Sirotin Intelligence Briefing: May 25–29, 2026: Blue Origin's New Glenn Explodes on the Pad, SpaceX Banks $6.45 Billion in Two Space Force Constellation Awards, and HASC Drops FY27 NDAA That Would Erase SDA

This week's Sirotin Intelligence analysis covers Blue Origin's catastrophic May 28 New Glenn explosion during static fire at Cape Canaveral's LC-36 – the company's only orbital pad – which froze 24 Amazon Leo missions, put NASA Artemis Moon timeline pressure into the open, and raised questions about whether ULA's Vulcan Centaur faces a second-order grounding given the shared BE-4 engine line, alongside the U.S. Space Force's stunning back-to-back awards to SpaceX of $2.29 billion (May 26) for the Space Data Network Backbone and $4.16 billion (May 29) for the Space-Based Air Moving Target Indicator constellation – $6.45 billion in five days that makes Starshield both the sensing and communications layer of the Joint Force – and the House Armed Services Committee's $1.15 trillion FY27 NDAA chairman's mark that would eliminate the Space Development Agency and the Space Rapid Capabilities Office as standalone entities. We also unpack the Congressional Budget Office's $1.2 trillion Golden Dome estimate, Rocket Lab clearing System Requirements Review for SDA's Tranche 3 Tracking Layer, the Air Force standing up an EPAWSS "Speedline" at Warner Robins to retrofit electronic warfare onto 99 F-15Es outside the depot queue, Russia's May 24 Oreshnik hypersonic strike on Kyiv paired with Ukraine's May 21 strike on a Russian drone training camp at Snizhne, the Missile Defense Agency's mid-May hypersonic glide vehicle intercept test off the East Coast, Raytheon's $1.02 billion NASAMS sale to Kuwait, and Iran's May 27 ballistic missile launch toward Kuwait as CENTCOM Commander Adm. Brad Cooper warned lawmakers that "the days of $35,000 drones are behind us." Rounding out the week: China's Shenzhou-23 lofts three taikonauts to Tiangong for what will be the country's first yearlong crewed mission, SpaceX's S-1 reveals $12.7 billion in AI R&D in 2025 ahead of a June Nasdaq listing targeting a $1.75 trillion valuation, the Pentagon awarded Dell/Microsoft a $9.69 billion enterprise software BPA, ULA's Atlas V tied its heaviest-payload record on a 29-satellite Amazon Leo launch, and our interview this week is with Eduardo Hernández Morales, the self-taught Mexican engineer and founder of the Gamma Systems Research Laboratory in Morelia, on the mathematics that lets a CubeSat certify its own stability in microseconds – and why he believes the Moon will need his framework before Earth's satellite operators do.

