Mark Peller
Data verified as of Aug 26, 2026
United Launch Alliance is Boeing and Lockheed Martin's launch-services joint venture for U.S. national security, NASA, and commercial customers. ULA says it has achieved more than 150 consecutive launches since 2006, and on July 2, 2026 it retired Atlas V from the Amazon campaign by flying Amazon's eighth and final Atlas V Leo mission (LEO 8), taking ULA's Amazon Leo deliveries to 226 satellites across eight Atlas V flights and shifting the remaining Amazon backlog entirely onto Vulcan Centaur. Vulcan, however, has been grounded since its February 12, 2026 USSF-87 mission, when one of its four Northrop Grumman GEM 63XL solid rocket boosters suffered a nozzle anomaly during ascent; the U.S. Space Force paused NSSL Vulcan launches pending the investigation, and ULA leadership now targets a Vulcan return to flight by the end of 2026. ULA completed a wet dress rehearsal of a LEO-optimized Vulcan/Centaur V at SLC-41 on August 6, 2026, and Blue Origin - after tracing its May 28, 2026 New Glenn pad explosion to a BE-4 engine oxygen-valve fault - is proactively retrofitting the same valve on BE-4 engines already in ULA's inventory (including at ULA's Decatur, Alabama factory and Cape Canaveral), with updated hardware expected by the end of August 2026 and no stated change to ULA's end-of-2026 return-to-flight target. As a result ULA has flown just five times in 2026 (the USSF-87 Vulcan mission plus four Atlas V Amazon Leo flights), far short of its 18-22 launch goal for the year. Longtime CEO Tory Bruno resigned in December 2025 and joined Blue Origin's National Security Group; after an eight-month search, ULA named longtime COO Mark Peller as permanent president and CEO effective August 17, 2026, succeeding interim CEO John Elbon. The grounding has also strained ULA's finances: in Q2 2026 SEC filings, both parents disclosed matching credit backstops for ULA - Lockheed Martin (July 23, 2026 10-Q) and Boeing (July 28, 2026 10-Q) each agreed in May 2026 to guarantee up to $500 million of ULA credit facilities maturing July 30, 2027, a combined $1 billion - pushing Lockheed's ULA equity investment to about $617 million (from $551 million at the end of 2025) and Boeing's to about $585 million (from $556 million); on August 5, 2026 ULA was separately reported seeking to raise about $500 million through a private bond placement to refinance existing debt; that offering was upsized and priced on August 18, 2026 at $1.5 billion across four tranches maturing in three to ten years, with proceeds earmarked for expanded Decatur, Alabama assembly-line capacity and pad upgrades at Cape Canaveral SLC-41 and Vandenberg SLC-3E to support a higher Vulcan cadence.
Company OverviewRead the long-form profile of United Launch AllianceUnited Launch Alliance upsized a private bond offering from an initial $500 million target to $1.5 billion across four tranches maturing in three to ten years. Proceeds will fund expanded assembly lines at ULA's Decatur, Alabama plant and pad upgrades at Cape Canaveral SLC-41 and Vandenberg SLC-3E, as the company works to scale toward a much higher Vulcan launch cadence.
United Launch Alliance named Mark Peller as its permanent president and CEO effective August 17, ending an eight-month interim period under COO John Elbon. Peller has been with ULA since its 2006 formation, led Vulcan rocket development from inception through certification, and most recently served as chief operating officer overseeing Atlas and Vulcan operations; he succeeds Tory Bruno, who resigned in December 2025 to join Blue Origin's national security group.
United Launch Alliance is seeking to raise about $500 million through a private bond placement arranged by US Bancorp, Mizuho and Wells Fargo to refinance existing debt, according to reports first surfacing August 5. The move follows a year of financial strain tied to the Vulcan Centaur's grounding since February 2026, and comes on top of, not in place of, the separate $500 million credit guarantee Lockheed Martin extended to ULA in July.
Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said August 5 that a malfunctioning main oxygen valve on one of the BE-4 engines caused the New Glenn rocket's static-fire explosion at Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex 36 in late May, a finding confirmed through hardware recovery and inspection. The company is making small modifications to the valve that can be retrofitted to existing engines by the end of August, while continuing to repair the launch pad; Blue Origin still expects to return New Glenn to flight by year-end. United Launch Alliance, whose Vulcan rocket also uses the BE-4 engine, has said it is collaborating with Blue Origin on the investigation.
Lockheed Martin disclosed in its Q2 2026 SEC filing, around July 23, that it has guaranteed up to $500 million of United Launch Alliance's borrowings as Vulcan Centaur's continued grounding strains the joint venture's finances. Vulcan has not flown since a February 12, 2026 solid rocket booster nozzle anomaly on the USSF-87 mission, and ULA leadership is now targeting a return to flight only by the end of 2026, with ULA flying just five missions so far in 2026 against an original 18-22 launch goal.
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Next-generation medium-to-heavy-lift launch vehicle replacing Atlas V and Delta IV, powered by BE-4 engines.
First launch 2024 - certified by U.S. Space Force in March 2025. Operational for NSSL and commercial missions.
Workhorse medium-lift launch vehicle with a 100% mission success rate, being phased out in favor of Vulcan Centaur.
Operational since 2002 - remaining missions being flown before full transition to Vulcan Centaur.
Return Vulcan to flight and fly the first Vulcan Amazon Leo mission
Return Vulcan to flight - grounded since the February 12, 2026 USSF-87 GEM 63XL solid-rocket-booster nozzle anomaly and the resulting U.S. Space Force pause on NSSL Vulcan launches - with ULA leadership targeting a return by the end of 2026. ULA completed a wet dress rehearsal of a LEO-optimized Vulcan/Centaur V at SLC-41 on August 6, 2026, and on August 15, 2026 stacked that Centaur V atop the Vulcan booster in VIF-G at SLC-41 ahead of launch. Blue Origin is proactively retrofitting BE-4 engines (including ones already at ULA's Decatur factory and Cape Canaveral facilities) with updated valve hardware after tracing its May 28, 2026 New Glenn pad explosion to a BE-4 oxygen-valve fault, with the fix expected ready by the end of August 2026. The first flight back is set to be the first Amazon Leo mission on Vulcan, LV-01, targeted September 2026 from SLC-41 carrying 45 satellites on an optimized Centaur V (also a certification flight for that configuration), followed by working through the 38-launch Amazon Vulcan backlog and the NSSL Phase 3 manifest as cadence ramps.
Bring SLC-3 at Vandenberg online for Vulcan
Finish the Vandenberg pad modifications (more than 83% complete as of the last public construction update, targeting an operational pad in Q3 2026) and fly the first West Coast Vulcan mission - SDA's Tranche 1 Tracking Layer B - establishing a second operational lane to support the 2026 cadence ramp. Re-verified in late August 2026: no newer completion figure has been published, no West Coast Vulcan launch has flown yet, and the Q3 2026 target still stands.
Rebuild launch cadence once Vulcan returns to flight
ULA entered 2026 aiming for 18-22 launches (16-18 Vulcans plus 2-4 Atlas Vs), but the Vulcan grounding since the February USSF-87 SRB anomaly left it with just five launches through the year so far (one Vulcan and four Atlas V Amazon Leo flights), putting the full-year goal out of reach; no additional ULA launch had flown as of late August 2026. The near-term focus is returning Vulcan to flight by year-end and rebuilding cadence into 2027 by working through the 38-launch Amazon Vulcan backlog and the NSSL Phase 3 national-security manifest.
Resolve the ULA ownership question amid renewed sale talks
Boeing and Lockheed Martin have long explored selling their 50/50 joint venture. Reuters reported in August 2024 that the pair were in talks to sell ULA to Sierra Space at a valuation of roughly $2-3 billion, a process that follows earlier unsuccessful approaches by Blue Origin and Cerberus Capital Management. As of a late-August 2026 status review the sale still had not closed and ULA remains a Boeing-Lockheed JV: both parents' Q2 2026 SEC filings show rising ULA equity investments (Lockheed to about $617 million from $551 million; Boeing to about $585 million from $556 million), but the increases are driven by matching $500 million bank guarantees each parent extended in May 2026 to cover ULA credit facilities amid the Vulcan grounding's financial strain, not by any divestiture. No renewed Sierra Space talks or other buyer approach has surfaced publicly since. A completed sale would reshape ULA's ownership and strategic direction just as Vulcan works toward its late-2026 return to flight.
