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Sierra Space announced it has secured contracts with undisclosed national security and commercial customers to fly payloads aboard Dream Chaser on the spaceplane's inaugural mission, which also carries civil payloads via NASA's Cargo Resupply Services programme. CEO Dan Jablonsky said the company is 'establishing a new operational model in which the same platform serves national security, civil, and commercial customers on a single mission'. Sierra Space describes Dream Chaser as the only commercial reusable, runway-capable spaceplane, and said it is still finalising the manifest with defence, civil and commercial payloads. The customers, contract values and launch date are not disclosed in the release.

NASA selected Blue Origin on 1 September 2026 to develop its Mars Telecommunications Network, a firm-fixed-price contract with a maximum potential value of approximately $700 million to deliver a high-performance Mars telecommunications orbiter no later than 31 December 2028. Blue Origin will design, develop, integrate, launch and operate the network, which NASA expects to be operational at Mars by 2030.

Florida Today reported that the first phase of Relativity Space's expansion in Brevard County, Florida - previously known by the code name Project Forge - involves a total capital investment of $565 million and is projected to create 590 new jobs at average salaries of $86,000. The expansion covers a new Terran R factory plus expanded test and launch infrastructure at Cape Canaveral, where Relativity Space plans to launch Terran R from Launch Complex 16. The report follows an earlier agreement struck with Space Florida, reported by SpaceNews in July 2026, to expand Terran R production in the state.

Iridium filed its definitive merger proxy (DEFM14A) and Rocket Lab filed the related 424B3 prospectus on 26 August 2026, finalising terms of the merger agreement signed 28 June 2026. Each Iridium share converts into $27.00 in cash plus Rocket Lab stock at an exchange ratio collared between 0.2400 shares (if Rocket Lab trades at or above $112.50) and 0.4000 shares (at or below $67.50); Rocket Lab has a committed $3.6 billion 364-day senior secured bridge facility. A virtual special meeting of Iridium stockholders is scheduled for 24 September 2026 at 8:30am ET, after which Iridium would become an indirect wholly owned Rocket Lab subsidiary.

On 25 Aug 2026 SpaceX announced a $100 billion investment to build its largest rocket launch facility yet in Vermilion Parish, southern Louisiana, announced jointly with Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry. Louisiana Economic Development states SpaceX "will invest $100 billion to build its largest launch facility in Vermilion Parish, a spaceport designed to support" high-cadence operations; CNBC reports the site will be called "Starbase, LA" and will "support thousands of launches annually". Reuters describes it as "a $100 billion effort" to build "its largest rocket launch complex yet". Local reporting (WBRZ) says construction begins in 2027. Material as one of the largest single private infrastructure commitments ever announced, establishing a second Starship base beyond Starbase in Texas and materially expanding SpaceX's launch-cadence ceiling.

Replying on X on 22 August 2026 to physicist Casey Handmer, Elon Musk gave his clearest statement yet on retiring Falcon 9: 'once Starship is flying reliably several times per week, it makes sense to shift super scarce SpaceX engineering and production resources to Starship to get launch rate to several times per day, which means winding down Falcon.' This is a stated CONDITION rather than a dated retirement schedule — Starship has not yet flown weekly, let alone daily. Alongside the statement, Bloomberg is reported to have found that SpaceX has stopped booking new Falcon 9 launches beyond 2028 and has halted production of some expendable Falcon hardware, which are concrete operational steps rather than intent. Falcon remains by far SpaceX's busiest vehicle, on pace for roughly 140-145 flights in 2026 after 165 in 2025, with president Gwynne Shotwell having already said Falcon flights would 'tail off' as Starship comes online. The unresolved dependency is NASA crew access: Falcon and Dragon remain the only means by which NASA rotates astronauts to and from the International Space Station, and Starship is not certified to carry NASA crews. Musk's post did not address how that handoff would work if Falcon winds down before a crew-rated Starship variant exists. Starship's most recent flight in July 2026 ended in a soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean; Flight 14 is aimed at reaching orbit for the first time, and an upper-stage tower catch attempt has been pushed back to what Musk called 'a few months' away.

Intuitive Machines was selected to provide the spacecraft platform and mission solutions for NASA's EAGLE-VSWIR Earth science mission - an extension of the company's spacecraft-production business, built on the Lanteris platforms, beyond lunar and national security work into Earth observation.

Firefly was added to NASA's Spacecraft Processing Operations Contract vehicle, giving it eligibility to bid future task orders rather than a single funded award.

Reuters reported that Astra Space is seeking to raise $250m at a $1bn valuation, in a round expected to close in the same quarter, to fund Rocket 4 development and expand satellite propulsion work for defence missions. The company was taken private in 2024 and has not launched since the Rocket 3 series.

SpaceX is progressing toward final closing of its previously-signed $60 billion all-stock acquisition of Anysphere (maker of the AI coding assistant Cursor), with regulatory reviews approaching completion and closing anticipated before end-August 2026. The deal — first announced June 16, 2026 — folds Cursor's code-generation stack into SpaceX's new AI Compute unit alongside Starlink and launch.