Step one to preventing a conflict in area is realizing what’s taking place tens of hundreds of miles above the planet. Towards that finish, protection tech darling Anduril is shopping for boutique information agency ExoAnalytic Options.
ExoAnalytic operates a community of 400 telescopes all over the world, which it makes use of to trace spacecraft in excessive orbits above the planet. The corporate’s engineers develop software program that converts these observations into situational consciousness instruments for U.S. nationwide safety businesses watching adversary spacecraft and coordinating American property on orbit.
“It is a firm we’ve been working with intently for the final a number of years on quite a few applications, and they’re specialists in area area consciousness and missile protection,” Anduril VP of engineering Gokul Subramanian informed reporters. “We imagine the [Department of Defense] deserves the very best catalog of every part happening in area.”
The privately-held firms didn’t disclose the phrases of the deal. Anduril is within the strategy of elevating a $4 billion spherical from traders Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, Reuters reported final week.
ExoAnalytics can be instantly built-in into Anduril, not run as a separate subsidiary, although Subramanian stated it could proceed to serve current and future outdoors prospects. Presently, Anduril has 120 workers centered on area protection, a quantity that can greater than double with the addition of 130 ExoAnalytics workers.
The corporate’s expertise might assist Anduril win authorities contracts supporting Golden Dome, the missile protection system that the US Congress has appropriated billions of {dollars} to construct. That system is anticipated to incorporate hundreds of satellites to trace and goal enemy missiles, and sustaining real-time consciousness and coordination amongst them can be a heavy elevate.
Anduril is planning to launch three spacecraft this yr as internally-funded R&D tasks that can draw on capabilities gained within the acquisition. Subramanian stated ExoAnalytic’s expertise processing area information can be utilized in an infrared monitoring satellite tv for pc it plans to launch this yr in partnership with Apex House. The area monitoring information can be used to execute two missions in excessive orbit anticipated to launch this yr in partnerships with Impulse House and Argo House, respectively.
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There’s one other potential angle to the acquisition — the machine imaginative and prescient algorithms ExoAnalytic has developed to identify satellites in orbit are additionally helpful for interceptors making an attempt to trace and interact with incoming threats. Anduril acquired a contract from the Pentagon in late 2025 to start growing a space-based missile interceptor.
ExoAnalytic was based in 2008 to adapt missile protection sensor expertise to trace spacecraft in orbit after U.S. army officers referred to as for brand spanking new and higher methods to grasp what was taking place in area, CEO Doug Hendrix stated in a 2024 interview. The corporate’s early development was funded by grants and contracts from the federal authorities, together with $26 million in SBIR grants since 2010.
U.S. House Pressure officers have expressed deep concern about Chinese language and Russian spacecraft that fly intently alongside American and European satellites, the place they might probably intercept communications or harm the satellite tv for pc with digital or different weapons.
“Two years in the past, an [U.S. commander in the Pacific told] me that the fleet can’t depart the port with out the area layer being secured,” Subramanian stated. “We’ve been on a mission for the final a number of years to determine methods to be part of that resolution.”
