The next frontier of national security might be space. And Redwire has made a new acquisition to be on the leading edge of it.
What’s happening:
- Space infrastructure company Redwire (NYSE: RDW) has officially acquired spacecraft development company Hera Systems
The big idea:
- Hera Systems manufactures spacecraft that are purpose built for national security missions in geostationary orbit
- Hera Systems spacecraft can rapidly locate damage and debris in orbit, as well as being able to discern details of what is happening on Earth at twice the resolution of human vision
- Once a Hera Systems spacecraft has gathered data from a mission into orbit, it then is capable of processing the information through machine learning technology that can communicate in real time with their national security and defense partners
By the numbers:
- Hera Systems generated $15M USD in revenue in their most recent year of operations
Going deeper:
- Hera Systems has existing partnerships with the United States Space Force, the Air Force Research Laboratory and multiple other government agencies in North America
- Defense tech and national security in space has also been a rising trend, with Planet Labs (NYSE: PL) recently entering into a new deal with NATO Communications and Information Agency to provide high resolution satellite data on military infrastructure, threat assessment and even planned missile launches
- Space security startup True Anomaly also previously raised a mega funding round to advance their autonomous orbital vehicle which was led by legendary deep tech venture capital fund Riot Ventures
The intrigue:
- There has been a renewed interest on Wall Street recently for publicly traded space companies which has led to an influx of both new capital and cultural excitement for the future of space exploration
