Month: February 2026

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GeekWire

Stoke Space raises $350M to get set for rocket debut

Propellant tank on Stoke Space's factory floor
A propellant tank takes shape at Stoke Space’s rocket factory in Kent, Wash. (Stoke Space Photo)

Kent, Wash.-based Stoke Space Technologies says it has added another $350 million to its previously announced Series D financing round, bringing the amount raised in the round to $860 million.

The fresh funding will go toward completing activation of the company’s Florida launch complex and expanding production capacity for its fully reusable Nova launch vehicle. Additional capital will be used to accelerate future elements on Stoke’s product road map.

Terms of the round were not disclosed. With the extension of the Series D round, Stoke has raised $1.34 billion to date.

The medium-lift Nova rocket is currently under development. First liftoff from Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is expected sometime this year.

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Business is looking up for space station designers

Illustration: Cutaway view of laboratory workspace on Starlab space station
This cutaway view shows the interior of the Starlab space station’s laboratory. (Starlab Illustration)

How do you design a living space where there’s no up or down? That’s one of the challenges facing Teague, a Seattle-based design and innovation firm that advises space companies such as Blue Origin, Axiom Space and Voyager Technologies on how to lay out their orbital outposts.

Mike Mahoney, Teague’s senior director of space and defense programs, says the zero-gravity environment is the most interesting element to consider in space station design.

“You can’t put things on surfaces, right? You’re not going to have tables, necessarily, unless you can attach things to them, and they could be on any surface,” he told me. “So, directionality is a big factor. And knowing that opens up new opportunities. … You could have, let’s say, two scientists working in different orientations in the same area.”

Over the next few years, NASA and its partners are expected to make the transition from the aging International Space Station to an array of commercial space stations — and Teague is helping space station builders get ready for the shift.

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Starfish doubles down on Space Force satellite servicing

Illustration: Otter spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit with Earth in background
An artist’s conception shows Starfish Space’s Otter spacecraft in geosynchronous Earth orbit. (Starfish Space Illustration)

Tukwila, Wash.-based Starfish Space has been awarded a $54.5 million contract to produce another Otter satellite servicing spacecraft for the U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command.

The deal, announced this week, builds on a $37.5 million Space Systems Command contract that was awarded in 2024 through the Department of the Air Force’s Strategic Funding Increase program, or STRATFI. This new contract is funded through a Pentagon program called Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies, or APFIT. Starfish noted that the award is the only APFIT contract issued to a space company in the current cycle and ranks among the largest in the program’s history.

Austin Link, co-founder of Starfish Space, said his company was “proud to grow our partnership with the Space Force under the APFIT program.”

“APFIT is a key program in transitioning platforms like Otter from development to deployed capability,” Link said today in a news release. “Through dynamic space operations and autonomous augmented maneuver, we enable the Space Force to sustain critical space assets, increase resilience and maintain operational flexibility across evolving mission demands.”

Like the earlier contract, the new one calls on Starfish to provide an Otter spacecraft for dynamic space operations in geosynchronous Earth orbit. Delivery is scheduled for 2028, with an option for two years of operational support.

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Interlune digs into opportunities for lunar construction

Interlune prototype excavator being tested on rocky patch of land
Interlune and Vermeer worked together to test a full-scale prototype of an excavator with auxiliary components. (Interlune / Vermeer Photo)

Interlune is leveraging a $150,000 NASA contract to develop develop lunar trenching and excavation technology — and although the primary goal is to extract valuable helium-3 from moon dirt, the project also signals the company’s broader play for lunar infrastructure.

Interlune’s work on the Small Business Technology Transfer Phase 1 contract, done in partnership with the Colorado School of Mines, demonstrates that the Seattle-based startup’s business model isn’t limited to helium-3. In the years ahead, the technologies pioneered by Interlune for resource extraction can also be used for building roads, base camps and other construction projects on the moon.

For example, the excavator that’s the focus of the NASA funding — known as the Scalable Implement for Lunar Trenching, or SILT — will support Interlune’ plan to sift through tons of lunar soil. But it will also support NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to establish a sustainable lunar presence in the 2030s.

“We’re looking at some other tools that would move regolith around, or prepare a site for making a road or building a radiation berm, burying a certain piece of infrastructure like a nuclear reactor,” Interlune CEO Rob Meyerson told me. “So, we’re very interested in participating in the Artemis program in broader ways, and we think the technology we’re developing for helium-3 extraction can support that.”

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Cosmic Space

Elon Musk lays out a new vision as SpaceX acquires xAI

Illustration: Starship deploying satellite with Earth in background
An artist's conception shows a Starship upper stage deploying a satellite in orbit. (SpaceX Illustration)

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says he’s making space-based artificial intelligence the “immediate focus” of a newly expanded company that not only builds rockets and satellites, but also controls xAI’s generative-AI software and the X social-media platform.

That’s the upshot of today’s announcement that SpaceX has acquired xAI. The Information quoted unnamed sources as saying that xAI was valued at $250 billion, while SpaceX’s value was set at a trillion dollars. That would make SpaceX the most valuable private company in the world — but because Musk held a controlling interest in both companies, those valuations may be somewhat subjective.

Ross Gerber, an investment adviser who tracks Musk’s business dealings, quipped on X that the world’s richest person decided to go ahead with the acquisition after “a short negotiation with himself.”

Musk said the combination of SpaceX and xAI would facilitate the creation of a new constellation of orbital data centers. SpaceX is already seeking approval from the Federal Communications Commission to put up to a million satellites in low Earth orbit for such a constellation.

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