Space RFP Tracker — 2026 Celestial Procurement
RFP Daily tracks every active solicitation, contract award, and procurement pipeline shaping the space economy. From NASA Artemis and Space Force constellations to ESA lunar landers and DARPA cislunar programs, we publish the daily record of humanity's off-world investment. Browse the Top Solicitations ranked by value, follow active lunar bids, or watch the live ABOI feed for real-time updates.
Top Solicitations
May 21, 2026
Trump Admin Signs $2.013B Quantum LOIs With Nine Firms: IBM Leads, Congress Cries Foul
Commerce signed non-binding Letters of Intent under the CHIPS Act totaling $2.013B: IBM ($1B), GlobalFoundries ($375M), and seven others. Mandatory equity stakes in every deal. Portfolio covers every viable quantum modality. Congress was not consulted. Full analysis in the Beyond vertical.
02
Why Did We Go Originally?
Apollo was a geopolitical instrument, not a science program. The real reason we went explains why we stopped.
03
Why Go Back?
Water ice changes the economics. The Moon is no longer just a destination; it is a gas station.
04
Multistage Rockets
From Saturn V to SLS to Starship. The physics hasn't changed; the engineering has.
05
Updates to the Capsule
Orion is not a modernized Apollo. It is a clean-sheet design that happens to use the same shape.
06
The Artemis Missions
Five flights. From flyby to surface base. Every mission generates procurement across multiple verticals.
07
The Artemis Treaty
61 nations signed. Two didn't. The Accords shape who gets contracts and who gets left out.
08 · in dev
Artemis I: Mission Report
The uncrewed shakedown that had to work before anyone could fly. What Orion's heat shield data showed and what it unlocked for every crewed mission after.
Taikonauts · China's parallel program
14 · in dev
The Heavenly Palace Was Built Because America Said No
The Wolf Amendment. One law. No NASA cooperation with China. China built its own station. Now on its 23rd mission.
15 · in dev
The Other Coalition
61 nations signed the Artemis Accords. Two did not. China is running the same coalition-building logic as NASA, for a different station, with different partners.
16 · in dev
A Year in the Palace
One Shenzhou 23 taikonaut is staying at Tiangong for a full year. You do not test a year in space unless you are planning missions where that data is load-bearing.
Artemis 2026
We're Going to the Moon
On April 1, 2026, NASA's Space Launch System lifted off from Kennedy Space Center carrying four astronauts on Artemis II, the first crewed mission to lunar orbit in over fifty years. This is not a replay of Apollo. Artemis is a sustained campaign to build permanent infrastructure on and around the Moon, establish resource extraction capabilities, and lay the economic foundation for deep-space operations.
Read the full series →
Framework piece
What Stays GEO
Five requirements the Pentagon will not migrate to LEO. The unwritten filter that keeps geostationary orbit alive.
Nuclear command and control, strategic missile warning, protected tactical satcom, weather, and broadcast. Tactical comms, tracking, and ISR have already migrated to LEO and MEO. Everything else has a reason to stay at 36,000 kilometers, and that reason is what every subsequent Earth-2 article will reference.
Read the Earth-2 series →Also in this series
PTS-G · $4B IDIQ
Astranis on the Same Contract as Boeing
Five primes share the Protected Tactical SATCOM ceiling. Eighteen months of task-order combat decide who actually builds the next generation. First launch 2028.
SES + Intelsat · $3.1B
After Intelsat
The biggest Western satcom merger in a decade closed July 2025. The Pentagon now buys commercial satcom from half the vendors it had a year ago.
GeoXO · NOAA
A $2.27B Prime Is Not the Whole Story
Lockheed won the bus. Imager, sounder, ocean color, atmospheric composition, and lightning mapper are still open. Nine-figure instruments each.
Astranis · K2 · Swissto12
The Flagship Bus Is Dead
Software-defined 400 to 1,000 kg satellites are taking the regional and military buys. K2 raised $250M at $3B in December.