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.
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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
- Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 15-16, SpaceX, is scheduled to launch.Oct 27, 2026
- Vulcan VC6L | Amazon Leo (LV-01), United Launch Alliance, is scheduled to launch.Oct 29, 2026
- Intent to Sole Source - Lunar Exploration Ground Sites (LEGS) Public Private Partnership (PPP), a Presolicitation and a sole-source notice, closes.Oct 30, 2026
- Chemical and Electric Propulsion Systems (Pre-RFI Market Research), a Sources Sought notice, closes.Oct 30, 2026
- Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 15-18, SpaceX, is scheduled to launch.Oct 30, 2026
Earlier issues
- Oct 19, 2026In the week to October 19, 2026, four orbital launches flew, $488.5M across 26 awards…
- Oct 12, 2026In the week to October 12, 2026, three orbital launches flew, $5.0M across 27 awards…
- Oct 5, 2026Four orbital launches flew, $33.3M across 16 awards reached the federal record, and 15…
- Sep 28, 2026Four orbital launches flew, the change feed records an $843M award to Lockheed Martin,…
- Sep 21, 2026Twelve orbital launches flew, no new awards appear in the week's totals, and Open Cosmos…
- Sep 14, 2026Three launches flew, the week's totals list zero awards, and 47 new solicitations posted,…
- Sep 7, 2026Five launches flew and all five succeeded, one award of $660.0M was signed, and 45 new…
- Aug 31, 2026Six launches flew and each is marked successful, the Roman Space Telescope among them;…
- Aug 24, 2026Six orbital launches flew and all were recorded successful, 41 new solicitations posted,…
- Aug 17, 2026Four launches flew and one of them failed at Max-Q, while we logged 1,329 changes and 64…
- Aug 10, 2026Six launches flew, 37 new solicitations posted, our weekly award total came to zero, and…
- Aug 3, 2026Four launches flew and all four succeeded, 48 new solicitations posted, and $9.5M was…
- Jul 27, 2026Seven launches all succeeded, Blue Origin added 320 job listings, defense primes rose on…
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.