Elon Musk's SpaceX wins $714 million in upcoming Pentagon launches as Blue Origin races to keep up

"The U.S. Space Force on Friday announced it will assign five of seven critical military missions for the coming fiscal year to Elon Musk's SpaceX. The awards are a $714 million boon to SpaceX, underscoring the company's continued dominance over Pentagon space contracts, despite Musk and U.S. President Donald Trump's public falling out earlier this year. United Launch Alliance (ULA) will undertake the two other launches; it was awarded $428 million for two launches, according to a press release viewed by Space News."

""Space is the ultimate high ground, critical for our national security," said U.S. Space System Command official Col. Eric Zarybnisky in a release, per Air Space and Forces. "We continue to assure access to that high ground. Delivering assets to the warfighter is our ultimate mission, and we rely on our strong government-industry partnerships ... to successfully achieve that goal," Zarybnisky said."

"The Space Force makes its awards two years in advance, so these launches will likely take off in 2027. The awards also underlined the fact that Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket-the company's rival to SpaceX's Falcon Heavy-has yet to be certified for national security launches. 'No missions were assigned to the third provider, Blue Origin, which has its next opportunity for a mission in FY27,' Space Systems Command said in a statement, per SpaceNews."

The U.S. Space Force assigned five of seven upcoming military launch missions to SpaceX, awarding the company $714 million and reaffirming its dominance in Pentagon space contracts. United Launch Alliance received contracts for the remaining two launches totaling $428 million. The awards fall under the National Security Space Launch program, which selected SpaceX, ULA, and Blue Origin for 54 missions between fiscal 2027 and 2032 under $13.5 billion in NSSL contracts. The Space Force plans launches approximately two years after awards, so these missions will likely occur in 2027. Blue Origin received no missions due to New Glenn certification status.

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