🛡️ Defense Highlights

• SpaceX banks $6.45 billion in two Space Force constellation awards in five days – Starshield becomes the sensing AND communications backbone of the Joint Force: Space Systems Command awarded SpaceX a $2.29 billion Other Transaction Authority (OTA) on May 26 to build the proliferated LEO Space Data Network (SDN) Backbone – a sensor-to-shooter mesh delivering high-throughput, low-latency data transport, with a fully operational prototype due by end of 2027. Three days later, on May 29, the Space Force followed with a $4.16 billion award to SpaceX for the first increment of the Space-Based Air Moving Target Indicator (SB-AMTI) – a constellation built to detect, track, and maintain custody of fighter aircraft, bombers, cruise missiles, and potentially hypersonic weapons from orbit. Both constellations will be built on SpaceX's Starshield platform, the government-only variant of Starlink, and both are operated by the Space Force. Together, they represent a $6.45 billion week-of-procurement bet that one company's bus, one company's network, and one company's manufacturing line will carry the load on both Joint Force communications and continental airborne-threat tracking. The service has signaled an IDIQ vendor pool will compete for follow-on AMTI work, but the architecture of record has been set.
• Congressional Budget Office estimates Golden Dome at $1.2 trillion over 20 years – six times the administration's number: CBO released its long-awaited cost assessment of the Trump administration's Golden Dome missile defense system this month, pegging the price at $1.2 trillion over the next two decades – roughly six times the $185 billion set aside in the FY27 defense budget request and the $151 billion contemplated in the SHIELD industrial-base award structure. CBO modeled a four-tier defense system covering the continental U.S., Alaska, and Hawaii against ballistic, cruise, and hypersonic threats, with a space-based interceptor layer, upper and lower surface interceptors, and distributed sensors. The report explicitly notes that "no publicly available plans" exist from the White House or Pentagon to constrain the estimate, and warns that the war on Iran has depleted THAAD and Patriot stockpiles needed to replenish the architecture. Firefly Aerospace subsidiary SciTec earlier this month became the 12th company to receive an OTA under the Space-Based Interceptor (SBI) program, which the Space Force has structured as 20 OTAs worth up to $3.2 billion to integrate AI-enabled tracking and next-generation interceptors by 2028.
• Air Force opens EPAWSS Speedline at Warner Robins to retrofit electronic warfare onto F-15Es outside the depot queue: On May 26, the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center stood up a dedicated "Speedline" at the Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex in Georgia to install the BAE Systems–built Eagle Passive/Active Warning Survivability System (EPAWSS) on F-15E Strike Eagles without waiting for routine programmed depot maintenance, which can be five-to-seven years out. EPAWSS replaces legacy analog warning equipment with fifth-generation-class radar warning, geolocation, situational awareness, and self-protection capability designed to keep the F-15E alive in contested airspace. The first aircraft is expected to arrive in June 2026, with a total fleet retrofit target of 99 F-15Es plus full EPAWSS integration across the F-15EX line. The move reflects a broader Air Force urgency: the service is increasingly unwilling to let modernization timelines be set by the depot calendar when peer-threat electronic warfare environments – particularly in the Indo-Pacific – are evolving on a tighter clock.
• CENTCOM Commander warns Iran's drone threat has graduated to jet-powered, EW-equipped systems – Kuwait intercepts ballistic missile May 27: Adm. Brad Cooper, Commander of U.S. Central Command, testified before the Senate and House Armed Services Committees on May 19 and May 20 that Iran's drone fleet has fundamentally changed character following the 38-day Epic Fury bombing campaign. "The days of $35,000 drones that we saw in the last couple of years, particularly in the fight against the Houthis in Yemen, those days are behind us," Cooper told lawmakers. "Today we face an increased threat from drones that are highly sophisticated: they are jet powered, they have high-end sensors, they have electronic warfare, they have signals intelligence." On May 27, Iran fired a ballistic missile toward Kuwait that Kuwaiti forces successfully intercepted, and Iranian forces launched five one-way attack drones in and near the Strait of Hormuz, all of which U.S. forces intercepted while preempting a sixth launch from a ground control site in Bandar Abbas. The CENTCOM cost ledger for operations against Iran has now reached $29 billion, a $4 billion jump in two weeks, even as Cooper testified that the campaign has "massively reduced" but not eliminated Iranian capability.
