Quantum Space, a startup focused on building an information “superhighway” in cislunar space, announced yesterday that it has raised $15M from Prime Movers Lab, and that it intends to close a Series A by year’s end.
QS 101: The Rockville, MD-based startup has set its sights on building a network of satellites to form the infrastructure for a cislunar economy. Quantum was cofounded by Kam Ghaffarian, who also founded IBX, Axiom Space, Intuitive Machines, and X-energy.
The company will deploy this network, QuantumNet, over the next decade until it operates 40+ space vehicles, called Scouts, by the Moon. According to Quantum, each Scout will deliver space domain awareness, weather forecasting, PNT, comms, and edge computing services.
“Once completely built out over the next decade, QuantumNet is destined to transform the way spacecraft travel between the Earth and the Moon,” Steve Jurczyk, president and CEO of Quantum Space, said in a statement.
QS-1: Quantum’s first mission will launch in October, sending the first Scout to cislunar space. QS-1’s mission objectives are to:
- Reach cislunar space—specifically, the Earth-Moon Lagrange points 1 and 2
- Produce space situational awareness (SSA) information using a payload provided by GEOST
- Host customer payloads and establish commercial operations
- Perform cislunar navigation and autonomous station keeping maneuvers
What’s next? Quantum is using this investment to complete the development of its QS-1 mission and get started on the next batch of satellites. Once the first mission has launched, the company hopes to continue sending Scouts to cislunar space at a regular cadence. The startup also says it will soon announce mission partners for QS-1.