Launch Sierra Space's Dream Chaser Tenacity debut on Vulcan
Fly the uncrewed Dream Chaser Tenacity spaceplane's debut mission, SSC Demo-1 under NASA's CRS-2 contract, on a Vulcan Centaur from Cape Canaveral - now reworked as a free-flyer demonstration to LEO rather than an ISS docking, ending with a runway landing at Vandenberg. Sierra Space completed acoustic testing on Tenacity at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in April 2026, validating the spaceplane's ability to withstand launch vibrations, and has continued final launch preparations (thermal protection tiling, integrated flight-software testing) at KSC's Space Systems Processing Facility since. Sierra Space still targets year-end 2026, but the flight sits behind NSSL national-security missions on Vulcan's recovering manifest and depends on Vulcan's return to flight from its SRB anomaly grounding.
1 of 1 announced date hit
Target 2026 · Resolved Aug 17, 2026
ULA named longtime COO Mark Peller as permanent president and CEO effective August 17, 2026, ending an eight-month search that followed Tory Bruno's December 2025 resignation and John Elbon's interim tenure. Peller, a 35-year veteran of ULA and its predecessor companies, previously led Vulcan development from inception through certification and most recently served as COO overseeing Atlas and Vulcan operations.
Atlas V has now completed its Amazon Leo campaign: LEO 8 (LA-08), the eighth and final Atlas V Amazon Leo mission, flew on July 2, 2026 with 29 satellites, bringing ULA's cumulative Amazon deliveries to 226 satellites across eight Atlas V flights and shifting the remaining Amazon backlog entirely onto Vulcan. Vulcan, however, has been grounded since its February 12, 2026 USSF-87 mission, when one of four Northrop Grumman GEM 63XL solid rocket boosters suffered a nozzle anomaly during ascent and the U.S. Space Force paused NSSL Vulcan launches pending the investigation. Northrop Grumman completed a successful GEM 63XL static fire on April 15, 2026 validating nozzle changes, and ULA confirmed on May 14, 2026 that the investigation continued; ULA leadership now targets a Vulcan return to flight by the end of 2026. As a result ULA has flown just five times in 2026 (USSF-87 plus four Atlas V Amazon Leo missions), well short of its 18-22 goal, and had not launched again since LEO 8 as of late August 2026. ULA completed a wet dress rehearsal of a LEO-optimized Vulcan/Centaur V at SLC-41 on August 6, 2026 and stacked that Centaur V atop the Vulcan booster in VIF-G on August 15, 2026 ahead of the Amazon Leo debut, and Blue Origin began proactively retrofitting BE-4 engines - including some already at ULA's Decatur, Alabama factory and Cape Canaveral facilities - with an updated oxygen valve after tracing its May 28, 2026 New Glenn pad explosion to a BE-4 valve fault; ULA says the retrofit, with new hardware expected by the end of August 2026, does not change its end-of-2026 Vulcan return-to-flight target. The first Vulcan Amazon Leo mission (LV-01, 45 satellites on an optimized Centaur V) is targeted for September 2026 pending the return to flight, and SLC-3 at Vandenberg is being readied to host the first West Coast Vulcan launch (SDA Tranche 1 Tracking Layer B) later in 2026.
Primary revenue source - ULA won 40% of the Space Force's NSSL Phase 3 Lane 2 missions for the most demanding national-security orbits. Vulcan has been grounded since the February 12, 2026 USSF-87 mission after a GEM 63XL solid-rocket-booster nozzle anomaly, and the U.S. Space Force paused NSSL Vulcan launches pending the investigation; ULA targets a Vulcan return to flight by the end of 2026 to resume the NSSL manifest.
