Anduril and Apex are joining forces to boost volume and slash costs in orbit.
The defense tech startup announced Tuesday that it will use Apex’s satellite buses for missions ranging from space situational awareness to missile warning and tracking, according to a press release.
Tip the scales: Anduril was intrigued by Apex’s ability to scale and mass produce standardized satellite buses. In June, Apex closed a $95M Series B funding round, which will help ramp up annual production from five Aries buses in 2024 to 100 in 2026.
“Our focus is really replicating those same things that we’ve done in other domains in the space domain,” Anduril’s SVP of engineering Gokul Subramanian told reporters. “If you think about what Anduril has been successful in doing in maritime, in the air domain, in the ground domain, it’s moving from low volume/high cost systems…to high volume/low cost systems.”
Budding friendship: Anduril worked with Apex to launch a payload on the bus company’s Transporter-10 mission—and the partnership is evidence of the speed at which both companies are looking to move.
- Subramanian met Apex CEO Ian Cinnamon and shared that he was taking over Anduril’s space portfolio.
- Cinnamon said Anduril could add a payload to the upcoming mission if it could be ready in time to send to SpaceX in just a few months.
- Anduril spent 12 weeks building and testing the payload—a timeline that is “unheard of,” according to Subramanian.
What’s next: The partnership with Apex will be the first of many for Anduril, which intends to band together with other companies offering unique products or approaches and pitch their capabilities to the government together, Subramanian told reporters.
“Our intent is to bring together this team of super friends to provide optionality to the US government, giving them a new way of doing business and a new faster way of attacking their problems” he said. “We believe this approach will ultimately be what’s needed to answer the call in this domain.”
