Cruz Orbital, a startup founded by veterans of the Ukrainian space industry, has completed new funding to accelerate the commercialization of its satellite services technology.
The two-year-old company aims to usher in a new era of human activity in space by enabling functions such as satellite repositioning and inspection, deorbiting, and space debris removal. Kurs itself has no plans to provide these services. Instead, the startup aims to become a leading supplier of rendezvous and docking technology through its ARCap module, which can be integrated into any spacecraft bus.
“Currently, there is no off-the-shelf rendezvous and docking technology available, so companies that want to provide satellite services or logistics missions will have to develop this technology themselves,” explained Kurs CEO Volodymyr Usov. “Achieving this takes years and requires a lot of mission, talent and funding. In contrast, our module allows such companies to get to market much faster and at a modest cost. will be able to participate.”
The company's technology builds on the flight legacy of the Kurus Rendezvous System, a Soviet-era technology developed to allow spacecraft to dock with the Mir space station. Unlike other companies developing in-space servicing technology, Cruz Orbital's modules can be attached to “non-cooperative” targets, meaning target spacecraft that are not pre-equipped with hardware.
“Our module can deal with all kinds of uncooperative targets, such as out-of-fuel or defective satellites or space debris, without the need for pre-installation of hardware on a customer's spacecraft,” it said previously. said Usov, who headed Ukraine's space mission. said his agent. “We aim to offer the market a system with true performance and flexibility that can perform fully autonomous maintenance of spacecraft, both in space operations and ground control. I am.”
The Turin, Italy-based company aims to have its first ARCap module ready for space in the fourth quarter of 2025, but Ussov declined to provide details about the first mission.
To accelerate its plans, the company has partnered with Credo Ventures, Galaxia (a fund created by CDP Venture Capital and Obloo Ventures), In-Q-Tel and Inovo. With the new capital, Cools also aims to expand its 11-person team, Usoff said.
In-orbit maintenance has been in the spotlight in recent months following the failure of several high-cost, high-profile satellite missions. A recent example is ViaSat's ViaSat-3 geostationary satellite. The satellite lost much of its planned capacity due to problems during antenna deployment. The company subsequently filed a $421 million insurance claim for the spacecraft.
Deorbiting could also be a very fruitful market. Before a satellite is retired, geostationary satellite operators must put the spacecraft into a so-called “graveyard orbit” months before the propellant runs out. Enabling deorbit service allows operators to squeeze every day of useful life out of a spacecraft.
But the future is by no means clear, and the company is “confident that things will be very interesting,” Usoff said.
“In the early '90s, no one would have imagined using the Internet for products like social media or streaming services,” he said. “Similarly, we know that our modules enable life extension, decommissioning, inspection, active debris removal, refueling, etc., but within 10 years we will see new use cases for our technology.” We also expect to see a number of commercial destinations in different orbits managed by private companies in 10 years. Logistics-wise, currently the destination is limited to the ISS. We believe that one of the next big steps in space will be multimodality as we know it on Earth. And we believe that one of the next big steps in space will be multimodality as we know it on Earth. What is it?”