A California startup that wants to sell sunlight from orbit has booked two rockets from India. Reflect Orbital announced in October 2026 that it bought two launches from Skyroot Aerospace, according to Payload Space as relayed by Ars Technica. It matters because it hints at how tight US launch supply could get.
This story summarizes Ars Technica's Rocket Report, which in turn draws on Payload Space. We have not independently confirmed the details with Reflect Orbital, Skyroot, Rocket Lab or the FCC, so treat them as secondhand reporting.
One ride will be Skyroot's Vikram-1, which became the first privately built Indian rocket to reach orbit in July 2026. The other will fly on an upgraded version called the Vikram-1U. Reflect plans to put its first satellite up on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare in 2027, and its pitch is a constellation of some 50,000 mirrors that would send sunlight to the ground for power and lighting. The FCC approved its first mirror satellite earlier in 2026.
Why a US firm looked abroad
Ars Technica's read is that the deal shows what satellite operators fear: a shortage of US launch capacity as SpaceX phases out Falcon 9 in favor of Starship, which is far larger but still relatively unproven. That is the outlet's framing, not a statement from Reflect, and the company's own reasons for choosing Skyroot are not in the report we read.
Neutron slips, small rockets step up
Rocket Lab said in October 2026 that its Neutron rocket won't fly until 2027, blaming an issue found while making its carbon composite structures. Small air pockets, called voids, turned up between carbon-fiber layers in the forward dome of the first-stage propellant tank. Few were surprised: an August 2026 update had still hoped to get the first Neutron to its Wallops Island, Virginia, pad by year's end, which would almost certainly have meant a 2027 first flight anyway.
Meanwhile, Colorado startup LEAP wants to enter dedicated small-satellite launch in 2028 with its Bighorn rocket, built for 320 pounds (145 kg) to low-Earth orbit. Its Denver-area factory is meant to build six a year at first, scaling to two a month. In May 2026, LEAP flew a smaller suborbital rocket, Bullfrog, to roughly 130,000 feet (40 km).
The headline in the Ars roundup also mentions FAA plans for more Starbase traffic, but the text we had did not include those details, so we can't say what is proposed.
Next up: watch for the Vikram-1U's first flight and whether more US customers follow Reflect, though the report we read gives no dates for either. If launch supply does tighten, would you expect more American startups to shop overseas?
Sources
Reported by the WattsUpNext desk from the sources linked below. Spot an error? Tell us at corrections@wattsupnext.com.
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