United States

NASA •

Artemis is NASA's flagship human lunar exploration programme, targeting a sustained cadence of Moon landings through the end of the decade and into the 2030s, underpinned by the Space Launch System (SLS), the Orion crew vehicle, commercial Human Landing Systems (HLS), and the Gateway lunar outpost [1]. Artemis II — launched 1 April 2026 with Wiseman, Glover, Koch and Hansen aboard — was the first crewed Orion flight, taking four astronauts on a free-return lunar flyby for the first time in over 50 years; Orion 'Integrity' splashed down in the Pacific on 11 April 2026 after setting a farthest-from-Earth record for a crewed spacecraft of 406,740 km [2][13]. Artemis III, targeted for 2027 with its crew (Bresnik, Parmitano, Rubio, Douglas) named on 9 June 2026, will serve as a Low Earth Orbit rendezvous-and-docking demonstration using one or both commercial landers before the first crewed lunar surface landing [1][14]. Artemis IV — currently targeted for early 2028 — will be the first crewed landing near the lunar South Pole, with two of four astronauts descending to the surface via SpaceX's Starship HLS [3]. NASA's OIG (IG-26-004, March 2026) found that lander development challenges will delay planned Artemis launch dates, flagging lack of crew rescue capability as an open risk [6]. As of May 2026, 67 nations have signed the Artemis Accords, underscoring broad international support for NASA's rules-based lunar framework [5].

NASA •

The Commercial Crew Program (CCP) was established by NASA to develop and certify privately built crew transportation systems for International Space Station rotation flights after Space Shuttle retirement in 2011 [1]. Through a series of competitive Space Act Agreements (CCDev, CCDev-2, CCiCap) and ultimately fixed-price Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contracts, NASA selected SpaceX (Crew Dragon) and Boeing (CST-100 Starliner) in September 2014 [3]. SpaceX's Demo-2 in May 2020 returned US human-launch capability for the first time since STS-135 in 2011, and Crew Dragon has since flown twelve operational long-duration rotation missions — Crew-1 through Crew-12, including Crew-10 (March 14, 2025, which enabled the return of the Starliner CFT astronauts), Crew-11 (August 1, 2025) and Crew-12 (February 13, 2026 with Meir, Hathaway, Adenot and Fedyaev) — plus Demo and private flights [2][17][18][19]. Boeing's Starliner Crew Flight Test (CFT) launched June 5, 2024 carrying astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the ISS, but thruster anomalies and helium leaks caused NASA to return the astronauts on Crew Dragon in March 2025; on November 24, 2025 NASA and Boeing modified the contract to convert Starliner-1 into an uncrewed cargo flight (NET April 2026, window since moved to summer 2026), deferring crewed Starliner rotations pending recertification [5][16]. The model — NASA buys transportation services rather than owning hardware — is widely cited as having saved billions versus a traditional cost-plus development and is the template for HLS, Gateway logistics, and Commercial LEO Destinations [6].

NASA •

The Space Launch System (SLS) is NASA's super-heavy-lift expendable rocket, designed to launch the Orion crew vehicle and large co-manifested payloads to lunar and deep-space destinations [1]. SLS Block 1 — used for Artemis I (2022) and Artemis II (April 2026) — generates 8.8 million pounds of liftoff thrust, exceeding Saturn V, and is powered by four RS-25 engines on the Boeing-built core stage plus two five-segment Northrop Grumman solid rocket boosters [4]. Artemis I completed a 25.5-day flight test in November–December 2022, including a 1.4-million-mile distant retrograde orbit and successful Orion heat-shield re-entry [1]. Artemis II's April 1–10, 2026 crewed lunar flyby marked the first crewed SLS flight [5]. The Block 1B upgrade — featuring the Exploration Upper Stage (EUS) built by Boeing — is scheduled to debut on Artemis IV (NET early 2028), with NASA OIG IG-24-015 (August 2024) flagging Boeing quality-management issues, workforce inexperience, and continued cost growth as recurring risks [3]. NASA OIG SP-7 (2024) put the per-flight production-plus-operations cost of an SLS launch at approximately $2.5B — figures the Trump-era and subsequent administrations have repeatedly probed for restructuring [2].