• Raytheon books $1.02 billion NASAMS sale to Kuwait – Foreign Military Sales accelerate as Gulf states harden air defense: Raytheon, of Tewksbury, Massachusetts, was awarded a $1,020,659,819 firm-fixed-price contract on May 26 for procurement of NASAMS (National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System) fire units for Kuwait, with all funding obligated at award through the Foreign Military Sales account. The award lands precisely as Kuwait completes a real-world intercept of an Iranian ballistic missile, and as Gulf Cooperation Council partners accelerate their layered air-defense procurement in response to the demonstrated Iranian missile and one-way attack drone threat. The contract – solicited online with a single bid received – runs through May 2031 and is the largest single FMS air-defense announcement of the week.
• India tests scramjet to 1,200 seconds – the second hypersonic engine milestone of the year: India's Defense Research and Development Laboratory in Hyderabad ran an actively cooled, full-scale scramjet combustor for more than 1,200 seconds on May 9, nearly doubling the agency's earlier 700-second run from January and signaling that India's Extended-Trajectory Long-Duration Hypersonic Cruise Missile (ET-LDHCM) program is moving toward flight-grade hardware. Sustained scramjet operation at this duration is the gate that separates demonstrator-grade combustion from a deployable hypersonic cruise missile, and India is now within reach of a flight-test article. The Hyderabad test lands as Russia, China, and the United States all advance their own scramjet and boost-glide programs on parallel timelines.
• Missile Defense Agency runs mid-May hypersonic glide vehicle intercept test off the East Coast – first live demonstration sequenced into Golden Dome architecture debate: The U.S. Missile Defense Agency conducted a tracking and intercept test against a hypersonic glide vehicle target along the East Coast in mid-May, the first live demonstration of the hypersonic-defeat capability the CBO modeled as the upper-layer surface interceptor tier in its $1.2 trillion Golden Dome estimate. The test is the operational anchor for the SBI program's "AI-enabled tracking and advanced interceptors integrated with artificial intelligence" architecture that the Space Force has now awarded across 20 OTAs to 12 vendors, and it provides the first real-world data point lawmakers can weigh against CBO's cost projection ahead of the June 4 HASC markup. It also re-establishes MDA as the operational lead on continental hypersonic defense at exactly the moment when Iran has demonstrated jet-powered drone systems with onboard electronic warfare and Russia is launching Oreshnik-class hypersonic ballistic missiles into Kyiv.
• HASC chairman's mark would eliminate SDA and SpaceRCO, consolidate PNT oversight – Space Force's acquisition map gets redrawn: The FY27 NDAA chairman's mark released by the House Armed Services Committee on May 26 contains the most consequential Space Force restructuring proposal since the service was stood up. The bill would dissolve the Space Development Agency and the Space Rapid Capabilities Office as standalone organizations, folding their portfolios back into a consolidated acquisition structure, and would consolidate GPS modernization, alternative PNT development, and resilience efforts under a single designated official across the services. Full committee markup is scheduled for June 4. The proposal is timed to land alongside the $2.29 billion SDN and $4.16 billion AMTI SpaceX awards and the SBI OTAs, all of which were structured outside SDA – a signal that the chairman's mark is codifying an acquisition shift that has already happened in practice.

