Out: Maxar Space Systems and Maxar Intelligence. In: Lanteris Space Systems and Vantor.
More than two years after Maxar split into two separate companies, both entities have rebranded to alleviate confusion in the industry and ensure their names reflect their individual missions.
“Given the way our structure is now, it’s the perfect time for us to pivot and create our own identity as two separate companies,” Lanteris CEO Chris Johnson told Payload. “I go talk to customers, and they’re like, ‘This isn’t the [Vantor CEO] Dan Smoot meeting; it’s the Chris Johnson meeting.”
Meet Lanteris: Johnson said the spacecraft business is “at an inflection point,” with six WorldView Legion satellites operating in orbit and its buses being delivered to L3Harris for the Space Development Agency’s tracking layer. He also said the company’s business has diversified so much that it’s now a 50/50 split between commercial and government programs.
“We’re a different company now,” he said.
Meet Vantor: The satellite imagery company is using the rebranding opportunity to highlight its push beyond traditional imagery to include autonomy, intelligence products, and 3D tools, according to Vantor Chief Product Officer Peter Wilczynski.
Vantor is also announcing its new spatial intelligence platform, called Tensorglobe. That platform includes automated image collection planning, the ability to create high-res 3D models, and analysis capabilities.
“It’s a similar evolution to when you go back 20 years to amazon.com launching Amazon Web Services. They took the internal tech they had built to run the company and turned it into a platform,” Wilczynski said. “You can start on the third lap of the mile to get a working solution in place quite quickly.”
End of an era: Maxar was well-known in the space industry, but also outside of it, where its imagery regularly appeared in media to highlight everything from natural disasters to conflict zones. Wilczynski acknowledged the power of the Maxar brand, but said it felt disconnected from the company’s current mission.
“That name carried a lot of connotation and held a lot of baggage,” he said. “It’s a really natural opportunity to say, ‘What is the next generation of the brand?’ ”
