Agile Space Industries is establishing a new office in Bellevue, Washington, positioning the in-space propulsion manufacturer to recruit from the Pacific Northwest’s established aerospace engineering talent pool.

The expansion, announced in an October 2026 press release, follows a period of rapid scaling for the company, which has recorded year-over-year growth exceeding 40 percent for the past three years. The Bellevue location adds to a growing national footprint designed to meet surging demand for chemical propulsion systems in the commercial space, lunar exploration, and defense sectors.

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Scaling operations across multiple states

The move into the Seattle metropolitan area is part of a broader infrastructure build-out for Agile Space Industries. By the end of 2026, the company expects its business to have grown more than four-fold compared to 2022 levels. To support this trajectory, the manufacturer recently completed a 20,500-square-foot expansion of its headquarters in Durango, Colorado.

The August 2026 Durango expansion doubled the facility’s footprint to 40,000 square feet. This additional space is dedicated to increasing manufacturing capacity for the company’s 3D-printed thrusters and supporting a growing workforce. During the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Colorado site, Agile Space Industries CEO Chris Pearson highlighted the strategic nature of the company’s geographic spread.

“The opening of the expanded Durango facility is crucial to support our continued growth. By year-end, the business will have grown more than four-fold since 2022, and the expanded footprint shows our commitment to our HQ here in Colorado while growing our presence in Oklahoma and Washington.”

Concurrently, the company is developing a $36 million hot-fire rocket engine testing center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Located on 20 acres adjacent to Tulsa International Airport (TUL), the facility will support testing requirements for NASA, the US Department of Defense, and commercial space operators. The Tulsa site adds dedicated infrastructure for the rigorous qualification processes required for in-space propulsion systems.

Leadership changes and propulsion market context

The Bellevue office announcement follows a recent leadership transition aimed at managing the company’s rapid scaling. In late September 2026, Agile Space Industries appointed Jason Wright as President. Wright brings 25 years of aerospace experience to the role, including previous tenure at Lockheed Martin. He is tasked with steering the organization toward its goal of quintupling 2022 revenue by the end of the current year.

Agile Space Industries specializes in designing, 3D printing, and testing chemical propulsion systems that operate on hydrazine and hydrazine-based constituents. The company differentiates itself in the competitive space propulsion market through rapid design iteration and extensive in-house testing capabilities. Engineers at the firm have conducted over 8,000 hot-fire tests to date, a metric that underscores the company’s focus on empirical validation.

The manufacturer gained significant industry traction in April 2023 when it qualified its A110 bipropellant thruster for lunar landers. This milestone marked the first US-built thruster qualified for lunar landers since the Apollo program. Following the qualification, the company secured agreements to supply thrusters for lunar vehicles developed by Astrobotic, ispace, and Masten Space Systems.

Financial backing has accelerated this industrial expansion. In February 2026, Agile Space Industries raised $17 million in an oversubscribed Series A funding round. This capital injection has directly supported the company’s hiring initiatives. As of September 2026, the company employed 167 people across four states, having added 77 employees over the preceding 12 months. The new Bellevue office is expected to further accelerate this headcount growth by tapping into Washington’s deep reservoir of aerospace engineering talent.

Dawn Aerospace and Oklahoma state officials broke ground on Tuesday, October 13, 2026, on a $7.5 million mission control and hangar facility at the Infinity One Spaceport. The project establishes a dedicated United States operational base for the company’s runway-launched Aurora spaceplane.

Funded through an appropriation by the Oklahoma Legislature, the development signals the state’s intent to capture a larger share of the commercial spaceflight and microgravity research markets. Dawn Aerospace announced the milestone in a joint press release with the Oklahoma Department of Aerospace and Aeronautics (ODAA) and the Oklahoma Space Industry Development Authority (OSIDA).

