OUTERSPACE TODAYNEWS
← All editionsFriday, July 31, 2026 / Issue 045
[ OST Daily ]

K2 Space Doubles to $6.8B on $500M Round, L3Harris Delays Missile IPO to 2027, Rocket Lab Books Three More iQPS Launches

Outerspace Today6 min read / 2026-07-31
OST Daily July 31, 2026 — K2 Space raised $500 million at a $6.8 billion valuation to expand large-satellite production, L3Harris pushed its missile-solutions IPO into mid-2027 citing weak market conditions, and Rocket Lab signed iQPS to a third Electron multi-launch deal as NASA declined again to set a Starliner return date.
The daily pictureOST editorial illustration · 2026-07-31
[ 01 ]

The briefing

K2 Space closed a $500 million Series D that more than doubles the Torrance satellite manufacturer's valuation to $6.8 billion in seven months. Kleiner Perkins and ICONIQ led the round with CapitalG, Lightspeed, Altimeter, Spark, Sands, ARK Invest and T. Rowe Price participating, and co-founder Karan Kunjur said the money funds a ramp toward as many as 100 large spacecraft per year. K2 now reports more than $1 billion of signed government and commercial contracts, up from $500 million in December, as it pushes its Mega-class bus toward volume production and prepares a higher-power Giga-class platform for late 2028.

L3Harris will delay the spin-off of its missile solutions unit until at least mid-2027, pushing the IPO out of this year. CEO Chris Kubasik said market conditions do not reflect what the business is building, and that L3Harris will keep investing in facilities without IPO proceeds until the 2027 to 2029 window. The Pentagon's planned $1 billion stake in the new entity waits with it. Rocket Lab signed iQPS to a third multi-launch Electron deal in under a year, three more flights from Launch Complex 1 starting in late 2027, taking the Japanese SAR operator's Electron bookings to nine.

NASA declined again to set a date for Boeing's next Starliner flight, with International Space Station (ISS) operations manager Bill Spetch saying only that the cargo-only Starliner-1 will fly when a docking port opens. Boeing said additional cost impacts on the fixed-price program are possible. Planet Labs added a one-year PlanetScope contract with the Scottish Government for agricultural analytics, and True Anomaly and Rocket Lab completed the unclassified rendezvous phase of the Space Force's Victus Haze exercise, with Rocket Lab activating its Puma satellite within 38 hours of call-up and closing head-to-head with True Anomaly's Jackal in under 59 hours.

[ 02 / 6 items ]

The headlines

01

K2 Space raises $500M at $6.8B valuation to scale large-satellite production

K2 Space closed a $500 million Series D led by Kleiner Perkins and ICONIQ, more than doubling the Torrance manufacturer's valuation to $6.8 billion in seven months. CapitalG, Lightspeed, Altimeter, Spark Capital, Sands, ARK Invest and T. Rowe Price also participated. K2 now reports over $1 billion in signed government and commercial contracts, up from $500 million in December, and says the capital funds a production ramp toward as many as 100 large satellites a year, with the higher-power Giga-class platform targeted for late 2028.

02

Rocket Lab wins third iQPS multi-launch deal in a year

RKLB

Rocket Lab signed iQPS to a contract for three additional Electron launches starting in late 2027, each carrying a QPS-SAR satellite from Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand to a 575-kilometer orbit. It is the third multi-launch iQPS booking on Electron in under a year, bringing total iQPS launches to nine and Rocket Lab's overall Electron backlog to 18 missions, of which seven have flown. A June 30 iQPS launch was aborted at engine ignition and has yet to be rescheduled.

03

NASA declines again to date Starliner's next flight as Boeing warns of more cost hits

BA

NASA's Bill Spetch declined to set a launch date for Boeing's next Starliner mission, the cargo-only Starliner-1, saying only that the spacecraft will fly when it is ready and when an ISS docking port and crew time are available. Boeing said earlier in the week that it is still working with NASA to resolve schedule uncertainty and warned of possible additional cost impacts, which it must absorb under the fixed-price contract. The ISS manifest for the rest of 2026 already includes Russian Progress, SpaceX and Northrop Grumman cargo flights plus a NASA crew rotation.

04

True Anomaly and Rocket Lab close first unclassified on-orbit rendezvous under Victus Haze

RKLB

True Anomaly said its Jackal satellite completed a mutual rendezvous and proximity operation with Rocket Lab's Puma satellite under the Space Force's Victus Haze responsive mission. Rocket Lab activated Puma within 38 hours of a June 19 call-up launch, beating the Space Force's 72-hour requirement, and completed the head-to-head inspection with Jackal in under 59 hours against an 84-hour target. Each satellite photographed the other while maintaining active tracking, giving the Space Force its first unclassified on-orbit demonstration of dual-controlled satellite rendezvous.

05

Planet Labs signs Scottish Government to one-year PlanetScope agricultural contract

PL

Planet Labs' Berlin-based German subsidiary won a one-year, seven-figure contract with the Scottish Government via reseller Computacenter to deliver PlanetScope imagery and automated analytics to Scotland's Agricultural and Rural Economy Directorate. Program director Jo Gray said the data will support monitoring of environmental and climate targets and inform future agricultural reform. Planet already supports the Welsh government and England's Rural Payments Agency with similar services.

06

Leonardo DRS to acquire mission-software firm Raft for $450M

Leonardo DRS agreed to acquire Raft, a 2018-founded open-architecture mission-software company, in an all-cash transaction valued at $450 million. Raft's software fuses data across domains for command-and-control users and is embedded in the Army's NGC2 prototype in the Pacific with the 25th Infantry Division, as well as in an Anduril-led common data baseline contract awarded in June. CEO John Baylouny said the deal accelerates DRS's move into integrated hardware, software and mission autonomy.

[ 03 / +29 / -5 ]

Market pulse

Archived snapshot from this edition. Prices and moves are not live.

Gainers+29
Decliners-5
Big mover YSS-3.5%

Carpenter Technology led delayed-tape gainers at 3.2% after furnishing fiscal fourth-quarter results and the accompanying earnings deck on 8-K.

AssetSnapshotMoveTrend
CRSCarpenter Technology$519.66+3.2%
ATIATI$187.44+3.0%
BKSYBlackSky Technology$23.05+2.6%
YSSYork Space Systems$14.73-3.5%
DCODucommun$179.02-2.4%
BABoeing$216.14-2.2%
[ 04 / 5 tracked ]

Launch watch

Schedule and countdowns as recorded in the 2026-07-31 edition.

Long March 8A

CASC · Long March 8A · Commercial LC-1 · Wenchang Space Launch Site

Smart Dragon 3

China Rocket Co. Ltd. · Smart Dragon 3 · Haiyang offshore launch location · Haiyang Oriental Spaceport

H3-22 | Michibiki 7 (QZS-7)

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries · H3-22 · Yoshinobu Launch Complex LP-2 · Tanegashima Space Center, Japan · GTO

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Filings

[ End of Issue 045 ]

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