True Anomaly raises $100M to scale space security tech
Summary
These vehicles, called Jackals, are equipped with a suite of sensors and cameras to track, surveil and collect data on objects in space. Jackal, Mosaic and the companys other work in space domain awareness are meant to close that gap.The startup, founded by a quartet of ex-Space Force members in 2022, has been moving quickly toward this goal. In the first full year of operations, the company opened a 35,000-square foot facility in Centennial, Colorado and doubled its staff to more than 100 employees.In September, True Anomaly landed a $17.4 million contract from the U.S. Space Force to build a suite of space domain awareness capabilities, including helping the warfighter find and track objects in space, characterizing that object, and using artificial intelligence to predict and identify changes in the objects behavior.The first two Jackal spacecraft are scheduled to launch on SpaceXs Transporter-10 rideshare mission in March. In August, the company got the green light from regulators to perform non-Earth imaging and to demonstrate in-space rendezvous proximity operations with the two spacecraft. Its an enormous technical challenge, so no doubt many people in both Silicon Valley and Washington will be paying close attention to how the demonstration mission shakes out.