Spacecraft, Launch Vehicles & Satellites

SANDY HOOK, Conn. - The House Armed Services Committee released the Chairman's Mark of the FY27 defense authorization bill Tuesday. The proposal, which the full HASC committee will review and adjust on Thursday, June 4, would authorize $1.142 trillion in discretionary national security spending, exactly matching the administration's request. The Pentagon's portion of the national security budget totals $1.071 trillion. Similarly, the committee left the defense topline largely in place in its markup of last year's budget. Notably, the committee does not address $350 billion in mandatory funding requested by the administration to support FY27 initiatives through reconciliation. That block of funding will be addressed through a separate legislative process.

Despite the lack of a topline adjustment, the Chairman's Mark proposes some modest changes to programs within the budget. For military acquisition, the bill recommends adding $1.2 billion for procurement and $567.7 million for Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E).

For procurement programs, the biggest increase is $573.3 million for Defense-Wide agencies, followed by an extra $440.6 million for the Air Force and $202.6 million for the Navy. The Army would receive a net increase of only $17.8 million. The bill adds a net $887.5 million for aircraft across the services, supporting an additional six UH-60s, seven CH-47s, two C-130Js, and four MH-139s. The Chairman's Mark also recommends adding $207 million for Navy shipbuilding and $186 million for Army vehicles. Meanwhile, the legislation proposes a $134 million reduction across the Pentagon's various missile accounts.

The RDT&E increase includes $323.5 million for the Army and $191.9 million for the Navy. However, the legislation recommends cutting $329.4 million for the Air Force and $211.4 million for the Space Force. Notable program increases include an extra $175 million for the Nuclear Sea-Launched Cruise Missile (SLCM-N) and $127.2 million for Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) development. Several programs are subject to cuts, including a $705.9 million reduction for Automated Satellite Command and Control (Sat C2) - a Space Force effort to improve command and control capabilities that received $1.5 billion in the FY27 request - $137.4 million for Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) for the Air Force, $51.4 million for Next Generation Adaptive Propulsion, and $52.5 million for the Family of Affordable Mass Missiles (FAMM).

The reconciliation gap has the most significant implications for the administration's broader modernization agenda. The $350 billion left unaddressed includes $155.5 billion for procurement and $124.9 billion for RDT&E. Most of the administration's industrial base investment plans are funded through reconciliation, as is $53.6 billion in research funding sought for the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group, though the Chairman's Mark does support the $1 billion in base funding requested for DAWG. The Pentagon's expanded munitions investment plans are heavily reliant on reconciliation as well, with requested amounts of $24.5 billion for the Army, $10.9 billion for the Navy, and $4.6 billion for the Air Force. Several other programs also used reconciliation to bolster procurement rates in FY27, including the F-35 (which also carries $2.4 billion in reconciliation research funding), the Marine Corps' Medium Landing Ship, and the KC-130J tanker. Nearly the entire Golden Dome research budget relies on reconciliation as well, reflecting $17.1 billion.

Passage of a new reconciliation bill isn't guaranteed, and it's possible that congressional appropriators will address some of these requirements in their markups of the discretionary budget depending on how that process moves forward. Reconciliation aside, the Chairman's Mark supports the sizeable $1.1 trillion base budget, and next week's full HASC review will establish the committee's stance on the investment priorities contained therein.

Source: Forecast International
Associated URL: https://dsm.forecastinternational.com/2026/05/29/draft-hasc-defense-bill-aligns-with-fy27-base-budget-while-bypassing-reconciliation/

CEDAR PARK, Tex. - Firefly Aerospace announced it was awarded a $75 million subcontract from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to deliver four drones to the Moon’s south pole in support of the agency’s MoonFall mission, targeted to launch no earlier than 2028. MoonFall is part of the first phase of NASA’s Moon Base, a long-term lunar exploration and infrastructure initiative designed to enable sustained human presence and expanded scientific and commercial activity at the lunar south pole.