NASA •

Status note: on 2026-03-24 NASA paused Gateway 'in its current form,' redirecting roughly $20B toward a surface-first lunar base architecture; the completed PPE and HALO modules may be repurposed, and ESA's decision on the disposition of its Gateway contributions is due June 2026 [4]. As originally designed, the Lunar Gateway is a small space station in near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) around the Moon, intended to support Artemis crewed lunar surface missions and serve as a multi-decade platform for international cooperation, deep-space exposure science, and Mars-precursor systems testing [1]. The first two modules — the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) built by Maxar (now Maxar Intelligence/Maxar Space) and the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) built by Northrop Grumman — are being integrated for launch as a single stack on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, no-earlier-than December 2027 [4]. ESA contributes the I-HAB international habitation module and the ESPRIT refuelling-and-telecommunications module (Thales Alenia Space prime), JAXA supplies HTV-XG cargo and life-support hardware, CSA provides Canadarm3 robotics, and the UAE's MBRSC will deliver the Crew and Science Airlock [3]. Gateway will be uncrewed between Artemis visits, conducting heliophysics and deep-space radiation science autonomously [1]. NASA OIG IG-21-004 (Nov 2020) raised early concerns about cost growth and integration risk, and GAO-24-106256 (Dec 2023) flagged that PPE/HALO integration is on Artemis IV's critical path [5][6].

SpaceX (commercial; NASA HLS customer) •

Starship and the Super Heavy first-stage booster together form a fully reusable two-stage launch system being developed by SpaceX primarily at its Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, and now also Cape Canaveral [1]. The integrated stack stands ~120m tall and is powered by 33 Raptor methalox engines on the booster plus six on the upper stage, with a stated payload capability of 100-150+ metric tons to LEO in fully reusable configuration [1]. NASA selected SpaceX in April 2021 to develop the Human Landing System (HLS) variant under a $2.89B Option A award, then exercised the $1.15B Option B in November 2022 — the only crewed lunar lander baselined for Artemis III's lunar surface demonstration and Artemis IV's first crewed landing [3][4]. As of June 2026, SpaceX has conducted twelve integrated flight tests from Starbase: the 2025 campaign saw two V2 ship losses (Flights 7 and 8, both with successful booster catches), the first reflight of a Super Heavy booster (Flight 9, May 2025), the first Starship payload deployment and controlled Indian Ocean splashdown (Flight 10, August 2025), and a fully successful final Block 2 flight (Flight 11, October 2025) [16][17]. Flight 12 (22 May 2026) debuted the V3 vehicle from Starbase Pad 2 and reached space, but the ship was lost during descent with breakup at the ocean surface, triggering an FAA-overseen mishap investigation [18]. NASA OIG IG-26-004 (March 2026) found that lander development challenges — including in-space cryogenic propellant transfer at operational scale, a Starship architecture pre-requisite — will delay planned Artemis launch dates [6]. SpaceX remains privately held; no public ticker exists.

NASA •

Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD) is NASA's strategy to ensure continuous US human presence in low Earth orbit after International Space Station retirement, currently planned for 2030 [1]. Under Phase 1 (Dec 2021), NASA awarded $415.6M across three Space Act Agreement teams: Blue Origin / Sierra Space / Boeing's Orbital Reef ($130M base, increased to $172M); Voyager Space (now Starlab Space) / Airbus / Hilton / Northrop Grumman's Starlab ($160M base, increased to ~$217.5M); and Northrop Grumman's free-flyer ($125.6M), later restructured following Northrop's exit and a 2024 amendment letting Northrop pivot to subcontracting roles [2][3]. A parallel Axiom Space contract under the prior NextSTEP-2 framework ($140M) authorizes Axiom to attach commercial modules to ISS Node 2 starting with Ax-1 (Hab One), eventually detaching as a free-flyer when ISS is retired [5]. NASA aims to issue CLD Phase 2 services-procurement awards around 2026, contracting for ~$1.3B in services from at least one (preferably two) certified providers; first-station operational readiness is targeted for 2028-2030 [4]. NASA OIG IG-24-009 (Mar 2024) found Phase 1 schedule slippage and underscored the risk of a LEO presence gap if no commercial station is crew-ready by 2030 [6].

