True Anomaly, Inc., a year-old company focused on space security, domain awareness, and training, on Thursday said it has raised $30 million in funding so far and plans to launch its first satellite pursuit vehicle this fall.
True Anomaly is developing and manufacturing the Jackal Autonomous Orbital Vehicle, which the Colorado-based company says can operate in all orbits and safely maneuver at close ranges to collect data on any resident space object. Data collection of other satellites and objects includes multi-spectral imagery, full-motion video, and metric observation.
First launch of the Jackal is scheduled for this October on a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle as part of the Transporter 9 rideshare. Even Rogers, co-founder and CEO of True Anomaly, told Defense Daily
in an email response to questions that the company currently does not have a customer for Jackal on contract but does have “prospective customers.”
True Anomaly’s funding includes a recent $17 million investment led by Eclipse Ventures in partnership with Riot Ventures, Champion Hill Ventures, Space.VC, and Narya.
The latest funding round will allow the company to validate the technical abilities and operations capabilities of the Jackal and invest to scale production. Even hopes the company will double to about 120 employees this year to include roles in software development, manufacturing, design, and artificial intelligence.
With the funding announcement, True Anomaly has emerged from stealth mode, but the company has done a lot since its founding. In January, U.S. Space Systems Command awarded the company a Phase 2 Small Business Innovation Research contract that Rogers said was for “building an AI-powered tactical command and control system to help commanders and space battle managers understand and respond to the most challenging space operations issues. This technology will also aid them in directing the action of potentially thousands of satellites and other forces across the space domain.”
True Anomaly in the last year has also opened a 35,000 square foot factor in Denver.
In addition to the Jackal spacecraft, True Anomaly is also developing a mission control system to conduct wargaming, training, simulation for test and tactics development, and operations of on-orbit spacecraft.
Before co-founding True Anomaly, Rogers served nearly 10 years as an officer in the Air Force leading teams of space operators, scientists and engineers to develop and evaluate the operational performance of military systems and tactics designed to protect U.S. and allied assets in orbit,” according to a brief biography on the company’s website.
True Anomaly’s other co-founder, Dan Brunski, is the chief technology officer and before that was a radio frequency research and development engineer at Los Alamos National Laboratory working on digital signal processing algorithms. Before that, he led the design of an operational test program at the Space Security and Defense Program for a next-generation space capability.