Major Contract Awards This Week:

• SpaceX – Space-Based Air Moving Target Indicator (SB-AMTI) first increment: A $4,160,000,000 award from the U.S. Space Force on May 29 to build a Starshield-based satellite constellation that detects, tracks, and maintains custody of fighter aircraft, bombers, cruise missiles, and potentially hypersonic weapons, with operational capacity projected by 2028.
• Dell Federal Systems / Microsoft – DOW Enterprise Software Agreement II (ESA II): A $9,690,000,000 single-award, firm-fixed-price blanket purchase agreement issued by Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific (N66001-26-A-0051) to consolidate Microsoft software licenses, cloud subscriptions, and Software Assurance across the Department of War, the Intelligence Community, and the Coast Guard, projected to generate $422 million in annual savings, May 28, 2026.
• Raytheon – NASAMS fire units (Kuwait FMS): A $1,020,659,819 firm-fixed-price contract for the procurement of NASAMS fire units, with all funds obligated through Kuwait Foreign Military Sales, through May 26, 2031.
• Boeing – P-8A Lot 13 Foreign Military Sales: An $854,672,911 firm-fixed-price, cost-plus-fixed-fee modification for production and delivery of four P-8A Lot 13 aircraft to FMS customers, plus non-recurring engineering for diminishing manufacturing sources, software integration, and hardware updates, through September 2030.
• 3dB Labs – Spectrum Situational Awareness System: A $350,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract for production, testing, validation, delivery, and support of the Army's Spectrum Situational Awareness System, awarded May 29 through Army Contracting Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground (W56KGY-26-D-0007), through May 28, 2031.
• ISR Multiple-Award (Booz Allen, Leidos, SAIC, Peraton, GDIT, HII, KBR Wyle, et al.) – Navy ISR and cybersecurity technical support: A $349,993,874 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity multiple-award contract for systems engineering, hardware/software development, installation, maintenance, sustainment, and training in support of ISR systems, information operations, and cybersecurity operations, through May 30, 2033.
• General Dynamics Mission Systems – Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) ground sustainment: A $106,018,228 cost-plus-fixed-fee task order (total base-plus-options value $294,946,185) for sustainment and modernization of the MUOS satellite communications ground segment, awarded May 29 through Space Systems Command at Los Angeles AFB (FA880726FB006), through May 27, 2031.