NASA •

Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) is a NASA task-order IDIQ vehicle, originally awarded in November 2018 and expanded in 2019 and 2023 to a 14-vendor pool with a $2.6B aggregate ceiling through 2028 [1][2]. The contract structure is firm-fixed-price per task order — NASA buys a delivery slot (mass, destination, services) rather than a custom-built spacecraft, transferring schedule, technical and most cost risk to the commercial vendor [1]. The qualified pool includes Astrobotic Technology, Intuitive Machines, Firefly Aerospace, Draper Laboratory (teamed with ispace U.S.), Lockheed Martin, Ceres Robotics, Deep Space Systems, Masten Space Systems (subsequently acquired by Astrobotic), Moon Express, Orbit Beyond (departed), Sierra Space (formerly Sierra Nevada), SpaceX, Blue Origin and Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems [2]. Astrobotic's Peregrine Mission One launched on the inaugural ULA Vulcan Centaur flight on January 8, 2024 but suffered a propellant leak shortly after separation and never attempted lunar landing — it was disposed of via Earth re-entry over the South Pacific on January 18, 2024 [3]. Intuitive Machines' IM-1 (Nova-C Odysseus) launched on Falcon 9 on February 15, 2024 and soft-landed near Malapert A in the lunar south-polar region on February 22, 2024, becoming the first U.S. lander to reach the surface since Apollo 17 in 1972 — but tipped over on touchdown with skids broken, limiting science return to ~7 days [4]. Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Mission 1 launched on Falcon 9 on January 15, 2025 and soft-landed upright in Mare Crisium on March 2, 2025, becoming the first fully successful commercial lunar landing and operating all 10 NASA payloads through one lunar day [5]. Intuitive Machines' IM-2 launched on February 26, 2025 carrying NASA's PRIME-1 ice-drilling payload and also tipped over on its March 6, 2025 landing attempt at Mons Mouton, failing to fully deploy PRIME-1 [6]. As of June 2026, NASA has awarded 11 task orders worth over $1.4B cumulatively; next up is IM-3 (Nova-C, NET H2 2026) targeting the Reiner Gamma lunar swirl, with Blue Ghost 2 (NET late 2026), IM-4 (NET 2027) and Draper-led CP-12 (Schrödinger basin, NET 2026) in active development [7][8][17].

NASA •

The Mars Exploration Program (MEP) is NASA's continuous robotic Mars effort dating to the 1996 Mars Pathfinder / Sojourner mission, executed through the Science Mission Directorate's Planetary Science Division and led from JPL (operated by Caltech under a NASA prime contract) [1]. The currently operational portfolio includes: Mars Odyssey (2001 launch, NASA's longest-operating Mars asset and primary telecom relay); Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO, 2005 launch, with the 0.3m/pixel HiRISE camera that has imaged effectively every Mars-bound landing target); MAVEN (2013 launch, dedicated atmospheric escape measurements); the Curiosity rover (Mars Science Laboratory, landed August 6, 2012 at Gale Crater, ~$2.5B lifecycle cost); and the Perseverance rover with the Ingenuity helicopter (landed February 18, 2021 at Jezero Crater, ~$2.7B lifecycle cost) [2][3]. Ingenuity flew 72 powered flights between April 2021 and January 2024 — the first powered flight on another planet — before sustaining rotor-blade damage and being designated stationary [4]. Perseverance has cached 24 sealed sample tubes through May 2026 along its Jezero Crater traverse, intended for retrieval by the now-restructured Mars Sample Return campaign [5]. The MSR campaign — jointly planned with ESA and originally architected around a NASA-built Sample Retrieval Lander, an ESA Earth Return Orbiter, two Ingenuity-class Sample Recovery Helicopters, and a NASA-built Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) — was found by the September 2023 Independent Review Board (IRB-2) chaired by Orlando Figueroa to face an $8-11B price tag and a 2040 sample-return date versus the original $4.4B / 2031 baseline, triggering a 2024 NASA decision to solicit alternative architectures from JPL plus industry (Lockheed Martin, Rocket Lab, SpaceX, Blue Origin, Northrop, Aerojet/L3Harris) [6][7]. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and incoming leadership confirmed in January 2025 that two competing architectures — a 'JPL Optimized' option targeting ~$5.5-7.7B and a 'Commercial Heavy Lift' option targeting ~$5.8-7.1B — would feed a 2026 architecture-down-select decision [7]. The future MEP pipeline also includes the Mars Life Explorer concept (decadal-survey priority for late 2030s) and the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE), a SmallSat pair launched on Blue Origin New Glenn maiden flight in October 2024 and arriving Mars in 2026-2027 [8].

