NewSpace RFP

The opportunity

Space Force opens a satellite communications commercial solicitation

The United States Space Force posted a Commercial Solutions Opening under its Battle Management, Command, Control, Communication and Space Intelligence program office, covering the Satellite Communication Augmentation Resource, in a two phase closed variant. It closes on 2026-10-15. Our record holds the title and the closing date for this notice so far. On the same desk, a Notice of Intent for MILSATCOM Systems Engineering, Integration and Test closes on 2026-09-23.

The company move

Rocket Lab flies and moves its next mission earlier

Electron flew Owl By The Dozen (StriX Launch 12) on 2026-09-19 with a successful result, after the mission moved 42 days earlier and shifted to Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1B. The follow-on, Electron carrying Owlright, Owlright, Owlright (StriX Launch 13), moved 96 days earlier, the largest schedule change logged this week. It went from TBD to Go, moved to Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1B, and sits on the schedule for 2026-09-26.

Rocket Lab also filed an 8-K dated 2026-09-19, and 77 job listings were first seen for the company against 57 no longer listed.

The money

Open Cosmos raises €300 million, NASA awards StarBurst launch

News this week reported that Open Cosmos raised €300 million, under a headline that says investors are backing Europe's space push. A second headline in the same file says an EnduroSat raise pushed European NewSpace funding above €1 billion for September.

Another headline reports that NASA awarded launch services for the StarBurst Gamma-Ray Detector. Our record carries the headline alone, with no provider or amount.

Totals for the week show zero awards and zero award dollars, so no new awards are recorded. The largest award-value change logged was LOCKHEED MARTIN CORPORATION's award moving from $62M to $83M and back to $62M, repeated across 2026-09-13, 2026-09-14, 2026-09-15 and 2026-09-19. The June 2026 award analysis also entered the record, and it shows monthly award dollars moving from $566.2M in May 2026 to $174.1M in June 2026.

Fifty filings landed on 2026-09-19, including an 8-K each from Iridium Communications, RTX and Curtiss-Wright. York Space Systems moved 9.3 percent between 2026-09-14 and 2026-09-19.

The launch record

Ten flights, all successful, with Starship pushed back

All 10 orbital launches in the record flew successfully, spread across China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, Rocket Lab, Russian Space Forces, ExPace, SpaceX, ROSCOSMOS, Orienspace Technology, LandSpace and Avio S.p.A. Vega-C carried Sentinel-3C & FLEX on 2026-09-15. Falcon 9 Block 5 flew USSF-259 on 2026-09-17.

Schedule movement ran both directions. Electron's StriX Launch 13 moved 96 days earlier and Long March 8A moved 6 days earlier. Starship | Starlink Group 31-1 (Starship Flight 14) slipped 10 days and now shows 2026-09-28. Falcon 9 Block 5 | SDA Tranche 1 Transport Layer F slipped 92 days, and Crew-13 slipped 2 days while going from TBD to TBC.

A headline in the news file reports that NASA plans to order more Starliner missions and help certify a new rocket to keep it flying. No mission count or rocket name appears in our record.