Reusable rockets have transformed the space industry over the past decade, and a startup led by a SpaceX veteran wants to do the same with satellites.
Brian Taylor, who helped build satellites for networks such as SpaceX's Starlink and Amazon's Leo, founded Lux Aeterna in December 2024 to develop satellite structures with built-in heat shields that can return to Earth with their payloads intact.
The company, which came out of stealth last year, on Tuesday morning announced a new $10 million seed round led by Convoy with participation from Decisive Point, Qubit Capital, Wave Function, Space Capital, Dynamo Ventures, and Channel 39. The company declined to disclose its valuation.
The capital will support the design and construction of Lux Aeterna's Delphi spacecraft, which is confirmed to be aboard a SpaceX rocket scheduled for launch in the first quarter of 2027. The mission will demonstrate Lux's technology by offering customers the opportunity to test hosted payloads and materials through a partnership with aerospace company Southern Launch. These materials will then be returned to Earth at Australia's Kooniva Test Site.
To bring something back from space, it must fly into Earth's atmosphere at incredibly high speeds, creating extreme heat. A spacecraft that wants to survive the journey must be covered with materials that protect it from that heat and add extra weight. Most spacecraft are not designed for return because their weight makes it more expensive to go to space by rocket.
This calculation typically limits the reentry of vehicles carrying humans, such as the Space Shuttle (one vehicle was lost due to the extreme conditions of atmospheric reentry) and SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft. SpaceX's repeated attempts to land its giant Starship rocket have made the challenge clear to anyone who has seen it on YouTube.
Startups like Varda Space and Inversion are tackling the same problem on a smaller scale. We are building reentry capsules that allow customers to conduct experiments in space and return samples for analysis, or virtually deliver cargo to locations on Earth at high speed. Varda flew five missions and returned the capsule on four. Inversion hopes to release an Ark vehicle by the end of this year.
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Reliable technology to return payloads from space to Earth is needed for several futuristic business models, including testing new materials in orbit, manufacturing pharmaceuticals and high-end electronics in microgravity, and extracting resources such as metals from asteroids. The U.S. military has expressed interest in the ability to provide logistics support through orbital transport and testing of parts for hypersonic weapons.
But Lux has a bigger idea: making communications and Earth observation satellites reusable. Currently, satellites have a useful lifespan of only 5 to 10 years due to a combination of component failure, propellant depletion, or aging. They are then either destroyed in the atmosphere (no heat shield, remember?) or sent into graveyard orbits where they are out of the way of normal space operations.
“Our ambitions are much bigger than just reentry,” Taylor told TechCrunch, explaining the possibility of “dynamic upgrade capabilities.” Taylor said:[I]If you have a payload component, whether it's compute or a hyperspectral camera, and you want to update that technology every year, instead of building a new satellite and leaving the old satellite in space, you can take it down and bring it back. ”
While this is an exciting vision, economic realities must be considered. The value these new payloads create must outweigh the additional costs of building, launching, returning, and refurbishing reusable satellites.
There are also regulatory challenges. Currently, Lux is heading to Australia, as it is not easy to obtain a re-entry permit to land in the United States. Varda, which is set to return the first commercial spacecraft to land on U.S. soil in 2024, was delayed for months as it worked to convince the FAA that the returning capsule posed no threat to people or property on the ground. Subsequent assignments brought her back to Australia.
Taylor says the pace of regulatory approvals won't be a bottleneck for the next three to four years, but he hopes the FAA will learn with the early re-entering industry and allow the pace of returns to increase.
“The people supporting us truly believe that now is the time to make a big, big paradigm shift in orbital operations,” Taylor said. “It’s not just about re-entering and bringing things back; [but] It's about bringing reusability to a larger part of the satellite industry. ”