Space Force Seeks Up to Five Cislunar Satellites Ready for 2029 Launch; General Cites China

The Space Force is moving to put military hardware between Earth and the Moon, and it wants the first of it ready to launch in late 2029.

A Nov. 2, 2026 notice to industry asks for information on deploying up to five satellites beyond geosynchronous orbit. The notice describes a Cislunar Space System. The initial spacecraft would be ready for launch in late 2029, with initial operations in 2031. The service could award up to five contracts and is considering funding initial design work as early as 2027.

The notice says these first satellites would inform the acquisition strategy for a larger, proliferated cislunar constellation. The service is asking about propulsion for station-keeping and orbital transfers, plus onboard computing and artificial intelligence for long autonomous operations. Communications, navigation and space domain awareness are the stated areas of interest.

Two more RFIs on the way

Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, the Space Force's portfolio acquisition executive for advanced programs, told the Space Industry Days conference in Los Angeles on Monday, Nov. 2, that two more requests for information are coming soon. One will seek commercially available technology for cislunar missions. The other will seek AI software to help spacecraft operate autonomously between Earth and the Moon. The service wants capabilities it can field by the end of fiscal 2029.

Purdy described a sharp reversal inside the Pentagon. "At the beginning of the year … there was no talk of cislunar, and basically I was told: 'Don't talk about cislunar and stop getting into it,'" he said. Now, he said, the secretary of war and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs are "full on stating in public, 'This is a warfighting domain.'"

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told an audience in Dayton, Ohio on Oct. 20 that "[whoever] controls subsea and cislunar is going to destroy and control the next fight."

Purdy, who reports to Air Force Secretary Troy Meink, said the Air Force Research Laboratory, SpaceWERX and DARPA have experimented with cislunar technology, but largely in isolation. Until recently the Space Force treated the region as a possible future arena, not a present one.

The Space Force is also putting money behind a separate effort. Lunar Prime is a $30 million industry challenge aimed at flight demonstrations of cislunar technology within two years of contract award.

China is the stated reason

Purdy's explanation is blunt. "China is moving out in this area. We have traditionally not," he said.

He said in late October that Beijing is not planning a stunt. "They're not planning for a one-off demo," Purdy said. "They are planning for sustained activity. It's in their strategic documents and they're building the [research and development], and the [science and technology], and the operational reps." He added: "This isn't a four- or five-year science project. This is about getting capability out soon."

China has laid out a crewed lunar timeline in public. Wang Xiang, deputy chief designer of China's manned space program and chief designer of its lunar exploration program, described the architecture at the 7th Manned Space Symposium in Beijing on Oct. 31. China plans to land astronauts before 2030, using two Long March-10 rockets. The Mengzhou crew spacecraft and the Lanyue lander would launch separately and dock in lunar orbit. A crew of three would fly, and two would walk on the surface.

A second Chinese project has drawn more suspicion. China launched 30 CubeSats into a highly elliptical orbit near an Earth-Moon Lagrange point and into a circular lunar orbit, as reported in September by People's Daily. Beijing has described the project at recent UN-related meetings as a science experiment. Several experts told Breaking Defense it is clearly meant to support cislunar surveillance. Those experts were not named, and China has not said the project has any military purpose.

What is still open

The notice is a request for information, not a contract. Responses will shape whether the five-satellite plan becomes a funded program and in what form. The Space Force has not published a cost estimate for the initial deployment or the larger constellation.

That matters for taxpayers. The Pentagon is setting a 2029 deadline for a domain it was telling its own officers to stay quiet about months ago. Congress will have to decide whether to fund a proliferated constellation before the first five satellites have flown. Only the $30 million Lunar Prime figure is public.

The next concrete steps are the two RFIs Purdy says are coming soon, followed by any contract awards. Design funding could begin as early as 2027, with the first launch-ready spacecraft targeted for late 2029.