Over the next 18 months, Astrolab and Lunar Outpost will finalize rover designs, conduct crewed evaluations, and qualify flight units for operational readiness.

Moon Base I is targeted for launch no earlier than fall 2026 and will use Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 Endurance lander to deliver NASA scientific instruments to the Shackleton Connecting Ridge.

NASA announced updates to MoonFall, a mission targeting 2028 that will send four drones to make short hops across the lunar surface to survey potential Artemis landing sites.

When stowed on a CLPS lander, Venturi Astrolab’s Crewed Lunar Vehicle-1 measures approximately 6.6 feet long, 7.5 feet wide, and 7.2 feet tall.

NASA awarded Venturi Astrolab a $219 million task order to develop the Crewed Lunar Vehicle-1 under Phase 1 High Achievability Mission task orders of the Lunar Terrain Vehicle Services contract.

Lunar Outpost’s Pegasus rover is a lighter, mission-ready evolution of its Eagle rover built to meet NASA’s updated Lunar Terrain Vehicle requirements.

Venturi Astrolab’s Crewed Lunar Vehicle-1 is designed to transport astronauts and supplies and can also conduct surface operations remotely.

The Lunar Terrain Vehicle Services indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract issued by NASA in 2024 has a potential maximum value of up to $4.6 billion over 13 years.

Venturi Astrolab’s Crewed Lunar Vehicle-1 weighs a maximum of about 2,094 pounds and can reach speeds of more than 6 mph on level ground.

Moon Base III includes a Lunar Vertex investigation studying lunar swirls, with payloads from ESA and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute.

NASA anticipates that the first lunar terrain vehicles will reach the Moon by 2028.

The Space Development Agency announced a strategic pause for launching missions in March while it worked out technical issues.

The Space Rapid Capabilities Office is a roughly 200-person office tasked with getting space systems into troops’ hands quickly.

The Space Development Agency was established in 2019 as an independent agency.

The House bill would transfer the Space Development Agency director’s authorities to the Space Force portfolio acquisition executive in charge of missile warning and tracking.

The Space Rapid Capabilities Office was established by the FY18 National Defense Authorization Act.

The Space Development Agency launched Tranche 1 of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture transport layer in October.

The Space Development Agency has been working to field commercially built satellites in tranches to boost military communications, tracking, and missile-defense capabilities.

The House FY27 National Defense Authorization Act would eliminate the Space Development Agency and the Space Rapid Capabilities Office.

Northrop Grumman is partnering with Apex to develop space-based interceptor satellites for the U.S. Golden Dome missile-defense shield.

Project Shadow is scheduled to launch net this month to validate space-based interceptor capabilities in low Earth orbit.

Apex’s Nova satellite-bus platform will be fitted with an orbital magazine carrying two scaled-down demo interceptors for Project Shadow.

Project Shadow is designed to demonstrate Link-182-capable inter-satellite links, infrared missile-warning-and-tracking payloads, and solid-rocket motor interceptors.

Raytheon partnered with Rocket Lab in May to support Golden Dome-related work.

Northrop Grumman is one of 12 companies selected to build the space-based interceptor component of Golden Dome.

Apex is moving ahead with Project Shadow in parallel with its work with Northrop Grumman.

The U.S. Department of Defense estimates that Golden Dome will cost $185 billion.

Apex CEO Ian Cinnamon said the Northrop Grumman partnership will enable operational, constellation-scale space-based missile defense.

Apex announced a $15 million self-funded demonstration mission called Project Shadow in October.

Northrop Grumman has demonstrated key capabilities through ground tests this year and is on track to deliver on-orbit missile-defense capabilities with Apex in 2027.

Golden Dome could consist of at least 7,000 satellites at full capacity.

Anduril partnered with Impulse Space, Inversion Space, K2 Space, Sandia National Laboratories, and Voyager Technologies in May to support Golden Dome-related work.

Apex was founded to support proliferated constellations like Golden Dome.

ParaZero Technologies' DefendAir system provides a kinetic, non-explosive layer of defense against hostile unmanned aerial systems.

ParaZero Technologies integrates DefendAir Net Pods into autonomous, unmanned, and other defense platforms for physical drone interception in complex operational environments.

The DefendAir product family includes autonomous vehicle-mounted configurations, airborne configurations, and man-operated portable applications for personal protection.

ParaZero Technologies received its initial order from a major United States-based Tier-1 defense corporation for DefendAir Net Pods.

ParaZero Technologies' patented technology physically captures hostile attack drones without using conventional explosive countermeasures.

Blue Origin plans to fly again before the end of 2026.

The oxygen, liquid hydrogen, and LNG tanks at LC-36 are in good shape.

Blue Origin will continue 7x2 rate manufacturing at pace as planned and store the stages for later use.

Blue Origin’s booster Never Tell Me The Odds and three GS-2 vehicles in the integration facility appear to be in good condition.

Blue Origin will not move directly to a 9x4 configuration.

The big support tower at LC-36 is damaged but can be repaired in place.

Blue Origin is planning to rebuild LC-36 to a vertical-operations configuration that does not require a transporter-erector.

Blue Origin is pursuing an alternative vertical operations concept instead of building a new transporter-erector.

Roscosmos delivered a Soyuz-2.1b rocket to Baikonur for the launch of Progress MS-36, scheduled for November.

The Jiuquan entities aim to encourage commercial space enterprises to operate at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.

The Lieyan-2 engine burns rocket-grade kerosene and liquid oxygen to generate 10 tons of thrust.

Jinhua-1’s second stage will be powered by a single vacuum-optimized Lieyan-2 engine.