OUTERSPACE TODAYNEWS
← All editionsWednesday, August 05, 2026 / Issue 048
[ OST Daily ]

SpaceX Doubles Revenue on AI Compute and Starlink as Telesat Lands $1.63B Arctic Deal and Rocket Lab Wins $397M Space Force Award

Outerspace Today5 min read / 2026-08-05
OST Daily August 5, 2026 — SpaceX reported Q2 revenue of $7.8 billion on Starlink growth and Anthropic and Google compute contracts, Telesat signed the largest deal in its history to expand Lightspeed to 225 satellites for the Canadian military, and Rocket Lab took a $397 million Space Force contract to build Flatellites for the airborne-target tracking program.
The daily pictureOST editorial illustration · 2026-08-05
[ 01 ]

The briefing

Revenue jumped 92% to $7.8 billion, with Starlink adding $1.7 billion and AI compute nearly $2 billion on pre-IPO hosting deals with Anthropic and Google. CFO Bret Johnsen said SpaceX signed another $6.7 billion of cloud services revenue early in the third quarter and expects a $100 billion annualized run rate by December. Capital expenditures hit $18.4 billion, more than double revenue, and the stock fell after hours. Musk said Starship Flight 14, targeted for the end of August pending regulatory approval, will attempt the first orbital deployment of Starlink V3 satellites and the first tower catch.

Telesat signed the largest contract in its history, a roughly $1.63 billion agreement with Canada's Defence Investment Agency for military Ka-band Arctic connectivity beginning in 2028, with two five-year options lifting total value to about $1.92 billion. The deal funds an expansion of the Lightspeed constellation from 156 to 225 fully financed satellites, with MDA Space adding 27 spacecraft under a separate $474 million follow-on. Rocket Lab captured a $397 million Space Force contract to develop, launch and operate Flatellites on Neutron under the Space-Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator program, part of a $615 million second task order.

Spire Global secured a $3 million NOAA extension to keep evaluating its Hyperspectral Microwave Sounder data for numerical weather prediction, and Portuguese space traffic startup Neuraspace raised roughly $18 million to expand a sovereign European space domain awareness platform now monitoring more than 600 satellites.

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The headlines

01

SpaceX doubles Q2 revenue as AI compute and Starlink drive first public report

SpaceX

SpaceX reported $7.8 billion in second-quarter revenue, a 92% jump from a year earlier, on its first earnings call since June's IPO. Nearly $2 billion of growth came from AI cloud services under hosting deals with Anthropic and Google, and Starlink added $1.7 billion. CFO Bret Johnsen said the company signed another $6.7 billion of cloud services revenue in the first weeks of the third quarter and targets a $100 billion annualized run rate by December. Capital expenditures reached $18.4 billion, more than double revenue and above the $13.2 billion consensus, and shares fell as much as 8% after hours.

02

Musk targets Starship Flight 14 for first orbital Starlink V3 deployment and tower catch

SpaceX

Elon Musk told investors on the earnings call that Starship Flight 14, tentatively scheduled for late August, will be the vehicle's first orbital flight, delivering operational Starlink V3 satellites to orbit and attempting to catch the upper stage back at Starbase for the first time, pending regulatory approval. Musk said Flight 13 recovery data leaves him considering the heat shield problem solved, and SpaceX is towing the intact ship back from the Indian Ocean for inspection. Gwynne Shotwell noted 78 Falcon launches in the first six months of 2026.

03

Telesat books $1.63B Canadian military deal and expands Lightspeed to 225 satellites

TSAT MDA

Telesat signed a roughly $1.63 billion agreement with Canada's Defence Investment Agency to provide military Ka-band Arctic connectivity to the Canadian Armed Forces beginning in 2028 under the Enhanced Satellite Communications Project-Polar. Two five-year options would bring total value to about $1.92 billion over 15 years. The contract funds an expansion of Lightspeed's fully financed satellite count from 156 to 225, with milestone payments from Ottawa starting in the third quarter of 2026. Global service remains on schedule for the first quarter of 2028.

04

Rocket Lab wins $397M Space Force contract to build Flatellites for SB-AMTI

SpaceX RKLB

The Space Force awarded Rocket Lab a $397 million firm-fixed-price contract to develop, launch and operate multiple Flatellites, a flat satellite design for large constellations with space-based sensors and high-bandwidth links, under the Space-Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator program. Rocket Lab will launch the satellites on its Neutron rocket. The award is part of a $615 million second SB-AMTI task order that also went to Systems & Technology Research and a third undisclosed company, following a $4.16 billion earlier award to SpaceX to build the initial AMTI constellation.

05

L3Harris confirms first ViaSat-3 perimeter truss reflector deployment on orbit

SpaceX LHX

L3Harris Technologies said its first perimeter truss reflector successfully deployed on Viasat's ViaSat-3 Flight 3 satellite, which SpaceX launched in late April as the third spacecraft in Viasat's high-capacity geostationary trio. The satellite will be positioned over the Asia-Pacific region. L3Harris said the reflector is 30% more compact than industry standard perimeter truss reflectors while preserving surface precision. The confirmation removes deployment risk on a program that has previously suffered antenna failures.

06

NOAA extends Spire hyperspectral microwave sounder evaluation for $3M

SPIR

NOAA awarded Spire Global a $3 million, six-month contract extension to continue evaluating data from its Hyperspectral Microwave Sounder, with an unfunded three-month option valued at another $2 million. The HyMS instrument, launched in January 2026, captures atmospheric observations across more than 2,000 sensing channels for numerical weather prediction. The extension will assess sensor performance across more atmospheric conditions and seasons and evaluate forecast-accuracy impact, building on Spire's original $4 million 2022 HyMS development contract.

[ 03 / +36 / -10 ]

Market pulse

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

Gainers+36
Decliners-10
Big mover YSS-13.3%

LUNR: NASA is making progress in building the Moon Base, which will become a resilient outpost near the Moon’s South Pole for science, technology, and eventual NASA is making progress.

AssetSnapshotMoveTrend
LUNRIntuitive Machines$19.77+12.6%
SPCEVirgin Galactic$3.41+8.8%
SPIRSpire Global$14.40+3.7%
YSSYork Space Systems$9.945-13.3%
TSATTelesat$51.21-2.7%
FJETStarfighters Space$3.915-2.6%
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Filings

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