NewSpace RFP

From October 2017 to June 2026, USAspending records 13,469 new contracts this desk reads as space work, from NASA, Space Force contracting offices and the Air Force's SBIR and STTR programs, and from any agency buying goods or services coded as space products. This report counts the small companies that won them, quarter by quarter, and sets the 43 days of the 2025 shutdown and the six-month lapse in SBIR and STTR authority beside the same days of earlier years. A company counts as small when the contracting officer determined it small for that award. The Federal Procurement Data System releases Defense Department records after a 90-day delay, so this count treats June 30, 2026, as its last settled day and later months as provisional.

Between 586 and 640 small companies a year won space contracts from fiscal 2018 to 2025.

The count rose from 586 in fiscal 2018 to 632 in fiscal 2020, then stayed between 599 and 640. In fiscal 2025, 615 small companies won at least one new space contract, against 628 in fiscal 2021.

Obligations to small firms rose over the same years. Every contract action by NASA, the Space Force offices and the Air Force SBIR and STTR programs, and every action coded as a space product or service, obligated $3.80 billion to small firms in fiscal 2018 and $7.02 billion in fiscal 2025. Their share of those obligations went from 16.8 percent to 22.6 percent. The dollar figures cover every action in that scope, including actions on contracts signed before October 2017, and are in current dollars.

In seven of the eight full fiscal years the count was highest in the fourth quarter, July to September; fiscal 2021 peaked in the third quarter. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, 375 small firms won new space awards, and 246 of them won an SBIR or STTR Phase I or II award.

Four small companies won new space awards during the 43-day shutdown in 2025.

The government shut down from October 1 to November 12, 2025, the longest shutdown on record. In those 43 days the record shows 36 new space awards, 14 of them to four small companies. Metis Technology Partners received 10 of the 14, all delivery orders under one contract, FA252122D0002, for launch pad safety support from the contracting squadron at Patrick Space Force Base. In the same 43 days of the seven years before, between 25 and 55 small companies won space awards, and 29 did in 2024. NASA made four space awards during the shutdown, none to a small company.

The quarter from October to December 2025 had 30 small companies with new space awards, the fewest of any quarter since October 2017. The first quarters of fiscal 2018 to 2025 had between 72 and 118. In the weeks after the shutdown, November 13 to December 31, 28 small companies won space awards, against 43 to 74 in the same weeks of the seven earlier years. From October 2025 to June 2026, 206 small companies won space awards, against 323 in the same months a year earlier.

Obligations fell in October 2025. That month the scope obligated $68 million to small firms and $278 million to other firms. In the Octobers of fiscal 2018 to 2025, small firms received between $175 million and $267 million, and other firms between $1.12 billion and $2.11 billion.

The 2018-19 shutdown closed NASA from December 22, 2018, to January 25, 2019, while the Defense Department had its full-year appropriations. NASA made two space awards in those 35 days. In the same days of the six following years it made between 38 and 58.

SBIR and STTR Phase I and II awards for space work fell to 25 during the six-month lapse, from 81 in the same months a year earlier.

SBIR and STTR authority expired on September 30, 2025, and returned on April 13, 2026, when the President signed the Small Business Innovation and Economic Security Act of 2026, which extends both programs through September 30, 2031. Without authority, agencies could not issue new SBIR or STTR awards or solicitations, AIP reported in October 2025, and the Defense Department told companies that pending awards would proceed only if fiscal 2025 funds were still available.

From October 1, 2025, to April 12, 2026, the record dates 25 new Phase I or II awards for space work: nine from NASA and 16 from Air Force and Space Force offices. In the same days of the seven years before there were between 72 and 120. Counting every SBIR and STTR Phase I and II award in the scope before Jev's reading, space work or not, the lapse months held 138 against 424 a year earlier.

The record covers 11 weeks after reauthorization in full, April 13 to June 30, 2026. Those weeks held 28 Phase I and II space awards under the programs, against 45 in the same weeks of 2025 and between 41 and 242 in the six years before that. The record for July to September 2026 is incomplete for the Defense Department; so far it shows 151 small companies with Phase I or II space awards in that quarter, against 246 in the same quarter of 2025.

The new law adds strategic breakthrough awards of up to $30 million, and from fiscal 2027 each agency sets its own limits on proposals per company, per solicitation or per topic. The Department of War's first fiscal 2027 SBIR and STTR release opens for proposals on October 28 and closes on November 25, with 25 topics, 16 of them from the Department of the Air Force, and a limit on proposals per topic.

NASA's Shared Services Center made more space awards to small companies than any other office.

