Senior Optics Engineer

Space Kinetic wins $50M for satellite flinger, Space brief 14 aug 2026. Space Force awards Space Kinetic $50M for Whirlwind centrifugal satellite deployment. Astranis unveils Perceptor GEO surveillance craft. Gravitilab enters liquidation. Top stories. Space Kinetic wins $50M Space Force award for centrifugal satellite deployment system. Space Kinetic received a $50 million OTA award from the Space Force to develop Whirlwind, a system that flings microsatellites from a host spacecraft using centrifugal acceleration rather than thrusters. The company, which raised a $12 million seed round in 2025, describes the approach as applying drone economics to orbit: cheap, attritable payloads with useful lives potentially as short as 30 minutes. The concept decouples maneuvering from the payload itself. Whirlwind provides the initial delta-v electromechanically, then the microsatellites use their own propulsion and comms for the mission. The system is designed to be both regime- and payload-agnostic, fitting the Space Force's push toward distributed, responsive architectures. Read the full story: Payload Astranis enters GEO surveillance market with Perceptor spacecraft. Astranis, known for its microGEO broadband satellites, unveiled Perceptor, a spacecraft built on the same platform but fitted with sensors for inspecting other satellites in geostationary orbit. The vehicle uses electric propulsion to reposition across the GEO belt and can conduct flybys, with multiple units working together to observe targets from different angles. GEO surveillance is a growing Space Force priority as China fields maneuvering spacecraft near U.S. communications and missile-warning satellites. Astranis was among 14 companies selected in April for the Andromeda contract vehicle supporting the RG-XX next-generation GEO surveillance constellation. "There are blind spots that will be used against us if not eliminated," CEO John Gedmark said. Space Force awards $60M to five companies for multi-vendor satellite network Integration. Amazon LEO for Government, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Rocket Lab, and York Space Systems each received $12 million to demonstrate how their satellites can connect to the Space Data Network, the military's planned LEO mesh communications architecture. The tests will cover on-orbit data transport and standardized interfaces across different providers. The SDN backbone is being built by SpaceX under a $2.29 billion contract awarded in May, using optical crosslinks to route data satellite-to-satellite. These awards address the next layer: making sure other vendors' systems can plug into that backbone without locking the network into a single provider. UK suborbital rocket builder Gravitilab enters liquidation. Gravitilab Aerospace Services, a UK-based suborbital rocket company, has ceased trading and entered voluntary liquidation. Shareholders approved the winding-up on 20 July via a Microsoft Teams meeting, and creditors appointed Price Bailey as liquidator. The company's statement of affairs shows more than £700,000 owed to unsecured creditors, including £324,465 to business creditors, £144,487 to 19 employees, and £104,515 to four directors. Against those debts, Gravitilab listed just £92,243 in available assets, nearly all held in a client account. After preferential claims for employee holiday pay, roughly £76,700 remains for creditors. Army fires Chief identifies four capability gaps across 62 programs. Brig. Gen. Robert Mikesh, leading offensive fires under the Army's new Portfolio Acquisition Executive structure, outlined four capability gaps at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville: propulsion and energetics, targeting and seekers, the industrial base, and munitions depth. Mikesh's office is managing 62 programs. On targeting, Mikesh said the Army is planning for contested electromagnetic environments where GPS and networks are degraded, requiring multi-mode seekers that fuse data from multiple sensors. He also called on industry to stop proposing weapons that lock the government into single-source solutions, pushing instead for open architecture and multiple suppliers. Maurice Stellarski. Maurice Stellarski is the Chief Coordination Officer (CCO) of the Civilian Cardboard Command Center Protocol (CCCCP). With over 25 years of self-certified experience in NEATS (Non-Existent Aerospace Tracking Systems), Maurice specializes in predicting launches with uncanny accuracy using his proprietary KITCHEN (Knowledge Integration Technology Combined with Household Equipment Network) methodology. When not monitoring his mission control center, Maurice maintains the world's largest collection of mission-critical authorization stamps and hosts the underground podcast 'Countdown to Breakfast: Uncensored Launch News.'

Space Kinetic secured a $50M contract from the Space Force to develop Whirlwind, its space maneuverability and deployment system. This marks the largest award for the company, which raised $12M in seed funding in 2025. Whirlwind uses centrifugal acceleration to fling small microsatellites from a host spacecraft at high velocities without firing thrusters. The system provides the initial propulsion electromechanically, whilst the microsatellites carry their own propulsion and communications. The technology aims to bring drone-like economics to orbit by decoupling payloads from space vehicles, making missions cheaper and more responsive. Potential applications include sensor payloads, science probes, communications nodes, and debris characterisation. Space Kinetic previously received a multimillion-dollar DARPA contract in November. The company now employs 50 people across El Segundo and New Mexico facilities, including partnerships with Los Alamos National Laboratory.