SpaceNews.com
• Sandra Erwin
K2 Space has announced a $500 million funding round at a $6.8 billion valuation, more than doubling its valuation in seven months. The satellite manufacturer is preparing to transition from orbital demonstrations to larger commercial and military orders, supported by expanded engineering capacity including a new Seattle hub.
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K2 Space has announced a $500 million funding round at a $6.8 billion valuation, more than doubling its valuation in seven months. The satellite manufacturer is preparing to transition from orbital demonstrations to larger commercial and military orders, supported by expanded engineering capacity including a new Seattle hub.
The Scottish Government has signed a one-year, seven-figure contract with Planet Labs for agricultural imagery data, sourced through Computacenter as a reseller. The deal expands the use of commercial Earth observation data to support regional agricultural-related decision-making and monitoring.
High activity
SES says it is “days away” from finalizing its Iris2-related transaction and is repositioning as a satellite solutions provider, while reporting a 5% revenue and 6.2% decline in adjusted EBITDA for the six months ended June 30. LATAM will add SES multi-orbit ESA inflight connectivity on 60+ Airbus and Embraer jets, plus the E195-E2; meanwhile Emirates moves to Starlink and standardizes off Viasat. SES Networks revenue topped €1B in the period.
SpaceX argues Starlink Mobile represents a very large total addressable market for direct-to-device connectivity, but commentary from industry observers questions the feasibility of the approach. The concern centers on whether the D2D link budget can reliably deliver service at the scale implied by SpaceX’s market sizing.
Satellite startup K2 Space, focused on building large spacecraft for data-intensive communications and defense missions, has raised $500 million in a new funding round. The investment comes as the company prepares to announce the financing at a reported $6.8 billion valuation.
The Exploration Company says it has selected Siemens Xcelerator software to speed development of its reusable Nyx cargo spacecraft. The company cites reduced design complexity and improved engineering collaboration across its development workflow as key reasons for the move.
Sophia Space said it received an award on July 30 for a patent it shares with the California Institute of Technology, covering large, modular space-based data centers. The filing targets in-orbit compute and storage architectures intended to support scalable space services.
Astronomers used “blind stacking” to detect faint, previously unseen objects in geosynchronous orbit, highlighting debris risks in GEO—an increasingly critical environment for GPS, weather tracking, and communications satellites. The reporting underscores the need to keep GEO clear of collision hazards that could disable key services.
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