Where American space activity actually is, taken from two public records rather than from coverage: every orbital launch is logged with its pad, and every federal dollar is logged with the state it was performed in. Both legs run over the same trailing year, so they can be read against each other. Updated 2026-09-23.
Launches and federal money measure different things, and they rank the states almost in opposite orders. A single “space industry” league table would be wrong whichever one it used, so both are shown and neither is blended into a score.
| State | Launchesflown, 365d | Missile & space mfgobligations | NASAobligations | What the state actually does |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FL Florida | 85 | $5.53B #3 | $1.32B #6 | Cape Canaveral, Kennedy Space Center, Patrick SFB — the busiest US launch range |
| TX Texas | 6 | $15.36B #1 | $1.79B #3 | Starbase, Johnson Space Center, McGregor test stands — assembly, test and human spaceflight operations |
| CA California | 82 | $480M #8 | $3.77B #1 | Vandenberg SFB, Hawthorne, Long Beach, JPL — polar launch and most commercial vehicle manufacturing |
| CO Colorado | 0 | $1.37B #7 | $1.06B #7 | Denver metro, Boulder, Colorado Springs — launch-vehicle and spacecraft primes, the satellite cluster, and military space command. No orbital pad |
| AZ Arizona | 0 | $8.28B #2 | $70M #14 | Tucson and Chandler — missile and space-vehicle manufacturing, largely defense |
| UT Utah | 0 | $2.96B #5 | $29M #18 | Promontory — solid rocket motors for launch vehicles and strategic systems |
| AL Alabama | 0 | $3.12B #4 | $2.67B #2 | Huntsville, Decatur — Marshall Space Flight Center, engine and launch-vehicle production |
Rank badges are the state's position nationally on that leg, not among these seven. A state can lead the country on federal obligations and never launch anything.
173 orbital launches flew from US pads in the trailing 365 days, out of 344 worldwide. 10 of the worldwide total failed or partially failed.
By operator: SpaceX 157 · United Launch Alliance 8 · Blue Origin 5 · Northrop Grumman Space Systems 1 · National Aeronautics and Space Administration 1 · Firefly Aerospace 1.
| Date | State | Mission | Vehicle | Pad |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-26 | CA | Falcon 9 Block 5 | USSF-385 | Falcon 9 · SpaceX | Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA |
| 2026-09-28 | TX | Starship | Starlink Group 31-1 (Starship Flight 14) | Starship · SpaceX | SpaceX Starbase, TX, USA |
| 2026-10-01 | FL | Falcon 9 Block 5 | Crew-13 | Falcon 9 · SpaceX | Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USA |
| 2026-10-01 | CA | Falcon 9 Block 5 | Transporter 18 (Dedicated SSO Rideshare) | Falcon 9 · SpaceX | Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA |
| 2026-10-10 | CA | Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 15-25 | Falcon 9 · SpaceX | Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA |
| 2026-10-31 | FL | Falcon 9 Block 5 | Bandwagon 5 (Dedicated Mid-Inclination Rideshare) | Falcon 9 · SpaceX | Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USA |
| 2026-10-31 | FL | Falcon 9 Block 5 | Dragon CRS-2 SpX-35 | Falcon 9 · SpaceX | Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USA |
| 2026-10-31 | CA | Falcon 9 Block 5 | SDA Tranche 1 Transport Layer A | Falcon 9 · SpaceX | Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA |
| 2026-10-31 | FL | Vulcan VC6L | Amazon Leo (LV-01) | Vulcan VC6L · United Launch Alliance | Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USA |
| 2026-10-31 | FL | Falcon Heavy | NROL-97 | Falcon Heavy · SpaceX | Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA |
| 2026-11-30 | FL | Falcon Heavy | Griffin Mission One | Falcon Heavy · SpaceX | Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA |
| 2026-12-31 | FL | Falcon 9 Block 5 | Cygnus CRS-2 NG-25 | Falcon 9 · SpaceX | Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USA |
Schedules slip. Entries marked approximate carry only the precision the source claims — some are accurate to the second, others only to a month.
These are two different questions and they get two different answers. They are never added together: they overlap at an unknown scale, so a sum would double-count.
Its legal name is Guided Missile and Space Vehicle Manufacturing, and in practice it is missile-heavy. That is why Arizona and Utah sit above California here, and why this leg on its own is not a map of the space industry.
| # | State | Obligated | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | TX | $15.36B | 37.7% |
| #2 | AZ | $8.28B | 20.4% |
| #3 | FL | $5.53B | 13.6% |
| #4 | AL | $3.12B | 7.7% |
| #5 | UT | $2.96B | 7.3% |
| #6 | MA | $2.59B | 6.4% |
| #7 | CO | $1.37B | 3.4% |
| #8 | CA | $480M | 1.2% |
| #9 | VT | $387M | 0.9% |
| #10 | MD | $195M | 0.5% |
The civil-space picture, and a different ranking: California first on NASA work, Alabama second, Colorado inside the top ten with no launch pad of its own.
| # | State | Obligated | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | CA | $3.77B | 24.4% |
| #2 | AL | $2.67B | 17.3% |
| #3 | TX | $1.79B | 11.6% |
| #4 | MD | $1.67B | 10.8% |
| #5 | VA | $1.53B | 9.9% |
| #6 | FL | $1.32B | 8.5% |
| #7 | CO | $1.06B | 6.8% |
| #8 | MS | $362M | 2.3% |
| #9 | OH | $287M | 1.9% |
| #10 | LA | $136M | 0.9% |
Reported by USAspending as transactions — money obligated inside the window, not the face value of the awards it belongs to. A multi-year contract contributes only what was obligated in these 365 days.
Space coverage from the dedicated trade press in our corpus. The volume is genuinely low — this beat runs at a handful of stories a day, which is precisely why the rest of this page is built on records rather than headlines.