The newly established spacecraft manufacturing company will manufacture the Aries satellite bus, which is a 103kg spacecraft platform that can hold a customer payload of 94kg
Apex, a satellite bus manufacturing start-up, emerges from stealth with $7.5m in funding. (Credit: David Mark from Pixabay)
Apex, a spacecraft manufacturing company based in Los Angeles, has emerged from stealth with a funding of more than $7.5m.
The initial round of financing was led by Andreessen Horowitz, while the other participants included XYZ, Lux Capital, J2, and Village Global.
The new spacecraft manufacturing firm will produce spacecraft for commercial as well as government customers.
Apex aims to tap into the increasing demand for spacecraft platforms called satellite buses.
Satellite buses are equipped with all of the subsystems required for space operations like flight computer, navigation, power, de-orbit capabilities, and propulsion.
The newly established spacecraft manufacturing company has built the Aries satellite bus, which is a 103kg spacecraft platform. Aries can hold a customer payload of 94kg for a total wet mass up to 197kg.
The Los Angeles-based firm sells the Aries spacecraft platform to firms operating in low earth orbit, flying payloads for a range of missions from earth imaging to communications.
The spacecraft platform is available off the shelf or can be customised to meet specific mission needs.
The satellite bus manufacturing start-up will be led by Ian Cinnamon and Max Benassi.
Cinnamon, who has previously steered his venture-backed company Synapse up to its growth and acquisition by Palantir, will serve as the CEO of Apex. Benassi will serve as the spacecraft manufacturing firm’s CTO.
Previously, Benassi is said to have scaled aerospace manufacturing at SpaceX prior to operating as Astra engineering director.