🌐 Policy, Geopolitical & Legal Developments

• House Armed Services Committee releases $1.15 trillion FY27 NDAA chairman's mark – supports topline but ducks the $350B reconciliation question: House Armed Services Committee Chairman released the chairman's mark of the FY27 National Defense Authorization Act on May 26, holding the topline at the $1.14 trillion figure in the administration's request and signaling broad support for the Pentagon's structural plans. The bill conspicuously does not include the additional $350 billion that the Trump administration is pursuing through a separate reconciliation track – leaving the question of whether the historic $1.5 trillion national security budget will fully materialize to the appropriations and reconciliation cycles. The mark also routes up to $1 billion through the Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative and includes the proposed dissolution of SDA and SpaceRCO. The committee marks up the bill on June 4.
• NASA outlines preliminary Artemis III plans, names commercial lunar rover and Blue Moon delivery partners – broader Moon Base architecture analyzed in Christophe's column below: NASA used a May 26 update to brief the public on preliminary Artemis III mission plans, including a near-term Earth-orbit test of rendezvous and docking between Orion and the commercial landers from SpaceX and Blue Origin. The agency also disclosed a wave of contract awards: two commercial lunar rovers from Astrolab ($219 million) and Lunar Outpost ($220 million), Blue Origin Blue Moon awards to deliver the rovers to the lunar surface, and a Firefly Aerospace Elytra Dark orbiter, with a Firefly task to deliver up to four "MoonFall" hopping drones. The Artemis III core stage is now in High Bay 2 at Kennedy with the tank attached to the engine section as of May 12, and Orion's service module is in pre-acoustic testing. NASA will announce the Artemis III crew at Johnson Space Center on June 9. Christophe Bosquillon's column below dissects the full three-phase Moon Base roadmap announced by Administrator Jared Isaacman the same day.
• Vulcan investigation continues – and now the BE-4 supply line itself is in question after the New Glenn explosion: ULA confirmed on May 14 the successful static fire of a Graphite Epoxy Motor (GEM 63XL) Solid Rocket Booster as part of its ongoing investigation into the USSF-87 anomaly in which one of four SRBs suffered a nozzle problem prior to separation. The Vulcan return-to-flight target was the end of 2026 – but the May 28 Blue Origin New Glenn explosion has now raised a second-order question: New Glenn and Vulcan both use Blue Origin BE-4 main engines, and any anomaly investigation that traces back to the BE-4 line itself could ground both heavy-lift vehicles simultaneously. Space Force national security launches that had been manifested on Vulcan remain in mitigation status, and the service's launch-alternative calculus just narrowed considerably.
• Iran War Day 90 – CENTCOM dismisses reports that Iran retains most of its missile and drone arsenal:As of May 28, the campaign against Iran reached Day 90. CENTCOM publicly pushed back on press reporting that Iran retains the majority of its pre-war missile and drone inventory, with Adm. Cooper telling lawmakers the operation has "massively reduced" but not eliminated the threat. The $29 billion price tag, the depletion of THAAD and Patriot interceptors, and the shift toward jet-powered Iranian drones with onboard EW and SIGINT have collectively reframed the Pentagon's munitions-stockpile calculus – and are folded into the FY27 munitions procurement line of $76.3 billion, nearly triple the FY26 figure.
• Russia launches Oreshnik hypersonic strike on Kyiv May 24, Ukraine kills 65 Russian drone cadets at Snizhne May 21 – the drone-and-hypersonic war moves into a new tier: Russia hit Kyiv on Sunday, May 24 with a coordinated wave of 600 drones and 90 missiles, including the nuclear-capable Oreshnik intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile, killing at least two and wounding at least 77, with damage reported in every district of the capital. The attack is the most operationally significant Oreshnik employment to date and reframes the Russian inventory question for European air defense planners – Patriot, SAMP/T, and IRIS-T were not designed against an Oreshnik-class threat at scale. Three days earlier, on Wednesday night, May 21, Ukrainian long-range drones struck a Russian drone pilot training camp at Snizhne in occupied Donetsk Oblast, killing at least 65 cadets and an instructor – a deliberate counter-force strike on the human capital production line for the same loitering munitions hitting Ukrainian cities. Read together with Adm. Cooper's CENTCOM testimony on jet-powered Iranian drones and the MDA's East Coast hypersonic intercept test, the week's Eurasian threat picture validates the FY27 munitions request tripling to $76.3 billion and the LCCMP framework agreements with Anduril, Leidos, CoAspire, and Zone 5.
• China's Shenzhou-23 launches first yearlong Tiangong mission and first Hong Kong astronaut: The Shenzhou-23 manned mission launched on a Long March-2F from Jiuquan at 11:08 p.m. Beijing time on May 24, carrying mission commander Zhu Yangzhu, Zhang Zhiyuan, and Lai Ka-ying – the first astronaut from Hong Kong, who holds a doctorate in computer forensics. The mission is designed to set China's longest crewed spaceflight record and explicitly tests the human-adaptability envelope for the country's planned 2030 crewed lunar landing. The crew will rotate with Shenzhou 21, which has been aboard Tiangong for more than 200 days, and will conduct dozens of science and applications projects.