NASA / ESA / CSA •

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, jointly developed by NASA (lead), the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) under a partnership agreement that exempted ESA member states from paying for U.S. development in exchange for guaranteed observing time and the supply of the NIRSpec instrument and the Ariane 5 launcher [1]. Northrop Grumman is the prime contractor responsible for the optical telescope element, the spacecraft bus and the five-layer tennis-court-sized sunshield; Ball Aerospace (acquired by BAE Systems in February 2024 and rebranded BAE Systems Space & Mission Systems) built the 18 segmented beryllium primary mirror sub-assemblies; ITT (subsequently Harris Corporation, now L3Harris Technologies) integrated the optical telescope element [6][7][8]. The observatory launched on Arianespace Ariane 5 ECA flight VA256 from Kourou, French Guiana on December 25, 2021 at 12:20 UTC; sunshield deployment completed January 4, 2022; primary mirror unfolding completed January 8, 2022; arrival at the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point completed January 24, 2022 [3]. First science images released on July 12, 2022 included Webb's First Deep Field — the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe ever produced [4]. As of May 2026, JWST has supported over 4,000 peer-reviewed publications, with notable highlights including the spectroscopic confirmation of galaxy JADES-GS-z14-0 at z=14.32 (290M years after the Big Bang); detailed atmospheric spectra of the TRAPPIST-1 system rocky exoplanets; and the first detection of carbon dioxide in an exoplanet atmosphere (WASP-39b) [5]. The 2018 NASA OIG IG-19-006 report set lifecycle cost at $9.7B (development $8.8B + operations $0.9B) — over the $5B 2010 baseline and the $1B 1997 baseline by approximately 8.7x [2]. Operations are funded through at least 2027 by NASA's Astrophysics Division (~$172M/year) and the project has on-board propellant for an estimated 20-year mission lifetime [9]. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), runs flight operations from Baltimore [10].

NASA •

Europa Clipper is NASA's first dedicated mission to Jupiter's moon Europa, jointly developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL, operated by Caltech under NASA contract) and the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL, operated by Johns Hopkins University) — with JPL serving as the project office and APL leading spacecraft integration [1][2]. The mission's primary scientific objective is to assess Europa's habitability by characterizing the thickness of the icy crust, the depth and salinity of the subsurface liquid water ocean (inferred from Galileo magnetometer data in the 1990s), and the chemistry of any plumes or ice-shell exchange processes [1]. The spacecraft is the largest NASA has ever built for a planetary mission, with a 30.5m (100ft) solar array span and a fully fueled mass of 6,065 kg — necessitating the Falcon Heavy launch vehicle in a fully-expendable configuration [3][4]. Europa Clipper launched on October 14, 2024 at 16:06 UTC from Kennedy Space Center LC-39A; the launch contract awarded to SpaceX in July 2021 was valued at $178M [4][5]. The launch placed Clipper on a Mars-Earth Gravity Assist (MEGA) trajectory, with Mars flyby on March 1, 2025 (~890 km altitude) and Earth flyby on December 3, 2026, followed by Jupiter Orbit Insertion (JOI) on April 11, 2030 [6]. Once in Jupiter orbit, Clipper will execute 49 close flybys of Europa over a four-year prime mission, with closest approach altitudes as low as 25 km — orders of magnitude closer than any Galileo flyby [1]. NASA OIG IG-22-014 set the lifecycle cost at $5.2B, including the $178M SpaceX launch contract and Phase E operations through 2034 [7]. Major instrument and subsystem providers include: Europa Imaging System (EIS, APL); MAss Spectrometer for Planetary EXploration (MASPEX, SwRI); SUrface Dust Analyzer (SUDA, University of Colorado LASP); REASON ice-penetrating radar (JPL); Europa-UVS (SwRI); Europa Thermal Emission Imaging System (E-THEMIS, ASU); ECM magnetometer (APL with L3Harris boom heritage); and PIMS plasma instrument (APL) [1][8]. The spacecraft passed pre-launch radiation-hardness reviews after Aug 2024 NASA-internal evaluation of mixed-lot transistors that had earlier raised concerns; the review concluded that flight transistors were qualified for the planned mission radiation dose [9].

