Muon Space Raises $250M for 500-Satellite Line, Portal Buys a Whole Falcon 9, White House Sets 1,000-Launch Target

Muon Space closed a $250 million Series C led by Eclipse Capital, at a reported $1.5 billion valuation. The Mountain View manufacturer has flown 11 satellites since 2021, seven of them this year, and has more than 50 spacecraft in development, including 13 booked for launch over the next year. Proceeds fund the new San Jose facility that Muon says can produce up to 500 satellites a year by 2027, a tenfold jump, and support next year's first 500-kilogram MuSat XL for Hubble Network. President Greg Smirin put the company's pipeline above $10 billion.

Portal Space Systems bought an entire Falcon 9 for its 2028 Motus Via Sol mission, the first flight of its solar-thermal Supernova bus, and hired launch integrator Maverick Space Systems to sell the remaining fairing capacity. CEO Jeff Thornburg said the move secures Portal's own launch pipeline as SpaceX winds down dedicated Transporter and Bandwagon rideshares beyond late 2028. The deal landed the same day the White House issued its first National Space Transportation Policy since 2013, targeting 1,000 U.S. launches and reentries a year by 2030 against roughly 200 in 2025.

Rocket Lab launched its 93rd Electron from New Zealand, delivering iQPS's ninth QPS-SAR satellite to a 575-kilometer orbit and marking the company's 14th Electron flight of the year on a manifest that includes nine more iQPS missions. In Europe, ESA confirmed the Ariane 6 Block 3 evolution and the ICARUS lightweight upper stage have been shelved, with member states covering less than half of the requested €304.4 million adaptations envelope at November's ministerial. And in the Pacific, Lockheed Martin and Saildrone fired two Joint Air-to-Ground Missiles from a Surveyor-class uncrewed surface vessel during RIMPAC, six months after the concept began.