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Infrastructure for runway-based spaceflight

The 15,000-square-foot complex will feature a 5,000-square-foot mission control and operations center alongside a 10,000-square-foot hangar. The hangar is sized to accommodate the Aurora spaceplane, a reusable, rocket-powered vehicle designed to operate like a traditional aircraft from conventional runways. The facility will also include dedicated avionics and payload workspaces, as well as a flight simulation office.

Grayson Ardies, CEO of OSIDA and Executive Director of ODAA, described the groundbreaking as a turning point for the spaceport.

“For years, we’ve talked about Oklahoma’s potential in commercial spaceflight. Now we’re putting that potential into motion. Dawn Aerospace is bringing a fundamentally different approach to reaching space, one that uses a conventional runway rather than a traditional rocket launchpad. That’s exactly the kind of innovation we want to attract to Infinity One,” Ardies said.

Aurora spaceplane capabilities and microgravity contracts

Dawn Aerospace has completed 64 test flights of the Aurora vehicle to date. In 2024, the spaceplane established a world speed record by reaching an altitude of 20 kilometers (approximately 66,000 feet) from a runway in 118.6 seconds. The final vehicle is designed to reach a top speed of Mach 3.7 and a peak altitude of 100 kilometers.

The new facility will directly support a recently announced commercial campaign. On September 1, 2026, Astral Materials selected Dawn Aerospace for up to 100 microgravity flights from Infinity One Spaceport. Astral Materials plans to use the flights to test next-generation materials and semiconductor manufacturing technologies. The Aurora spaceplane’s four-hour turnaround time will allow the company to conduct multiple tests in a single day.

The vehicle is designed to provide approximately two minutes of microgravity per suborbital flight. Recent company statements have cited the exact duration as between 120 and 127 seconds.

Oklahoma’s aerospace economy and Infinity One history

The Infinity One Oklahoma Spaceport is one of 14 spaceports licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the United States, and it holds the distinction of being the first inland facility. The site has a long aviation history, originally serving as a Naval Air training facility during World War II and later operating as a Strategic Air Command installation during the Cold War.

The $7.5 million investment aligns with broader state economic goals. According to the ODAA, the aerospace and defense industry currently contributes $52.5 billion to the Oklahoma economy and supports over 250,000 jobs.

Construction of the Dawn Aerospace facility is expected to conclude in the fall of 2027. The company plans to begin flying the full-performance Aurora spaceplane from the site later that year.

AirPro News analysis

The development of inland spaceports like Infinity One represents a necessary evolution in commercial spaceflight infrastructure. Coastal vertical launch facilities are increasingly congested, creating scheduling bottlenecks for research and payload customers. By utilizing a runway-independent spaceplane, Dawn Aerospace can bypass traditional launchpad constraints. If the company successfully achieves its targeted twice-daily flight cadence, this Oklahoma facility could become a blueprint for high-frequency, low-cost microgravity research access.

Starfighters Space, Inc. (NYSE American: FJET) will conduct the first captive-carry flight test of its STARLAUNCH 1 suborbital development vehicle using a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter in December 2026. The mission marks the program’s transition from ground-based design to active flight testing, establishing operational procedures for future drop tests and powered launches.

In a press release issued on October 13, 2026, the company confirmed that the airframe design for STARLAUNCH 1 has been finalized and inert flight hardware has been ordered. The December 2026 flight will originate from the company’s base at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Kennedy Space Center and proceed to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) licensed Cecil Spaceport in Jacksonville, Florida.

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Transitioning to active flight testing

The upcoming captive-carry flight represents a critical milestone for the STARLAUNCH program. Inert flight hardware is expected to arrive at the Kennedy Space Center hangar in November 2026. Engineering teams will then begin assembly and testing of the rocket-aircraft interface to ensure the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter can safely carry the suborbital vehicle.

Tim Franta, CEO of Starfighters Space, stated that the planned captive-carry flight will move STARLAUNCH 1 from design and ground-based development directly into flight testing.

“Our approach is deliberately incremental: build the hardware, integrate it with the aircraft, fly it, collect data, and use those results to advance toward separation and powered flight. This work on STARLAUNCH 1 is also expected to generate engineering and operational experience to inform the future development of STARLAUNCH 2.”

