SpaceX Plans US Starlink Mobile as Rocket Lab Launches 10th Synspective Flight, MDA Wins Mitsubishi Payload

SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell told investors during the recent IPO roadshow that the company plans to launch a Starlink retail mobile service in the US and could build its own terrestrial network, a move that would put SpaceX in direct competition with Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile beyond its current role as a wholesale satellite supplement to their networks. The pitch landed as SpaceX's post-IPO trading cooled while space-sector hiring kept climbing, with Revelio Labs counting job postings up more than 40% year over year against a roughly 5% decline in US postings overall.

Rocket Lab launched its 10th dedicated Synspective mission on June 26, placing a StriX radar satellite into a 552-kilometer orbit from New Zealand and lifting 2026 Electron flights to 12 at 100% success, with 17 more on contract. The launch had slipped from June 17 to clear the Victus Haze mission Rocket Lab flew for the US Space Force. MDA Space confirmed Mitsubishi Electric selected it to build the digital payload and antennas for a new Japan Ministry of Defense satellite replacing Kirameki-2, part of $1.7 billion in deals signed during a Canadian trade mission to Japan.

Falcon 9 delivered the 7.5-ton SXM-11 satellite to geostationary transfer orbit for SiriusXM late Sunday from Cape Canaveral, built by Lanteris Space Systems, the former Maxar Space Systems unit Intuitive Machines acquired in January 2026 for about $800 million. A separate Falcon 9 added 24 Starlink satellites from Vandenberg, taking SpaceX's first-half 2026 pace to 75 launches, 59 of them for Starlink. Firefly Aerospace acquired Space-ng, the AI vision-navigation team whose software flew on Blue Ghost Mission 1 and will now lead Firefly's spacecraft software organization.