JPL is building the drones and managing the mission for NASA, which will source the launch vehicle for MoonFall. Upon launching, Firefly’s Elytra spacecraft will carry the drones over a 45-day transit to the Moon and enter lunar orbit before deorbiting and performing a braking maneuver to deploy the drones approximately 50 km above the Moon’s south pole.

The MoonFall drones will then land and operate over the course of a single lunar day (up to 14 Earth days) to survey the lunar south pole terrain, including permanently shadowed regions, with high-definition optical cameras and instruments. Based on the legacy of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, the drones will be capable of multiple propulsive hops to explore hard-to-reach areas and map safe landing spots and resources, such as water ice, in support of future human missions under NASA’s Artemis program. After each drone’s final flight, its survive-the-night payload will continue to operate for several months, marking a sustained U.S. presence at the lunar south pole.

The MoonFall subcontract builds on Firefly’s growing portfolio of spacecraft missions, including three additional missions to the Moon through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. Firefly recently completed critical test milestones for Blue Ghost Mission 2 and is making significant progress on Blue Ghost Missions 3 and 4 as the company simultaneously expands its cleanroom to enable an assembly line of lunar landers and spacecraft. Firefly’s Elytra spacecraft are built with proven systems from Blue Ghost Mission 1, including the core avionics, carbon composite structures, and Spectre engines that enabled the first successful commercial Moon landing. With high delta-V and added payload capacity, the Elytra Dark configuration for the MoonFall mission is equipped to deliver 1,000 kg of drones.

Source: Firefly Aerospace
Associated URL: https://fireflyspace.com/news/firefly-aerospace-wins-75-million-nasa-jpl-moonfall-subcontract-to-deliver-drones-to-the-moons-south-pole/

LONG BEACH, Calif - Rocket Lab Corporation announced it has been awarded a $90 million contract by the U.S. Space Force's Space Systems Command (SSC) to design, manufacture, integrate, and operate two geostationary (GEO) satellites hosting the Heimdall space domain awareness (SDA) payload. The award represents Rocket Lab's first satellite production program for geostationary orbit and extends the Company's vertically integrated mission model into a new orbital regime. Rocket Lab will serve as prime contractor and end-to-end mission provider, responsible for spacecraft design and manufacture, integration of the in-house Heimdall optical payload produced by Rocket Lab Optical Systems, launch integration onto a government-furnished launch vehicle, and on-orbit operations for up to five years following commissioning. The two satellites will be built on Rocket Lab's Lightning bus, adapted for the thermal, radiation, propulsion, and station-keeping demands of GEO. Lightning is currently in production across multiple national security programs, including SDA's Tranche 2 Transport Layer-Beta (T2TL-Beta) and Tranche 3 Tracking Layer (T3TRK), as well as commercial constellations. The GEO configuration extends that production heritage while preserving the manufacturing efficiencies and supply chain advantages of Rocket Lab's vertically integrated approach. The contract builds on the success of a Space Systems Command program that began with the prototype development of two Heimdall space-based payloads originally awarded to GEOST, which Rocket Lab acquired in 2025 and integrated as Rocket Lab Optical Systems. The prototype phase developed two Heimdall payloads as small, low-cost electro-optical sensors designed to be hosted on satellites in geosynchronous orbit, augmenting the Space Force's ability to maintain custody of objects in the GEO belt. The new $90 million award transitions the program from payload prototyping to operational space vehicle delivery. Rocket Lab will perform spacecraft assembly, integration, and test at its Long Beach, California Spacecraft Production Complex, with payload delivery from Rocket Lab Optical Systems and mission operations conducted from Rocket Lab facilities following launch.

Source: Rocket Lab
Associated URL: https://rocketlabcorp.com/updates/rocket-lab-awarded-90m-contract-to-build-geo-satellites-hosting-space-domain-awareness-payload-for-u-s-space-force/