The December 2026 mission is designed to test aircraft integration, evaluate aerodynamic behavior, and establish operational procedures. Piercarlo Ciacchi, Director of Flight Operations and Chief Pilot of Starfighters Space, noted that the flight will capture essential data for the FAA and the United States Space Force (USSF).

“December’s captive-carry mission would essentially be step one of a multi-flight campaign, building processes for our launch team while capturing data for the FAA and the Space Force as we move toward propulsive air launch.”

Following the December 2026 captive-carry mission, the company plans to conduct a drop test over the Atlantic Ocean. This will be followed by a demonstration of the integrated propulsion system.

Hardware integration and propulsion development

The December 2026 flight may also serve a dual purpose by incorporating hardware from the company’s Wind Tunnel in the Sky program. On October 8, 2026, Starfighters Space announced the completion of its first flight hardware for this initiative, manufactured by Italian engineering firm Robby Moto Engineering S.R.L. (RME). The assembled flight articles measure 3.65 meters in length and 178 millimeters in diameter.

During the STARLAUNCH 1 flight, the company may fly this newly completed Wind Tunnel in the Sky hardware under the opposite wing of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter on a customer-funded rideshare mission. In this configuration, the hardware will simultaneously serve as an aerodynamic counterweight for the STARLAUNCH 1 vehicle.

Propulsion development is also advancing in parallel. On September 9, 2026, Starfighters Space signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Florida-based Vaya Defense & Space to evaluate the Vortex-Hybrid rocket engine for the STARLAUNCH system. Data collected during the December 2026 flight will support Vaya Defense & Space in developing a hybrid rocket motor aligned with the specific requirements of STARLAUNCH 1.

The STARLAUNCH development pathway

Starfighters Space operates the world’s only commercial fleet of flight-ready Mach 2+ supersonic aircraft. Based at the Kennedy Space Center, the company utilizes its fleet to provide pilot training, in-flight testing, and microgravity research, while actively developing air-launch capabilities for space payloads.

The STARLAUNCH program is the company’s primary air-launch initiative. STARLAUNCH 1 serves as the initial suborbital development vehicle, designed to pave the way for STARLAUNCH 2, a larger vehicle intended for orbital launches.

The program has met several technical milestones throughout the year. On January 21, 2026, the company announced the successful completion of subsonic and supersonic wind tunnel testing for STARLAUNCH 1. These tests demonstrated clean separation behavior at Mach 0.85 and Mach 1.3. Subsequently, on February 20, 2026, the program advanced to a Critical Design Review (CDR) with support from GE Aerospace to confirm design maturity.

Addressing the hypersonic testing bottleneck

The aerospace and defense industries are currently facing a significant bottleneck in hypersonic testing. Traditional ground-based wind tunnels are heavily oversubscribed and typically offer only seconds of test time per run. Airborne platforms like the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter fleet offer sustained testing at speeds exceeding Mach 2 in real atmospheric conditions.

This capability provides a complementary method to compress development timelines for defense primes and commercial space companies, allowing them to gather sustained aerodynamic data outside of traditional laboratory environments.

AirPro News analysis

We view the activation of the STARLAUNCH flight test campaign as a notable indicator of the shifting economics in high-speed aerospace testing. By utilizing legacy supersonic platforms to bypass the constraints of ground-based infrastructure, commercial operators are positioning themselves to capture overflow demand from defense primes and space launch developers. If the December 2026 captive-carry flight successfully validates the aerodynamic integration, it will likely accelerate the timeline for propulsive air-launch systems, offering a viable alternative to traditional vertical launch architectures for smaller payloads.

The dual-use nature of the December 2026 flight, which tests the launch vehicle while simultaneously flying a commercial payload as a counterweight, demonstrates a highly efficient approach to flight test monetization. This strategy allows the operator to offset development costs while proving out multiple distinct business lines on a single sortie.