Firefly Wins $100 Million NASA Contract, Adds Lunar and Launch Deals

Rocket Lab Corporation successfully launched its 96th Electron mission, delivering the 12th StriX satellite for synthetic aperture radar company Synspective into an exact 572km low Earth orbit. The 'Owl By The Dozen' mission lifted off from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand at 3:22pm NZST on September 19, 2026, marking Rocket Lab's 17th launch of 2026 and extending its 100% mission success record across its multi-year launch partnership with Synspective. Electron's Kick Stage placed the satellite with pinpoint accuracy, maximizing on-orbit lifetime and supporting immediate integration into Synspective's Earth-monitoring constellation. Rocket Lab has 15 additional dedicated Electron missions manifested through the end of the decade to complete Synspective's commercial SAR constellation. With 17 launches completed so far in 2026, Electron continues to lead the global commercial small-lift sector in frequency and reliability.

NASA has awarded SpaceX a $946 million contract for three additional astronaut missions to the International Space Station, extending the company's crewed flights to the orbiting laboratory through 2030. The award brings SpaceX's total NASA astronaut missions under the contract to 17 and raises its total value to $5.92 billion. The contract covers astronaut and spacecraft preparations, launches, in-space mission operations, crew returns and capsule recovery, and also includes transporting supplies and keeping the spacecraft at the station as an emergency escape vehicle. NASA selected SpaceX and Boeing in 2014 to develop spacecraft capable of carrying astronauts to the station, and SpaceX's role has grown after Boeing's Starliner encountered problems during its 2024 crewed test flight, which returned the capsule without its crew while astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams came home aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon after their planned 10-day mission stretched beyond nine months. NASA said it wants both companies operating crew flights so a technical problem or accident involving one provider does not interrupt US access to the station.

Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas reiterated a Buy rating and $300 price target on SpaceX, implying roughly 99% upside, as investors await Starship's first orbital test on September 22. The 14th Starship flight is expected to send the vehicle into orbit and deploy 26 Starlink V3 satellites, tying the launch directly to one of SpaceX's biggest growth businesses. CEO Elon Musk has said Starlink V3 deployment will begin in September and that the next-generation satellites could eventually deliver more than 100 times the bandwidth of the current constellation. Bernstein analyst Douglas Harned maintained an Outperform rating with a $248 target, implying about 64% upside, and said gaining Starship reusability to enable orbital data centers remains most important for SpaceX's valuation; he expects the Connectivity business to generate more than $100 billion in EBITDA by 2031. William Blair analyst Louis DiPalma called the latest deal SpaceXAI's fourth compute agreement in the past four months exceeding $11 billion in ARR, while Wall Street's average SpaceX price target stands at $232.07, implying about 54% upside.