Launch services for NASA science missions including Mars rovers, solar probes, and crewed Starliner flights. In March 2026 NASA also selected ULA's Centaur V as the new SLS upper stage from Artemis IV onward, adding a recurring deep-space hardware line beyond launch services.
Commercial launch services anchored by Amazon's Leo (Project Kuiper) constellation campaign. Atlas V completed its Amazon Leo campaign on July 2, 2026 with LEO 8 - its eighth and final Amazon mission - leaving the remaining Amazon backlog (38 contracted Vulcan launches) entirely on Vulcan, with the first Vulcan Amazon Leo flight (LV-01, 45 satellites) targeted for September 2026. Deadline pressure on that manifest eased on June 5, 2026, when the FCC granted Amazon a limited waiver of its July 30, 2026 milestone to have half of its ~3,236 satellites in orbit (Amazon expected only about 700, ~21%, by that date); the FCC kept the July 30, 2029 full-deployment deadline, so Vulcan remains on the critical path for Amazon's constellation.
Employees
~2,700
Est. Annual Revenue
Not publicly disclosed; backlog includes $5.3B for 19 Space Force missions through 2029 plus 38 contracted Amazon Vulcan launches. Parents Boeing and Lockheed Martin each guaranteed up to $500M of ULA credit facilities (a combined $1B) maturing July 30, 2027, agreed in May 2026 and disclosed in their Q2 2026 SEC filings, amid Vulcan-grounding financial strain - pushing Lockheed's ULA equity investment to about $617M (from $551M) and Boeing's to about $585M (from $556M). Separately, the private bond placement ULA was reported seeking on August 5, 2026 (arranged by US Bancorp, Mizuho and Wells Fargo) was upsized threefold and priced on August 18, 2026 at $1.5B across four tranches maturing in three to ten years, with proceeds earmarked for expanded Decatur, Alabama assembly-line capacity and pad upgrades at Cape Canaveral SLC-41 and Vandenberg SLC-3E to support a target cadence of about 25 launches per year.
Consecutive Launch Successes
160+ (streak intact through the final Atlas V Amazon mission, LEO 8, on July 2, 2026; no ULA launch has flown since, pending Vulcan's return to flight)
National Security Missions
100+ ULA national-security missions since 2006; USSF-87 (Feb 12, 2026) was Vulcan's latest NSSL launch, after which Vulcan was grounded pending its GEM 63XL SRB anomaly investigation. The grounding has already cost ULA at least one Vulcan NSSL slot: around March 20-24, 2026 the Space Force reassigned GPS III SV-10, the final GPS III satellite, from Vulcan to a SpaceX Falcon 9, giving ULA the USSF-70 mission (a Northrop Grumman satellite-refueling tanker) in a launch-provider exchange, now targeted for Vulcan no earlier than summer 2028. Next NSSL Vulcan flight otherwise expected after a return to flight targeted for late 2026
Amazon Leo Satellites Delivered
226 (across eight Atlas V flights through LEO 8, July 2, 2026 - final Atlas V Amazon Leo mission; remaining Amazon backlog now on Vulcan, first Vulcan Amazon flight LV-01 targeted Sept 2026)
ULA's board confirms long-serving President and CEO Tory Bruno is leaving the company after nearly 12 years; COO John Elbon, a 35-year Boeing veteran, takes over as interim CEO while the board searches for a permanent successor. Bruno later joins Blue Origin to lead a new National Security Group.
On March 6, 2026 NASA awards ULA a sole-source contract to adapt the Vulcan-derived Centaur V as the new upper stage for the SLS Moon rocket from Artemis IV onward, dropping Boeing's long-delayed Exploration Upper Stage. The agency chose Centaur V over Blue Origin's New Glenn upper stage on schedule and RL10-heritage grounds, standardizing SLS in a near-Block 1 configuration to support a cadence of roughly one launch every 10 months.