From October 2017 to June 2026, the NASA Shared Services Center made 4,440 new space awards to small firms. Next came Air Force offices making SBIR and STTR awards, with 959; the contracting squadrons at Space Force bases, with 906; NASA's Johnson Space Center, with 354; and the Air Force Research Laboratory's Space Vehicles Directorate, with 305. In fiscal 2025 the four offices with the most were the NASA Shared Services Center (520), the contracting squadrons at Space Force bases (157), Space Systems Command (102) and Air Force offices making SBIR and STTR awards (92).

Since fiscal 2021, 1,269 small companies have won their first space contract on record since October 2017.

A company counts as new here when its first space award in these records, determined small, came after September 2020; the records begin in October 2017, so a company may have won space work before then. Of the 263 that entered in fiscal 2021, 120 had won at least one more space award by June 2026, and 127 entered through an SBIR or STTR Phase I or II award. With the same three-year lookback each year, new small firms numbered 263 in fiscal 2021, 263 in 2022, 292 in 2023, 274 in 2024 and 250 in 2025, and 74 from October 2025 to June 2026.

Nine of the 11 companies SpaceWERX selected for 2026 STRATFI agreements have at least one award in this scope, among them ThinkOrbital (10 awards since August 2022), Scout Space (9 since November 2021) and Muon Space (3 since November 2024). Three of the 11 have an award under the four space NAICS codes.

A space solicitation the desk keeps has a median of 23 days from the posting date the index holds to its response date, and a sources-sought notice 17.5 days.

This desk keeps 234 space notices from SAM.gov, collected since July 24, 2026. From the posting date the index holds for each notice to its response date, the 35 solicitations have a median span of 23 days and the 54 sources-sought notices 17.5 days; 43 of the sources-sought notices have spans of 30 days or fewer. Presolicitations have a median span of 15 days and combined synopses and solicitations 6. These figures cover 185 of the 234 notices. The other 49 are 25 award and justification notices, which carry no response window, 5 notices missing a date, and 19 whose response date falls on or before the posting date the index holds.

As of October 15, 2026, the index holds 13 early-stage space notices with responses due on or before December 11:

The current continuing resolution runs to December 11 and restricts Defense Department production and activities.

The fiscal 2027 continuing resolution, P.L. 119-103, signed on September 2, funds the government through December 11, 2026. It keeps NASA at its fiscal 2026 level of $24.4 billion, and the Space Force's requested rise from $32 billion in fiscal 2026 to $71 billion waits for final appropriations, SpacePolicyOnline reported. CRS reads Section 102 of the resolution as barring the Defense Department from funding new production of items not funded for production in fiscal 2026 or earlier, and production rates above those sustained with fiscal 2026 funds. Section 102(a)(3) also bars it from starting, resuming or continuing any project, activity, operation or organization for which appropriations, funds or other authority were not available in fiscal 2026. NASA began every fiscal year in this count without its full-year appropriations, under a continuing resolution or, in fiscal 2026, a shutdown. The Defense Department had its appropriations on October 1 only in fiscal 2019. The first chart shades each span.

The desk could not confirm eight things this count depends on.

• The authority behind the 25 Phase I and II space awards dated inside the SBIR and STTR lapse is not in the record, which names neither the solicitation nor the year of funds each drew on.
• Whether awards after reauthorization have returned to earlier levels is still open. The record covers 11 weeks after April 13 in full, and Defense Department actions after mid-July 2026 are not yet public.
• Each company's current size is outside the record. The size field is the contracting officer's determination for that award, and a company that has outgrown its size standard can carry a small determination on earlier awards.
• Subcontracts are outside the count, which covers prime contracts. Small companies that work as subcontractors appear in subaward records, which the desk holds from April 2025.
• Other agencies' space work enters the count only when it is coded as a space product or service; Navy, Army, Missile Defense Agency, DARPA and NOAA awards are among it. Grants, cooperative agreements and award types outside purchase orders, delivery orders, definitive contracts and BPA calls are left out.
• Each relevance verdict can be wrong. Against the hand-labeled sample described below, Jev's verdicts were 72 percent precise with 85 percent recall: it kept some awards the readers judged outside space work and dropped some they judged inside it.
• Each notice's first posting date is unchecked. The index holds one posting date for each notice, and the desk did not check whether an earlier version of a notice was posted sooner.
• Company identity across records rests on the UEI. Companies are counted by the recipient's UEI on each award, a renamed or acquired company can count twice, and 49 of the 3,479 companies in this scope are in the desk's entity registry.