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Image captured from the Aries SN-1 mission launched by Anduril and Apex.
Anduril Industries plans to launch its first spacecraft next year, in partnership with Los Angeles-based satellite bus manufacturer Apex to go after a ballooning national security space market.
The defense tech startup first announced it was expanding its hardware and software capabilities to support the space domain in a Sept. 13 release. It cited plans to design, manufacture and integrate modular mission payloads that leverage the company’s experience in imaging, electronic warfare, command and control and mission autonomy.
Anduril is planning to launch a self-funded mission next year, featuring mission data processing and infrared imaging capabilities, aboard an Apex-provided Aries ESPA-class bus. Through this new partnership, announced Oct. 1, the Apex buses will support the U.S. government and its partners for missions such as space situational awareness, proliferated constellations in low Earth orbit (LEO) and missile warning and tracking. Anduril will act as the mission systems integrator, and contribute its own payloads, on-orbit edge processing solutions, and ground-based command and control (C2) platforms.
The 2025 launch will serve as “an essential tech maturation demo,” and kick-start Anduril and Apex’s plans to “regularly” deploy more mass to orbit, the companies said in a statement.
That mission will include payloads built by Anduril as well as third-party vendors, Gokul Subramanian, Anduril’s senior vice president of engineering, said in a Sept. 27 media roundtable.
Anduril and Apex have already worked on one mission together. The Aries SN-1 was launched March 4 as part of SpaceX’s Transporter-1 mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. Apex internally funded that mission and offered several partners the opportunity to fly a payload on board its Aries bus, said Ian Cinnamon, company CEO. While Aries SN-1 was somewhat of a technology demonstrator mission, he noted the bus was the first in a production run that is ongoing, and is expected to remain on orbit for five years.
Anduril joined the effort about 12 weeks prior to launch, and included a mission data processor that allows the company to perform on-orbit edge processing, Subramanian said. The goal was to use the processor to retrieve and manipulate images taken with the spacecraft’s cameras, then downlink the data back to Earth, he said. Anduril also wanted to demonstrate that it could use its Lattice C2 solution to communicate with the Apex satellite.
Via Lattice, Anduril sent a tap to the spacecraft, “telling it to understand its orientation in space, point at a specific location, take a photo, do some processing, and downlink that image to Earth, all autonomously with very little human involvement,” Subramanian said.
He described Anduril’s vision for space as “creating optionality for the U.S. government,” and said the company plans to soon announce strategic partnerships with other bus providers.
“This is the first partnership of many that we intend to announce ... to build what I’m calling a team of super friends who can attack these problems, each of us, with our own capabilities and unique offerings,” he said.
Cinnamon described the satellite bus as “the biggest bottleneck” that is keeping the U.S. from deploying more capabilities on orbit. His company’s goal is to relieve that bottleneck by rapidly producing off-the-shelf buses and providing pricing models upfront.
“We build those buses ahead of customer demand, we hold them on inventory, and when the payloads are ready, we’re able to integrate them … in a matter of weeks instead of years,” Cinnamon said.
Both companies see ample opportunity to partner together to support national security missions like the Space Development Agency’s (SDA) Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, where the SDA is fielding new satellites in LEO every two or so years.
Cinnamon said Apex’s Aries ESPA-class spacecraft and its recently announced Nova spacecraft would fit well into the SDA’s architecture. Nova is an “ESPA-Grande class” satellite bus platform that can support payloads ranging from 200 to 500 kg (440 to 1,102 lb.), with deliveries beginning in 2025. The Aries spacecraft can support up to 100 kg (220 lb.) of payload.
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