NASA •

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (formerly known as the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope, WFIRST, until renamed in May 2020 to honor Nancy Grace Roman — NASA's first chief astronomer and 'Mother of Hubble') is NASA's next major astrophysics flagship mission, identified as the top-priority large mission by the 2010 New Worlds, New Horizons Decadal Survey [1][2]. Roman's primary 2.4m mirror was donated to NASA by the National Reconnaissance Office in 2012 — one of two spare Hubble-class mirrors transferred to NASA at no cost, eliminating roughly $250M from the development bill [3]. Roman is being developed under a $4.3B development cost cap set by Congress and confirmed by the FY2018 NASA appropriation; lifecycle cost including five-year prime mission operations is projected at approximately $4.5-4.8B [4][9]. The observatory is being integrated at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland — making it the largest single Goddard-led flagship since Hubble [1]. The Wide Field Instrument (WFI), Roman's primary survey camera, uses 18 H4RG-10 4K×4K infrared detectors developed by Teledyne Imaging Sensors providing a 0.281 sq-deg field of view at 0.11 arcsec/pixel sampling — capturing the same Hubble-equivalent depth across an area 100x larger than Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 [5][8]. A second instrument, the Coronagraph Instrument (CGI, provided by JPL/Caltech with international partner contributions from JAXA and Japanese consortium), is a technology-demonstration coronagraph designed to suppress starlight by 10^9 and demonstrate exoplanet imaging contrast precursor to future direct-imaging missions [6]. Roman launched-readiness was confirmed by the 2024 Key Decision Point E (KDP-E) following completion of spacecraft integration; the launch window opens October 2026 with a No-Earlier-Than (NET) launch date that has held since 2023 [4]. The launch contract was awarded to SpaceX in July 2023 at $255M for a Falcon Heavy launch in a fully expendable configuration; the launch will place Roman on a direct injection to Sun-Earth L2 [7][10]. Operations will be jointly managed by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore and IPAC at Caltech [11]. The prime science program includes: a High Latitude Wide Area Survey (HLWAS) for weak-lensing dark energy; a High Latitude Time Domain Survey (HLTDS) for Type Ia supernovae; the Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey (GBTDS) for exoplanet microlensing; and ~25% guest observer time [11].

