reported in mid-August 2026 that Nova's first-stage engines are complete and it has conducted second-stage fit checks mating the second stage, payload module and Andromeda 2 engine, while construction of the SLC-14 launch pad is essentially complete and awaiting flight hardware. The remaining steps are full-duration stage testing and final stage integration ahead of Nova's first orbital launch, targeted for late 2026. Stoke has said the inaugural mission will fly expendable to a heliocentric orbit with no first-stage recovery attempt, with reuse demonstrated on later flights - a profile that matches the manifest booked by memorial-spaceflight company Celestis, whose 'Infinite Flight' mission (cremated remains and DNA bound for permanent heliocentric orbit, targeted Q4 2026) was announced in December 2025 for a Nova launch from SLC-14.
Start competing for NSSL task orders
Complete the initial capabilities assessment and tailored mission-assurance work required to compete for National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 1 missions. In July 2026 the Space Force raised the Lane 1 pool ceiling from $5.6B to about $17B (an extra ~$11.4B), enlarging the pool of national-security launch work Stoke can bid for once Nova is flying. As of late August 2026, Stoke still holds only its initial capabilities-assessment task order (no launch-service task order yet); Lane 1 providers generally become eligible to compete for launch-service task orders after a successful first launch, which Nova has not yet flown.
Break ground on Moses Lake test site expansion
Following Grant County's July 2026 procedural-completeness finding and public-comment period on Stoke's permit application, break ground on the first section of the 324-acre Moses Lake test facility expansion (about 19.5 acres of initial ground disturbance for two new rocket engine test stands), adding capacity to test more Nova components in parallel.
Close reported $1B funding round at ~$9B valuation
Stoke is reportedly raising roughly $1 billion at a valuation near $9 billion excluding the new capital, more than four times the over-$5 billion mark implied by its extended Series D in early 2026. Stoke had targeted closing the round in August 2026, but as of September 4, 2026 no closing announcement has surfaced from Stoke, its investors, or trade press - despite the target month having fully elapsed, there is also no report the round was cancelled or resized, so it appears to remain in progress with no new confirmed close date. Proceeds would fund Nova production and test capacity ahead of its targeted late-2026 first flight.
0 of 1 announced date hit · 1 slipped
Close reported $1B funding round at ~$9B valuation
Target August 2026 (reported target to close) · Resolved Sep 1, 2026
Bloomberg reported August 13, 2026 that Stoke was raising ~$1B in a Series E at a roughly $9B pre-money valuation and aimed to close the round that month. As of September 4, 2026, no announcement of a closed round could be found from Stoke or independent press, and the August target has passed; there is no indication the round was cancelled, so it appears delayed rather than abandoned. The nextSteps entry has been updated to note the slip pending a new confirmed close date.
Stoke has completed upper-stage flight testing and first-stage Zenith hotfires, rebuilt Space Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral (pad construction essentially complete and awaiting flight hardware as of August 2026), and in early June 2026 completed proto-qualification of Nova's first stage at Moses Lake - 46 structural verification tests of the flight article plus fluid, avionics, and ground-support checks. By mid-August 2026 Stoke had completed construction of Nova's flight-configuration first-stage Zenith engines and shipped them for testing, and conducted second-stage fit checks mating the payload module, second-stage tanks, and Andromeda 2 engine. It is using its $1.34B raised to date (an additional ~$1B Series E at a reported ~$9B valuation was targeted to close in August 2026; as of Sept 1, 2026 no close has been confirmed and no new target date has been announced) to carry Nova through its first orbital flight, targeted for late 2026. On July 6, 2026 NASA selected Stoke for a Space Technology Mission Directorate collaboration with Ames Research Center to mature Nova's reusable upper-stage entry, descent, and landing technologies, and on August 3, 2026 Stoke announced a 324-acre Moses Lake test site expansion (construction expected to begin later in 2026; the county permit remained pending as of late August 2026).
Planned launch services using Nova for commercial and government payloads, with Stoke citing a growing manifest of contracted launches ahead of first flights - including memorial-spaceflight company Celestis, which booked a Nova launch in December 2025 for its 'Infinite Flight' deep-space mission targeted for Q4 2026.
Employees
~400
Est. Annual Revenue
Not publicly disclosed (Boltline software revenue growing; launch business still pre-flight)
Total Funding
$1.34B raised to date (a further ~$1B Series E at a reported ~$9B valuation was targeted to close in August 2026; as of Sept 1, 2026 no close has been confirmed and no new target date has been announced)
In early June 2026 Stoke completes proto-qualification of Nova's first stage at its Moses Lake, Washington test site, clearing 46 structural verification tests of the seven-Zenith-engine flight article plus fluid-system, avionics, and ground-support testing over a roughly three-week campaign. The stage was pressurized above maximum expected operating conditions with automated pressure control across fill levels, and held up through hurricane-force winds and lightning - a major step toward Nova's first orbital flight.