Vulcan remained grounded through mid-2026 following the February 12, 2026 USSF-87 mission, in which one of four Northrop Grumman GEM 63XL solid rocket boosters suffered a nozzle anomaly during ascent (the payloads still reached orbit). The U.S. Space Force paused all NSSL Vulcan launches pending the investigation. After Northrop Grumman completed a successful GEM 63XL static-fire test on April 15, 2026 validating nozzle design changes, ULA confirmed on May 14, 2026 that the investigation was still ongoing; ULA leadership says Vulcan will return to flight by the end of 2026, with the first Vulcan Amazon Leo mission (LV-01, 45 satellites) targeted for September 2026 pending that return.
Atlas V flies its eighth and final Amazon Leo mission, LEO 8 (LA-08), on July 2, 2026 from SLC-41 - a 551-configuration vehicle (five solid rocket boosters) lofting 29 satellites weighing about 18 tons, tying the heaviest payload ever launched by an Atlas V. The mission takes ULA's cumulative Amazon Leo deliveries to 226 satellites across eight Atlas V flights and retires Atlas V from the Amazon campaign, shifting the remaining Amazon backlog entirely onto Vulcan.
In Q2 2026 SEC filings, Lockheed Martin (July 23, 2026 10-Q) and Boeing (July 28, 2026 10-Q) disclose that in May 2026 they each agreed to guarantee up to $500 million of ULA credit facilities maturing July 30, 2027 - a combined $1 billion backstop - after the Vulcan grounding hurt ULA's finances. The guarantees push Lockheed's ULA equity investment to about $617 million (from $551 million at the end of 2025) and Boeing's to about $585 million (from $556 million); Lockheed also lowers its Space segment's full-year 2026 profit outlook to $1.34-1.38 billion, citing reduced ULA equity earnings.
ULA is seeking to raise about $500 million through a private bond placement arranged by US Bancorp, Mizuho and Wells Fargo to refinance existing debt, according to reports first surfacing August 5, 2026 - a separate financing action from the combined $1 billion in matching credit guarantees Boeing and Lockheed Martin extended to ULA in May 2026, underscoring the continued financial strain from Vulcan's grounding since February 2026.
Blue Origin confirms around August 5-6, 2026 that the May 28, 2026 New Glenn pad explosion was caused by a liquid oxygen valve fault in one of the rocket's BE-4 engines, and says it will proactively retrofit the same valve on BE-4 engines already in ULA's inventory - including engines at ULA's Decatur, Alabama factory and at Cape Canaveral - with updated hardware expected ready by the end of August 2026. ULA says the retrofit does not change its target of returning Vulcan to flight before the end of 2026, adding a second engine-side workstream alongside the ongoing GEM 63XL solid-rocket-booster nozzle investigation.
ULA rolls a Vulcan Centaur to SLC-41 and, on August 6, 2026, completes a wet dress rehearsal of the rocket paired with a LEO-optimized Centaur V - the configuration set to fly the first Amazon Leo mission on Vulcan (LV-01) - ahead of an extensive test countdown from a new launch-processing lane dedicated to Amazon, a concrete step toward Vulcan's targeted end-of-2026 return to flight.
ULA names Mark Peller as its permanent president and CEO effective August 17, 2026, ending an eight-month interim period led by COO John Elbon since Tory Bruno's December 2025 resignation. Peller has been with ULA since its 2006 formation, led Vulcan rocket development from inception through certification, and most recently served as chief operating officer overseeing Atlas and Vulcan operations.
The private bond placement ULA was reported seeking on August 5, 2026 (initially targeted at about $500 million, arranged by US Bancorp, Mizuho and Wells Fargo) is upsized threefold and priced on August 18, 2026 at $1.5 billion across four tranches maturing in three to ten years, reflecting strong institutional demand. Proceeds are earmarked for expanded Decatur, Alabama assembly-line capacity and pad upgrades at Cape Canaveral SLC-41 and Vandenberg SLC-3E, supporting a target cadence of about 25 launches per year across 2026-2027.
On August 15, 2026 ULA hoisted the LEO-optimized Centaur V upper stage atop the Vulcan first-stage booster inside the Vertical Integration Facility-G (VIF-G) next to Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral, stacking the vehicle set to fly LV-01, the first Amazon Leo mission on Vulcan - a concrete step following the August 6 wet dress rehearsal toward the targeted September 2026 launch.
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.
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.
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.