NASA •

Psyche is the 14th mission selected under NASA's Discovery Program, awarded to Principal Investigator Lindy Elkins-Tanton of Arizona State University (ASU) in January 2017 [1]. The mission targets asteroid 16 Psyche — the largest M-type (metallic) asteroid in the main belt, with an irregular potato-like shape approximately 280 km × 232 km × 189 km and an estimated density of ~3.78 g/cm³ — consistent with substantial metallic content, though recent radar and density measurements have moderated the original 'pure metal core' hypothesis toward a metal-rich rubble-pile body [2]. The mission's scientific goal is to determine whether 16 Psyche is an exposed planetary core — providing direct geophysical access to the kind of differentiated interior that exists at the center of every terrestrial planet but is otherwise inaccessible [1]. The spacecraft is built around a Maxar 1300-class commercial communications-satellite bus (heritage from the Maxar 1300 platform), modified for solar-electric propulsion using four SPT-140 Hall-effect thrusters provided by Maxar's heritage propulsion supplier — Psyche is the first NASA mission to use Hall-effect thrusters as the primary propulsion system [3][6]. Psyche launched on SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Kennedy Space Center LC-39A on October 13, 2023 at 14:19 UTC, in a fully-expendable Falcon Heavy configuration with a $117M launch contract [4][7]. The spacecraft also carries the Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) technology demonstration as a hosted payload — the first-ever deep-space laser communications experiment, which has successfully demonstrated 267 Mbps downlink at lunar distance and continues to transmit at increasing ranges as Psyche moves outward [8]. Following a Mars gravity assist on May 22-23, 2026 at ~3,000 km altitude, Psyche will arrive at 16 Psyche in August 2029 for a 26-month orbital science campaign with four distinct orbital phases (A through D) at progressively lower altitudes [4]. NASA OIG IG-22-005 set the lifecycle cost at $1.225B following a one-year launch slip from August 2022 to October 2023; the slip was attributed to flight software, hardware integration, and a JPL workforce review that found organizational stresses across multiple JPL missions [9]. Major instruments include: a multispectral imager pair (Imager-A and Imager-B, ASU); a magnetometer (MIT/UCLA); and a gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer (GRNS, APL/JHU) [1].

NASA •

Dragonfly is a New Frontiers Program rotorcraft lander selected by NASA in June 2019, designed and built by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) to fly through the dense methane-rich nitrogen atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan [1][2]. The dual-quadcopter, MMRTG-powered vehicle will sample organic-rich surface materials at multiple sites — initially the Selk impact crater and surrounding dunes — to address questions about prebiotic chemistry, habitability, and the chemistry that preceded life on early Earth [1][6]. NASA confirmed Dragonfly's formal cost and schedule baseline in April 2024 at $3.35 billion and a July 2028 launch readiness date, after multiple replans pushed the launch from the original 2026 target and grew life-cycle cost by nearly $1 billion versus the initial $850 million New Frontiers cap [3][4][5]. In November 2024 NASA awarded SpaceX a firm-fixed-price launch services contract of approximately $256.6 million to fly Dragonfly on a Falcon Heavy from Kennedy Space Center LC-39A, with a launch window from July 5 to July 25, 2028 and a Titan arrival date in 2034 [7][8]. The NASA Office of Inspector General's IG-25-011 audit, released September 2025, found that APL's Earned Value Management System indicates cost and schedule performance is poorer than planned and flagged risks around aeroshell qualification, retropropulsion testing, and the autonomous flight software stack [4][5]. International contributions include the German Aerospace Center (DLR) supplying the DraGMet meteorology package, JAXA contributing seismometer hardware, and the French CNES participating in mass spectrometry instrumentation [1][9]. Dragonfly is the second New Frontiers-class mission to a Saturnian system body after Cassini-Huygens — and the first time a heavier-than-air, powered vehicle will operate on a non-Earth ocean world.

NASA •

The Near-Earth Object Surveyor (NEO Surveyor) is NASA's first space telescope developed expressly for planetary defense, managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory under principal investigator Amy Mainzer (formerly UCLA, now University of Arizona) [1][2]. The spacecraft carries a 50 cm infrared telescope cooled passively to deep-space temperatures, with mid-wave infrared (MWIR, 4-5.2 μm) and long-wave infrared (LWIR, 6-10 μm) channels that allow asteroid size and orbit determination far better than ground-based optical surveys, which suffer the sunward blind spot inhabited by daytime asteroids [3]. The mission's congressional mandate, set in the 2005 NASA Authorization Act, is to find at least 90 percent of near-Earth objects ≥ 140 meters in diameter — the planetary-defense floor for regional-scale damage — within 10 years of operations; NEO Surveyor is sized to deliver roughly two-thirds of that gap in its 5-year prime mission [2][7]. After multiple budget-driven schedule rebaselines that pushed launch from 2026 to 2028 and back to September 2027 once Congress restored full-funding requests, NASA awarded SpaceX a $100M-class Launch Services II contract in February 2025 to fly NEO Surveyor on a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral [4][5]. The spacecraft and the instrument are built by BAE Systems Space & Mission Systems — the former Ball Aerospace acquired by BAE Systems in February 2024 for $5.55 billion — with the Space Dynamics Laboratory and Teledyne contributing detector and cryogenic subsystems [6][8]. NEO Surveyor will operate from a halo orbit around the Sun-Earth L1 point, ~1.5 million km sunward of Earth, where it can survey toward the Sun, sweep up Earth Trojans and daylight Earth-crossing asteroids, and avoid Earth's thermal background — a regime no prior NEO survey (NEOWISE, Catalina Sky Survey, Pan-STARRS, ATLAS) has been able to access [3]. Discovered objects flow into the IAU Minor Planet Center for orbit determination and into the JPL Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) for impact risk assessment [1].