On July 6, 2026 Stoke Space announced NASA had selected it for a collaboration to advance the upper-stage re-entry capabilities of Nova. Awarded through NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate under an Announcement of Collaboration Opportunity, the partnership pairs Stoke with NASA's Ames Research Center on entry, descent, and landing (EDL) technologies for Nova's reusable second stage, drawing on Ames' hypervelocity free-flight test capabilities plus the agency's aerodynamics and guidance, navigation and control expertise. It builds on a 2020 SBIR award that seeded Stoke's Stage 2 Andromeda integrated engine and regeneratively cooled re-entry heat shield.
In early July 2026 Stoke Space appointed former OpenAI chief product officer Kevin Weil to its board of directors as Nova nears its first flight. Weil - who first met CEO Andy Lapsa when Stoke joined Y Combinator's Winter 2020 batch and who, with his wife Elizabeth, was an early Stoke investor through their Scribble Ventures fund - adds high-profile technology and product-scaling experience to the board of the reusable-rocket startup.
By July 2026 Stoke's rebuild of the historic Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral is essentially complete and appears ready for operations, with the umbilical tower painted a vibrant red as a tribute to the early Space Coast era. Teams are outfitting the umbilical support structure and have installed propellant and commodity pipework on the launch mount following successful water deluge system testing; on the LOX side, crews added two more vertical tanks plus three large horizontal tanks (170,000 gallons each), with propellant farms arranged 120 degrees apart around the pad and using pressure builders rather than mechanical pumps. The activated pad, paired with Nova's first stage having cleared proto-qualification, positions Stoke for Nova's inaugural orbital flight, targeted no earlier than late 2026.
On August 3, 2026 Stoke announced it will add test facilities on 324 acres across the road from its existing Moses Lake, Washington site, aiming to break ground on the first section as soon as possible with approval hoped for in the second half of 2026. Grant County found Stoke's permit application procedurally complete on July 6, 2026, with a public comment period that closed July 27, 2026; the initial proposal disturbs about 19.5 acres of a roughly 634-acre parcel (leased from the Port of Moses Lake) for two rocket engine test stands plus propellant storage, piping, and supporting infrastructure, and county officials expect to issue a Determination of Non-Significance rather than require a full environmental impact statement. The expansion adds capacity for testing more rocket components at once as Nova development continues toward the vehicle's first orbital flight, targeted for late 2026 from Cape Canaveral; construction on the expansion itself is expected to begin later in 2026 and continue into early 2027.
Bloomberg reported in mid-August 2026 that Stoke Space is raising about $1 billion in a Series E at a pre-money valuation near $9 billion, targeted to close in August, to accelerate development and production of its fully reusable Nova rocket. The raise would follow the Series D that was extended to $860 million in February 2026. In parallel, Stoke has completed its first-stage engines and run fit checks mating Nova's payload module, second-stage tanks and Andromeda 2 engine ahead of the vehicle's inaugural flight, targeted for late 2026. The round is reported as in progress and had not been confirmed closed.
On December 3, 2025 memorial-spaceflight company Celestis announces it has booked a Nova launch for 'Infinite Flight,' its second deep-space Voyager mission, to carry cremated remains and DNA from Space Launch Complex 14 into permanent heliocentric orbit. The flight, targeted for Q4 2026, matches the expendable, no-recovery profile Stoke has described for Nova's debut mission.
Cumulative disclosed raise · dated rounds
Blue Origin
Rockets
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.
Boeing
Rockets
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
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.
CASC
Rockets
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.
Cosmoleap
Rockets
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.
Deep Blue Aerospace
Rockets
Deep Blue Aerospace (深蓝航天) is a Chinese commercial launch startup built around vertically landing, reusable kerosene–liquid oxygen rockets - positioning itself as one of China's closest analogs to early SpaceX. Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Nantong, it has flown a series of VTVL hop tests, most notably a September 2024 high-altitude flight that completed 10 of 11 objectives with ~0.5 m landing accuracy before an anomaly during the final engine shutdown damaged the stage on touchdown. The company is now preparing the maiden flight of its medium-lift Nebula-1, which can loft up to 2,000 kg to LEO on nine Thunder-R engines and is designed for first-stage recovery; the first Nebula-1A vehicle was rolled out in March 2026 to a new sea-recovery pad on Lianli Island at Haiyang - which reached full launch-capable status after an integrated test mission on March 30–31, 2026 - for a debut orbital flight that will attempt a first-stage splashdown recovery. The originally targeted mid-2026 debut has slipped, with launch trackers now listing the flight no earlier than December 2026. Deep Blue is also developing the much larger Nebula-2 (25,000+ kg to LEO) and has begun pre-selling suborbital space-tourism tickets for flights targeted in 2027.
