LeoStella is a state-of-the-art company that specializes in designing and manufacturing small satellites (smallsats) cost-effectively and at scale. As a joint venture between Thales Alenia Space and BlackSky, LeoStella focuses on transforming constellation construction to meet the growing demand for efficient satellite production. Their primary product is small satellite buses, like the LS-300, and they have partnerships with companies like Loft Orbital, BlackSky, and Safran, and also works with the Space Development Agency (SDA). LeoStella aims to provide agile solutions for various missions, delivering critical space infrastructure for government and commercial clients.
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BlackSky announced the acquisition of LeoStella during its 2024-11-07 earnings call discussing third quarter financial results.
BlackSky expects the LeoStella acquisition will improve its control over the Gen-3 supply chain and production operations.
BlackSky completed the acquisition of the remaining stake in LeoStella on 2024-11-06, according to its 10-Q filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
LeoStella delivered 23 satellites to date, 19 of which were in orbit as of an 2024-10-24 press release.
BlackSky expects the LeoStella acquisition will improve efficiencies in the production of future Gen-3 satellites.
BlackSky acquired the remaining 50% of LeoStella from Thales Alenia Space.
LeoStella won business from other companies such as Loft Orbital and sought to enter defense markets.
LeoStella has been producing Gen-3, the next generation of imaging satellites, for BlackSky.
BlackSky, then part of Spaceflight Industries, created the LeoStella joint venture with Thales Alenia Space in 2018 as part of a $150,000,000 Series C round.
LeoStella opened a satellite factory in a Seattle suburb in 2019 to produce BlackSky satellites and satellites for other customers.
LeoStella’s satellites have delivered revenue-generating data with more than 99 percent uptime.
LeoStella has delivered 23 satellites since its founding in 2018.
LeoStella was founded in 2018 to provide rapid and agile satellite manufacturing at scale.
LeoStella partnered with BlackSky as a subcontractor for the HALO competitive program and is pre-qualified to work directly with the Space Development Agency to develop on-orbit mission-feasibility prototypes.
The Space Development Agency selected LeoStella to support the Hybrid Acquisition for Proliferated Low-Earth Orbit (HALO) program.
The 19 HALO pool members are Airbus U.S. Space & Defense (Arlington, Virginia); Apex Technology, Inc. (Culver City, California); AST Space Mobile USA LLC (Midland, Texas); Astro Digital, U.S. Inc. (San Jose, California); Capella Space Corp. (San Francisco); CesiumAstro Inc. (Austin, Texas); Firefly Aerospace, Inc. (Cedar Park, Texas); Geneva Technologies Inc. (Monument, Colorado); Impulse Space, Inc. (Redondo Beach, California); Kepler Communications U.S. Inc. (Wilmington, Delaware); Kuiper Government Solutions (KGS) LLC (Arlington, Virginia); LeoStella LLC (Tukwila, Washington); Momentus Space (San Jose, California); Muon Space, Inc. (Mountain View, California); NovaWurks Inc. (Los Alamitos, California); Space Exploration Technologies Corps. (SpaceX) (Hawthorne, California); Turion Space Corp. (Irvine, California); Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, Inc. (Irvine, California); and York Space Systems LLC (Denver).
LeoStella is pursuing a partnership with Syrlinks, a Safran Electronics & Defense company, to equip LeoStella’s LS-300 satellite bus with the N-SPHERE GNSS receiver.
Syrlinks and LeoStella have an established partnership built over the course of several collaborative programs.
LeoStella plans to build N-SPHERE into the development of its future satellite platforms.
Integrating N-SPHERE’s very high precision localization capability into the LS-300 bus provides LeoStella access to international defense customers.