NASA + ISRO •

NISAR — the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar mission — is a flagship bilateral Earth-observation satellite jointly developed under a 2014 NASA/ISRO partnership agreement, then formally booked at $1.5 billion total life-cycle cost across the two agencies' contributions [1][2][3]. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory provides the L-band synthetic aperture radar (24 cm wavelength), the 12-metre deployable mesh reflector (built by L3Harris Technologies, formerly Harris Corporation, with strong heritage from the Mobile Satellite Ventures and TerreStar programs), a high-rate Ka-band telecom subsystem, GPS receivers, a solid-state recorder, and a payload data subsystem [3][7]. ISRO's U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC) in Bengaluru provides the satellite bus, the S-band synthetic aperture radar (10 cm wavelength), the GSLV Mk II launch vehicle, and on-orbit operations from the Indian Space Operations Centre [4]. Radar payload integration (L-band + S-band) occurred at JPL in 2023, and final observatory integration was performed at the ISRO Satellite Integration & Test Establishment (ISITE) in Bengaluru in 2024 [4][5]. After multiple slips driven principally by a 2024 mesh-reflector thermal-deformation concern requiring re-coating, NISAR launched on GSLV-F16 (a GSLV Mk II variant designated GSLV-F16) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre Sriharikota on July 30, 2025 at 17:40 IST — the GSLV's first Sun-synchronous orbit mission [6][8]. Following ~90 days of commissioning, science observations began in late October 2025; mission designers anticipate a 3-year nominal observation phase covering the entire Earth land and ice surface every 12 days at sub-centimetre interferometric precision, supporting climate-change monitoring, agricultural yield estimation, deformation tracking ahead of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, sea-ice mass-balance estimation, and aboveground biomass quantification for forest carbon accounting [1][3]. Data are delivered to NASA's EOSDIS DAACs and ISRO's Bhuvan platform within hours, with a free-and-open data policy mandated by both agencies [1].

U.S. Space Force / Space Development Agency •

The Space Development Agency (SDA) — created in 2019 and transferred into the U.S. Space Force in October 2022 — operates the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA, formerly the National Defense Space Architecture, NDSA), an OTA-procured multi-layer constellation of hundreds of LEO satellites designed to provide low-latency military communications, missile warning, missile tracking, and battle-management mesh networking [1][2]. PWSA is structured into seven functional layers, of which the Transport Layer (data backbone) and Tracking Layer (missile warning + missile defence) are the two largest cost drivers, alongside Custody (targeting), Navigation (alternative PNT), Battle Management, Ground, and Support layers [2]. Tranche 0 (28 satellites, on-orbit demonstration) launched on Falcon 9 vehicles in 2023; Tranche 1 (~158 satellites — 126 Transport + 35 Tracking + 12 demonstration), awarded in 2022 for ~$1.8B (Lockheed Martin $700M, Northrop Grumman $692M, York Space Systems $382M for Transport) launches across 2025-2027 [3][8]; Tranche 2 (~216 satellites) Transport Layer awarded in January 2024 with prototype agreements totaling roughly $2.5B for tracking and meaningful sums for Transport, with launches beginning 2026 [4][9]; Tranche 3 Tracking Layer (72 satellites for missile warning/tracking) was awarded December 19, 2025 in firm-fixed-price OTAs totalling approximately $3.5 billion — Lockheed Martin $1.1B, L3Harris $843M, Rocket Lab $805M and Northrop Grumman $784M — for launches in fiscal 2029 [5][6][7]. Tranche 1 initial warfighting capability (IWC) is targeted for 2027; the architecture's deliberate multi-vendor design (no fewer than five primes per major tranche) and FFP/OTA contracting model is the procurement template now being copied across NSSL, NRO ESPAStar and Golden Dome air-and-missile-defence acquisitions [10][11]. The U.S. Space Force is the operational user via the Combined Space Operations Center (CSpOC) at Vandenberg SFB; SDA remains the acquisition authority [1].

