The Monday brief, Oct 26, 2026

The Monday brief Oct 26, 2026

In the week to October 26, 2026, seven orbital launches flew, $68.9M across 18 awards reached the federal record, six new solicitations were posted, and five launches are scheduled for the coming week.

Generated image, Higgsfield nano_banana_2, 2026-10-25. Made by a model for this issue. It depicts nothing: no part of it is a photograph, and nothing in it is evidence of anything the brief describes.

The opportunity

A Secure By Design call closes November 13

STAR-FISH CALL 017 - Secure By Design is a Solicitation from DEPT OF DEFENSE, office FA9453 AFRL RVK, closing November 13, 2026. Its description carries the reference FA9453-21-S-0001 and names the Air Force Research Laboratory/Space Vehicle Directorate, under an announcement overview for CALL 017. That is as far as the description goes.

CY28 FFP Services is a sole-source notice closing October 30. The Space Development Agency intends to issue a modification to the sole source, Firm-Fixed-Price (FFP) contract number FA240125C0001 awarded to Space X. Its office field reads FA2401 SPACE DEVELOPMENT AGENCY SDA.

The company move

A story reports a DoD award to EraDrive

A story dated October 19 reports, as an exclusive, that EraDrive Lands $13M DoD Award For Autonomy Module. The headline gives the amount as $13M. A story dated October 20 reports that State Department Taps Trio for $5M Space Diplomacy Push.

A story dated October 24 reports that Space Force reveals first 6 ‘operational’ contracts for civil reserve support in space monitoring. That headline describes the contracts as civil reserve support in space monitoring.

The money

Stories report a satcom forecast and Xona round

A story dated October 21 reports Global Satcom Services Revenues to Reach $145 Billion by 2035. A story dated October 22 reports that Xona Raises $250M Series D to Scale Commercial GPS Constellation.

An award to MISTRAL INC of $52.9M reached the federal record on October 23, signed July 23, 2026, from the Department of Defense through the Department of the Army, for MISTRAL HERO-120 ALL-UP ROUND (AUR) SYSTEMS, FIRE CONTROL UNITS (FCUS), SHIPPING, NON-REOCCURRING ENGINEERING AND ASSOCIATED SPARE PARTS. The week's totals give $68.9M committed across 18 awards that reached the federal record this week.

The launch record

Seven launches flew and five are scheduled

Seven orbital launches flew in the week. Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 15-15 is listed as Launch Successful on October 23, and H3-24 | Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) is listed the same way on October 19.

The coming week has five launches scheduled. Schedule entries noted on October 24 show that Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 15-16 slipped 1 day and that Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 15-18 slipped 1 day.

The week in numbers

Watch this week

Evidence cutoff Oct 25, 01:30 UTC. Figures stay as published; the site's rolling totals move daily. Written each week from the site's own record of the previous seven days. Every number and name in it is machine-checked against that record before a person reads it, an outside model then tries to refute it, and a person approves it before it appears here. Every claim links to the page that holds its evidence.

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