07/28/2026

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By Sandra Erwin

Welcome to this week's edition of SpaceNews' Military Space, your source for the latest developments at the intersection of space and national security. In this week's edition: the GPS enterprise moves to the next phase, Vulcan's grounding tests ULA’s finances and Vast builds a defense business around space station technology.

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SpaceX on July 21 launched a Northrop Grumman robotic spacecraft designed to extend the lives of multiple satellites by installing propulsion modules in geostationary orbit. The robotic system originated under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites program. DARPA began the program in 2016 to combine government-developed robotic technology with a commercially owned and operated servicing spacecraft. Credit: SpaceX

Vulcan grounding turns into financial strain for ULA and suppliers

United Launch Alliance entered 2026 with more than 80 missions on its books and plans to fly as many as 22 rockets. It now needs financial support from its corporate parents while Vulcan Centaur, the vehicle meant to carry most of that backlog, remains grounded.

Lockheed Martin disclosed that it guaranteed as much as $500 million in borrowing by ULA, which it owns jointly with Boeing. The move is the clearest indication yet that a problem involving a Northrop Grumman-built solid rocket booster has begun weighing on the launch company’s finances.

The issue has also reached Northrop, which has recorded $162 million in charges this year tied to the GEM 63XL booster program. The company says motors incorporating redesigned components might not begin arriving until the end of 2026.

ULA must continue paying for factories, launch pads and its workforce while flights are delayed and customer payments are pushed out.

The stakes are also high for the Pentagon. Vulcan is central to the Space Force’s plan to maintain at least two reliable providers for its most demanding satellite missions and reduce dependence on SpaceX. With Vulcan unavailable, SpaceX’s Falcon family is currently the only certified option flying the highest-risk national security missions.

The latest anomaly occurred during the Feb. 12 launch of USSF-87. One of Vulcan’s four GEM 63XL strap-on boosters suffered what ULA described as a significant performance problem, though the rocket still delivered its payloads to the planned orbit. The incident followed a similar booster-nozzle anomaly during Vulcan’s second certification flight in October 2024.

Northrop Chief Executive Kathy Warden said the company has redesigned a component and successfully tested the change in a static firing. Deliveries of the updated motors are expected to begin by year end, but that timetable doesn’t establish when Vulcan will fly again. ULA must integrate the new hardware, complete its own engineering work and obtain Space Force approval before military launches resume.

The timing is difficult for ULA. The company is nearing the end of Atlas 5 operations, with its remaining rockets reserved for Boeing’s delayed Starliner spacecraft. That leaves Vulcan as ULA’s only vehicle available to work through a backlog that includes missions for Amazon, the Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office. Before the February anomaly, ULA expected to conduct between 18 and 22 launches this year, including as many as 18 Vulcan missions. Vulcan has flown once.

The grounding has widened the gap between rising demand and available launch supply. The Space Force has identified as many as 25 additional high-value missions for fiscal 2027 through 2029, while Amazon is also preparing for a larger constellation deployment campaign. Moving missions elsewhere is possible, but it can require contract changes, new spacecraft integration work and schedule adjustments.

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A new approach to GPS enterprise modernization

The Pentagon over the past few months has moved to bring the ground and user equipment portions of the Global Positioning System into closer alignment with a new generation of satellites.

The latest step is the transfer of the Military GPS User Equipment program from the Space Force to the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center. The handoff puts an organization responsible for aircraft electronics and weapon system sustainment in charge of developing and fielding the receivers that allow military equipment to use GPS’s encrypted M-code signal.

That change follows the Space Force’s April cancellation of the Next Generation Operational Control System, or OCX, the long-delayed software program that was supposed to replace the ground system used to command the GPS constellation. After more than 15 years of development and billions of dollars spent, the service decided that continuing to upgrade the existing control system presented less risk than trying to bring OCX into operation.

