Pentagon commits $150M loan to Stoke Space for second Florida launch pad
What's the deal? Stoke Space has secured a conditional commitment for a $150 million loan from the US Department of Defense's Office of Strategic Capital. The Kent, Washington-based rocket maker will use the financing to build a second launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
What's the endgame? The new pad would serve Stoke's Nova Block 2, a fully reusable rocket designed to carry up to 15 metric tons to low Earth orbit — five times the capacity of its Nova Pathfinder vehicle. Pathfinder is targeted for a first orbital launch in early 2027; Block 2 is slated to debut in 2029.
Why now? The commitment follows Stoke's initial closing of a roughly $1 billion Series E round in September, which brought its total funding to about $2.3 billion. The Office of Strategic Capital, set up in 2022 to draw private investment into technologies seen as critical to national security, said the move "more broadly supports the expansion of U.S. launch capacity."
What could go wrong? The loan is not final. Stoke must still meet a list of financial, legal, technical, and due-diligence conditions before it closes, and the financing would be paired with private capital to pay for the pad.
Stoke already has federal ties. In 2025, the Space Force added it to a pool of providers that can compete for national security missions under Lane 1, though it cannot bid until it completes a successful orbital flight.
The signal: The loan ranks among the largest US deep-tech debt deals on record, sitting in the 96th percentile of 1,927 such rounds. It reflects a wider push — alongside recent moves by Rocket Lab and Blue Origin — to expand domestic launch capacity as defense demand climbs, and the distinction here is government-backed financing for infrastructure rather than a launch contract.
Read more: in.marketscreener.com
Image credit: NASA Goddard Photo and Video
