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Los Angeles - basedK2 Spaceis accelerating its way to orbit with fresh venture funding , young defense contracts and a planet computer architecture that will be up to of delivering staggering superpower levels in a individual launch .
The company is taking what co - founder and CEO Karan Kunjur account in a late interview as a “ pretty significant contrarian stakes against the market . ” The premise of the bet go something like this : The space industry is regularise by a unmarried infinitesimal calculus — cost per kilogram of mass . The dollar mark cost of mass affects how space vehicle are designed , how scientific missions are evaluate and even how entire patronage are planned .
Although the cost per kilogram of mass has pass up with the rise of novel launch capabilities , like SpaceX ’s pioneering work in rocket reusability , ballistic capsule and charge designer still face egregious great deal constraints . As a result , spacecraft have vex modest , lightheaded and more stocky . But that does n’t descend without significant swop - offs in business leader , payload mass and cargo loudness .
K2 Space is act in the opposite steering . The fellowship emerged from stealth in March with ambitious plans to design and build up massive satellite bus , at never - before - check costs . Their guess is that next - gen launch fomite like SpaceX ’s spaceship will fundamentally change the cost per kilogram substitution class that has rule with an smoothing iron fist for so long — but that to take advantage of this future , we must begin planning for it now .
The company is prepare two satellite buses : a one - gross ton payload mass jalopy called Mega , which can fly on launch vehicles operating today , and a much larger Giga artificial satellite for up to 15 tons of warhead , that ’s built for top-notch - heavy rocket engine . These products can “ lower the barrier to accessing ability , aperture or mass for any software in space , ” Colorado - founder and CTO Neel Kunjur explained in a recent consultation . ( The two conscientious objector - founder are blood brother . )
But it is n’t just the size of it of the satellites that ’s singular . Revealed in more item today , K2 has design them to operate in a stackable , scalable computer architecture , so that customer can essentially purchase and manoeuver a luxuriously - powered configuration at super - low costs . K2 ’s products could unlock higher energy orbit , like intermediate Earth orbit , for company at damage points that are presently prohibitive .
The satellites were designed to maximize launch fomite fairing book , too . Stacked together , 10 Mega - class satellites will be able to fit in a Falcon 9 fairing , which would redeem 200 kilowatts of power in a single launching . Even more staggering , 40 Megas will be able to outfit into a Starship , which would deliver 800 kilowatt of power in one go .
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For address , ViaSat ’s ViaSat-3 telecom orbiter , one of the most herculean satellites ever deployed in orbital cavity , has 25 kW of power and cost over half a billion dollar sign to build . In line , a 10 Mega - class constellation would be less than $ 150 million .
Neel , who spent more than five yr at SpaceX develop avionics for SpaceX ’s Dragon spacecraft , said that present both gamey power and high - carry density drove the planet innovation .
“ Not really many multitude other than SpaceX are maximise the capability of Falcon 9 , ” he explained . “ When SpaceX launches a Starlink mission these daytime , they ’re using every kilogram of launching capacity they possibly can on Falcon 9 . Everybody else is leaving a lot on the table . We wanted to deport the highest power density per launch possible . At 200 kilowatts deployed per Falcon launch , there ’s no other orbiter bus manufacturer that get even tight to the amount of power that we can deploy in a undivided Falcon 9 launch . ”
Toward mass abundance
The engineering challenge are substantial . Although there are some major upsides of no longer having to mass optimize every exclusive component — things can be more robust , or made out of sonorous ( but substantially cheaper ) materials — K2 is essentially redesign a satellite from scratch , even down to the reaction wheel , one of the most fundamental and settled aspect of artificial satellite designing ( K2 ’s is one of the largest ever designed ) . Liberated from entrenched designing epitome that assume mass restraint , around 85 % of the space vehicle is vertically integrated , if only because some of the applied science does n’t exist to support the new satellite architecture .
For that reason , pull top talent has been key . The company recently fetch on Rafael Martinez , who guide the figure of the original Hall pusher for SpaceX ’s Starlink constellation and was director of propulsion technology at Apollo Fusion , to conduct the pattern of what Karan pronounce will be the highest - powered Hall thruster to be deploy in blank space by a factor of four . Other notable hires include Ashrith Balakumar , who lead the avionics engineering science team for SpaceX ’s Dragon spacecraft , and Drew Miller , a elderly mechanical locomotive engineer with experience at SpaceX , Kitty Hawk and Maxar .
K2 has tripled in size since March — get from a team of six to 18 — and is looking to expand even further to around 40 over the next six months . All this is leading up to the company ’s first satellite launch in 2025 , for which the launch married person has n’t yet been announced . Investor interestingness in K2 ’s delegacy has not slake either : The party has also raised an additional $ 7 million in uppercase , bringing its full capital raise to $ 16 million , include an $ 8.5 million seed round announced earlier this twelvemonth .
Among the new investor is Alpine Space Ventures , a European investment firm contribute by a turn of early SpaceX technologist , include Catriona Chambers — who happens to be the person who hired Neel at SpaceX.
The company has also land three contract from the U.S. Department of Defense on behalf of different death drug user , reflecting some interesting adhesive friction from defense force for K2 ’s larger platform . The company was awarded the three contract , which have a full possible contract note value of $ 4.5 million , over the last three months .
“ There ’s been a real push for resilience in our defense architecture , and historically resiliency has do in the shape of proliferation , where that proliferation require you going smaller , loud , quicker , ” Karan say . “ But alas , there ’s a lot of use grammatical case and a lot of end user that actually would like more baron than what those small Sat provide . The key affair that most of the end exploiter we ’ve sing to so far are energise by is being able to have proliferation without sacrificing performance . ”
To give a taste of the variety of time to come the Kunjur brothers are building toward , they described a “ dream mission ” : launch four or five Mega - class satellites to establish a geostationary communications web around Mars . Scientific missionary post are deep constrain in how much tycoon they can send off back because they bet on aging Mars artificial satellite — not to advert any next mission to the flushed planet .
But that ’s just the beginning . A futurity in space unconstrained by mass is one that has only just begin to be explore .
“ Across almost every app , because we ’ve been forced to either mass tighten up our lading or mass tighten our shipment or even king constraint them , what we can actually do has been restrain to a magnanimous degree , ” Karan say . “ As a result , the types of missions you could do are more limited . ”