🛰️ Technology & Commercial Developments

• Blue Origin's New Glenn explodes during static fire at LC-36 – only orbital pad destroyed, 24 Amazon Leo missions frozen, Artemis Moon timeline in jeopardy: At roughly 9 p.m. local on Thursday, May 28, Blue Origin's New Glenn vehicle erupted into a fireball during a static fire test of its seven methane-fueled BE-4 first-stage engines at Launch Complex 36, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. As ignition began, fire enveloped the base of the 188-foot first stage; the 86-foot upper stage tilted and started to fall; methane and LOX ignited, and the 321-foot vehicle was lost in a blast visible more than 100 miles away. The transporter erector was obliterated and at least one lightning protection tower was knocked down. All personnel are accounted for. The fallout is structural for Blue Origin: LC-36 is the company's only orbital launch facility, meaning there is no backup pad. The 24-mission Amazon Project Kuiper / Leo manifest contracted to New Glenn is now frozen. NASA's Artemis Moon timeline – which depends on Blue Moon Mark 1 and Mark 2 landers riding on New Glenn – is in open jeopardy. And because New Glenn and ULA's Vulcan Centaur both use Blue Origin BE-4 engines, any investigation finding that traces to the engine line itself could ground both heavy-lift vehicles at once.
• SpaceX S-1 reveals $12.7 billion AI R&D spend in 2025 ahead of $1.75 trillion June Nasdaq listing: SpaceX confidentially filed its S-1 with the SEC on April 1, with public registration landing on EDGAR between May 18 and May 22 ahead of a targeted June Nasdaq listing that could raise up to $75 billion at a $1.75 trillion valuation. The filing reports 2025 revenue of $18.7 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $6.6 billion, with the Starlink-centric connectivity segment driving $11.4 billion of that revenue. Q1 2026 revenue alone hit $4.7 billion, $3.3 billion of which was Starlink. The strategic revelation in the filing: SpaceX's AI segment – created from the February acquisition of xAI – consumed $12.7 billion in R&D in 2025 and $7.7 billion in Q1 2026 alone, more than launch and connectivity combined. The implication for the defense community is direct: the company that just won $6.45 billion across SDN and AMTI is also the company building the largest privately funded AI compute stack outside of the hyperscalers.
• SpaceX flies three Starlink missions during the week – Memorial Day, Vandenberg, and a post-Blue Origin Friday launch: SpaceX launched 29 Starlink V2 Mini Optimized satellites on the Starlink 10-47 mission from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral at 7:48 a.m. ET on May 25 (Memorial Day), with first-stage B1078 landing on "A Shortfall of Gravitas" off the South Carolina coast on its 28th flight. A second Falcon 9 lofted 24 Starlink satellites from Vandenberg on May 26. The third – Starlink 10-53 – flew from SLC-40 at 8:57 a.m. ET on Friday, May 29, hours after the Blue Origin explosion, with B1085 landing on "A Shortfall of Gravitas." The launch cadence is a useful comparator: while one heavy-lift competitor lost its only pad, the dominant operator put another 82 Starlink satellites on orbit in five days.
• ULA Atlas V ties heaviest-payload record on Amazon Leo mission – and the timing matters: A United Launch Alliance Atlas V launched 29 Amazon Leo internet satellites to orbit on May 29 in the seventh Amazon Leo mission to fly on an Atlas V, tying the rocket's heaviest-payload record at approximately 18 tons. Amazon now has the awkward distinction of being the same company whose 24-mission New Glenn manifest was frozen the day before – and Atlas V, with a finite remaining inventory, is the bridge vehicle keeping the Project Kuiper / Leo constellation on a deployment schedule. The launch is also a quiet rebuke to the assumption that legacy expendable vehicles are obsolete in the megaconstellation era.
• Rocket Lab clears System Requirements Review for SDA Tracking Layer Tranche 3 – 18-vehicle missile-warning constellation moves into preliminary design: Rocket Lab USA passed System Requirements Review on May 27 for its 18-spacecraft contribution to the Space Development Agency's Tranche 3 Tracking Layer, the missile-warning, missile-tracking, and missile-defense constellation that builds on Tranche 1 and Tranche 2 of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture. SRR confirms Rocket Lab's design baseline meets SDA's operational requirements, including the ability to detect and track hypersonic threats across eight orbital planes. Rocket Lab is one of four awardees – alongside Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and L3Harris – sharing the $3.5 billion award package for 72 total spacecraft, with launch planned in FY29. SRR clearance lands in the middle of HASC's proposal to dissolve SDA, a structural risk the company will have to navigate even as it executes.
• Planet Labs pops 10% on AI/space concentration bet – Pelican fleet reaches nine spacecraft: Planet Labs shares climbed more than 10% in pre-market trading on May 27 after disclosures around Alphabet's concentrated position in space-and-AI plays and the company's Q3 FY26 results, which delivered $81.3 million in revenue (+33% year-on-year) against a $900 million contract backlog. A SpaceX Falcon 9 launched Pelican 7, 8, and 9 from Vandenberg on May 3, bringing the Pelican fleet to nine spacecraft – each delivering 50 cm-resolution imagery across six multispectral bands and carrying an Nvidia Jetson AI module for onboard inference. Maxar, post-Advent acquisition, continues to lead on 15 cm imagery and 3D mapping, with new NATO and U.S. Navy contracts and a €240 million German agreement closing in Q2.
• Isar Aerospace prepares Spectrum-2 qualification flight – a successful orbital insertion would be Europe's first private-sector orbital launch from European soil: German launch startup Isar Aerospace is targeting May 2026 from Andøya Spaceport in northern Norway for the second flight of its Spectrum two-stage liquid-fueled vehicle (1,000 kg to LEO). A successful flight would mark the first time a rocket has reached orbit from European soil and the first orbital qualification flight by any privately developed European launch vehicle. In parallel, Isar signed cooperation with Germany's TKMS for the Canadian Patrol Submarine Project bid and an agreement with Maritime Launch Services to fly from Nova Scotia. A reported €250 million Series E at a €2 billion valuation – first reported in March – would push Isar to roughly €600 million in total capital, making it Europe's most capitalized independent launch startup.
• Pentagon launches LCCMP framework agreements with Anduril, CoAspire, Leidos, and Zone 5 for 10,000 low-cost cruise missiles starting 2027: The Pentagon announced framework agreements with Anduril, CoAspire, Leidos, and Zone 5 to acquire more than 10,000 low-cost cruise missiles under the new Low Cost Containerization Munitions Program (LCCMP) over three years beginning in 2027. The structure echoes the SHIELD Golden Dome industrial-base approach – broad framework awards followed by rapid task ordering – and is designed to scale production capacity for affordable mass at a pace the legacy munitions base cannot match. It is also the clearest signal yet that the FY27 munitions budget's near-tripling to $76.3 billion is being routed through a different kind of vendor base.