The two decisions address different parts of GPS, but they point in the same direction. Rather than wait for another comprehensive modernization plan, the Pentagon is reorganizing responsibility for the user equipment, salvaging the ground infrastructure that already works and continuing to buy new satellites.

GPS is an enterprise, not simply a constellation. It consists of satellites that broadcast positioning and timing signals, a network of ground systems that operates them and user equipment that processes those signals aboard aircraft, ships, vehicles and weapons. New capabilities provide little benefit unless all three segments are available at the same time.

That synchronization has been a persistent problem. The first satellite capable of transmitting M-code, a military signal designed to resist jamming and spoofing, launched in 2005. But delays in both OCX and MGUE prevented the Pentagon from making full use of the signal across the force. GAO had warned for years that GPS 3 satellites, OCX and MGUE were interdependent and that delays in any one program would hold back the broader modernization.

MGUE illustrates the difficulty. The program develops chips and receiver cards, but those components must be incorporated into complete receivers and integrated with the avionics, antennas and mission software of hundreds of military platforms. Space Systems Command managed the common technology, while the services and individual weapon-system offices were generally responsible for installing it.

That arrangement created a gap between finishing a receiver card and fielding an operational capability.

The Pentagon continues to invest in the space segment as it transitions to the new generation of GPS 3F satellites, which are expected to add capabilities including more powerful regional military signals intended to improve performance in jamming environments.

Vast builds defense business around space station technology

Space station developer Vast is looking for an opening in the national security market, with high-power satellite platforms offering a more immediate opportunity than its longer term vision of hosting military personnel in orbit.

The company is trying to turn technology, personnel and manufacturing capacity assembled for commercial space stations into a broader spacecraft business serving defense and intelligence agencies. Vast announced last week it established a special programs division led by Melanie Stricklan, a former Air Force officer who co-founded and ran the space tracking company Slingshot Aerospace.

The move would give Vast another potential source of revenue as it spends heavily to develop Haven-1 and a larger successor station. The commercial market for human activity in low Earth orbit remains uncertain and dependent on NASA, which plans to replace the International Space Station with services purchased from privately operated stations but hasn’t finalized how it will buy them.

Vast says it has raised more than $1 billion and employs more than 1,000 people, giving it an industrial base that may be difficult to sustain through astronaut missions and research contracts alone. Defense and intelligence programs could provide a larger and more consistent stream of work.

The company has technology that can be transferred from stations to uncrewed spacecraft. Space stations require substantial power generation, thermal control, propulsion, communications, avionics, flight software and autonomous operations — the same underlying capabilities needed for large, sophisticated satellites.

Vast announced plans for a 15-kilowatt-class satellite bus using systems developed for Haven-1. The company identified national security missions as one of its target markets.

The Space Force, meanwhile, is looking for commercial suppliers in many of those areas. Its commercial strategy calls for privately developed capabilities in communications, surveillance and tracking, space domain awareness, orbital mobility and logistics, among other missions. The service has said it will judge commercial systems based on their operational value, resilience, technical maturity and ability to be fielded quickly.

That doesn’t mean Vast will have an easy path into the market. Established defense contractors and satellite manufacturers already have flight records, cleared personnel, secure facilities and longstanding relationships with classified customers. Vast is more likely to begin with demonstrations, hosted payloads, subsystems or prototype spacecraft than to immediately win responsibility for a critical military constellation.

Its strongest argument may be that it can offer more electrical power, internal volume and payload capacity by drawing on technology developed for commercial stations. That could become more valuable as the Pentagon pursues demanding spacecraft for missile defense, intelligence collection, communications and orbital logistics.

Vast is also trying to shape a longer-term discussion about whether the military will eventually need personnel and infrastructure in orbit. Chief Executive Max Haot and other company officials have argued that expanding commercial activity could create demand for human-operated facilities supporting research, servicing, logistics or protection.

That remains a strategic proposition rather than an existing Space Force market. The service has no current program to station guardians in orbit.

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