Axiom Space (NASA Commercial LEO Destinations) •

Axiom Station is the privately-developed orbital outpost programme of Axiom Space, the Houston-based commercial human spaceflight company founded in 2016 by Michael Suffredini (former ten-year NASA International Space Station program manager) and Kam Ghaffarian (founder of SGT and IBX) [3]. The program operates inside NASA's Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD) framework — Axiom holds a separate $140 million contract awarded in January 2020 to attach the first commercial module to the ISS, alongside a Phase 1 CLD framework worth $415.6 million across Blue Origin/Sierra Space Orbital Reef, Nanoracks/Lockheed Starlab and Northrop Grumman that runs through 2025 [4][5]. Axiom Space's first crewed mission, Ax-1, launched April 8, 2022 with Spain's Michael López-Alegría commanding; subsequent flights Ax-2 (2023), Ax-3 (2024), and Ax-4 (mid-2025, with Indian astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla as pilot) have established Axiom as the first commercial provider to repeatedly fly customers to the ISS on SpaceX Crew Dragon [3]. The station architecture, originally Hab-1 first then Lab/Power/Hab-2, was restructured by NASA and Axiom in mid-2024 so that the Payload, Power and Thermal Module (PPTM) launches first to ISS — providing the propulsion, power, and thermal services that enable the assembled stack to depart ISS as early as 2028 and become the free-flying Axiom Station [7]. After detachment, Axiom plans to add Habitat 1, an Airlock, Habitat 2, and a Research & Manufacturing Facility to complete the station, targeting full configuration in the early-to-mid 2030s [1]. Thales Alenia Space — the Italian-French space-prime joint venture (66.7% Thales, 33.3% Leonardo) — manufactures the primary pressurised structures at its Turin facility under a partnership announced in 2020 and expanded in subsequent years [8]. Funding mix combines NASA milestone-based payments, private equity (Series A: $130M led by C5 Capital in 2021; Series B: ~$350M led by Aljazira Capital in 2023; subsequent strategic rounds), and pre-purchased customer revenue from sovereign astronaut flights, R&D services, and in-space manufacturing demonstrations [3][12].

NASA • 2014–ongoing

Public-private partnership restoring US crew launch capability after Space Shuttle retirement. SpaceX Crew Dragon is the primary ISS crew transport vehicle, with 13+ successful crewed missions since 2020. Boeing Starliner's crewed flight test in June 2024 experienced thruster issues — crew returned via SpaceX Dragon in Feb 2025. Starliner future uncertain.

DoD / USSF • 2019–ongoing

US Space Force is the 6th military branch, responsible for space operations. The Space Development Agency (SDA) is building the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) — a mesh of hundreds of optically-linked LEO satellites for missile tracking, data transport, and navigation. Tranche 3 Tracking Layer ($3.5B) awarded Dec 2025 to L3Harris, Lockheed, Northrop, and Rocket Lab (18 sats each).

NASA / ISRO • 2025–2028

Joint NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite that will map the entire globe every 12 days using dual-frequency radar. Will track changes in Earth's ice sheets, ecosystems, sea level, natural hazards, and groundwater with unprecedented precision. One of the most capable Earth observation satellites ever built.