💭 A Word From Christophe Bosquillon

At a May 26th presser, NASA provided a major update on its master plan for a permanent Moon Base at the lunar South Pole. Participants included NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman; Lori S. Glaze, acting associate administrator, ESDMD; and Carlos Garcia-Galan, Moon Base program executive. The roadmap in 3 phases accelerates the next seven years timeline and coincides with announcements of initial awards to Blue Origin Mark 1 Lunar Lander^(*), Astrolab Crewed Lunar Rover ($219 million), Lunar Outpost Pegasus rover ($220 million), and the Firefly Aerospace Elytra Dark orbiter.

With 25 launches and 21 landings, Phase 1 (2026-2029 "Build, Test, Learn") will see CLPS landers and LTV rovers testing the “science of survival” on the Moon before heavy HLS cargo landers deliver the infrastructure for an enduring presence. Phase 2 (2029-2032 "Establish Early Infrastructure") unfolds with semi-annual crewed missions until Phase 3 (2032-Beyond "Sustained Human Presence") sees continued crew presence. 

More CLPS 1.0 & 2.0 contracts are expected as the first 3 Moon Base missions unfold:

+ Moon Base I: launch no earlier than fall 2026, using Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 Endurance lander to deliver NASA payloads. The mission will land on the Shackleton Connecting Ridge to demonstrate capabilities that reduce risk for future crewed Artemis landing missions in 2028.

+ Moon Base II: launch later in 2026, delivering more than 1,100 pounds of cargo on Astrobotic’s Griffin lander, including Astrolab’s FLIP rover, to mature mobility systems that inform future lunar terrain vehicle (LTV) operations.

+ Moon Base III: also targeted for 2026, this mission will fly the first payload selected through NASA’s Payloads and Research Investigations on the Surface of the Moon initiative. Its Lunar Vertex will fly on Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C Trinity lunar lander and study lunar swirls.

NASA made public its FY26 Civil Space Shortfall Prioritization report, with top ranking for lunar tech priorities. NASA’s previous six main “Mission Directorates” that oversee its core areas, such as human exploration, science, and aeronautics will be combined into four directorates. With narratives angling toward conflictualization in cislunar space, the USSF just got busier- more on that next week.

🎤 Our Next Guest: Eduardo Hernández Morales, Founder of the Gamma Systems Research Laboratory

Eduardo Hernández Morales is a Mexican electronics engineer and independent theoretical researcher based in Morelia, Michoacán, and the founder of the Gamma Systems Research Laboratory (GSRL). His work centers on Robust Control Spectral Geometry (GSR) – a framework he developed to certify the stability of complex nonlinear systems in real time without relying on the iterative optimization, linear matrix inequalities, and semidefinite programming that conventional robust control depends on. His approach pairs spectral theory with implementation on resource-limited hardware, including DSPs, FPGAs, and CubeSat-class onboard computers. His scientific formation began outside the classroom – in self-taught neurology and cybernetics during the 1980s and early 1990s – and was shaped by a long intellectual collaboration with Dr. Juan Delgado Romero at the Instituto Tecnológico de Morelia that produced results presented at MWSCAS '97, ECCTD '97 and '99, ICIAM '99, and the 1997 Conference on Control of Oscillations and Chaos in St. Petersburg. He completed his professional degree in 2000 with a thesis applying robust stability to the autopilot of a Boeing 747 and has pursued the GSR framework independently since.

Key topics from the interview:

• Why a CubeSat's onboard computer cannot run the conventional stability tools – and what the Hermitian Spectrum Bound (HSB) Guardian does instead in microseconds, with what he reports as a 100x–1000x speedup over LMI solvers.
• How Gamma Theory makes LMI-free robust control synthesis possible – and why he believes lunar infrastructure will adopt the framework as a critical requirement of survival before Earth's megaconstellations adopt it for cost efficiency.
• What three decades of building robust control mathematics outside an institution has actually looked like – credibility through open Zenodo preprints with DOIs, the structural rigidity of conventional review, and why he frames the two routes as complementary rather than opposed.
• What he is betting on by 2030: a unification claim that smart microgrids, lunar spacecraft, and the bioelectric currents of the human nervous system all obey the same spectral rules – and what would have to be true for that bet to hold.

Watch Eduardo's YouTube preview Tuesday on the Sirotin Intelligence YouTube channel. Full interview drops Thursday.