Lux Aeterna, a startup developing satellites designed to return from orbit and fly again, is turning to the United States military market, pitching reusable spacecraft as a way for the Space Force to deploy, recover and redeploy orbital assets.
The Denver-based company, founded by former Starlink satellite engineer Brian Taylor, is preparing for its debut mission scheduled for early next year to demonstrate the first step toward a more ambitious goal: satellites that can complete missions, return to Earth, be refurbished and fly again.
Lux Aeterna recently hired space industry veteran Brian Bone to lead its defense business. He told SpaceNews that the idea is to treat some spacecraft more like aircraft — assets that can be deployed for a mission, brought back for maintenance or upgrades and returned to service.
The company still has plenty to prove. Its first mission won’t demonstrate repeated reuse, and Lux will have to show that a satellite can withstand atmospheric reentry without making refurbishment more costly or time consuming than launching a new spacecraft.
For the military, Bone said, the argument isn’t simply about lowering the cost of a satellite but about changing how the Space Force manages spacecraft over their lifetimes.
Military satellite operators traditionally launch spacecraft intended to remain in orbit for years, carefully managing fuel and gradually adjusting expectations as components age. Newer proliferated constellations are shifting some of that model toward cheaper satellites that can be replaced more frequently. Lux is proposing another option: bring some satellites back to the depot.
That “missing middle,” as he describes it, could include workhorse satellites that the military might deploy temporarily during a crisis and recover when they are no longer needed.
The concept challenges one of the assumptions behind the emerging satellite servicing business, which is being built around keeping valuable spacecraft in orbit and sending servicing vehicles to them. Lux wants to make the satellite itself recoverable.
That approach could have operational advantages if it works. Bone said satellite operators today carefully ration propellant because maneuvering consumes fuel that can shorten a spacecraft’s useful life. A recoverable spacecraft could potentially be maneuvered more aggressively if operators knew it could later be replaced, returned to Earth and refueled.
Bone described temporary deployments as a form of “force projection in space.” He said Lux is discussing potential applications with government customers including positioning, navigation and timing; surveillance and reconnaissance; communications; and missile warning and tracking.
First comes reentry
Lux Aeterna’s first spacecraft, called Delphi-1, is a roughly 200-kilogram vehicle designed to carry about 30 kilograms of payload. Bone said the spacecraft is scheduled to fly on SpaceX’s Transporter-19 rideshare mission in early 2027.
The mission is primarily intended to show that Lux can launch and operate a satellite and then return the entire vehicle safely to Earth.
That is different from bringing a payload home in a return capsule. Varda Space Industries, for example, has demonstrated orbital return by landing capsules carrying material produced in orbit. Lux wants the satellite platform itself to survive the trip.
Doing so raises a different set of engineering problems. The spacecraft’s structure, avionics, batteries and other hardware must survive launch and orbital operations, followed by the heat and forces of atmospheric reentry and landing. Engineers then have to determine whether the hardware is fit to fly again.
Lux Aeterna isn’t expecting Delphi-1 to go through that entire cycle.
Bone said the first spacecraft will be heavily instrumented so engineers can examine what happened to its structure and electronics during reentry. Lux plans to replace the vehicle’s heat shield after the mission and tear down the recovered spacecraft to study how its components performed. The results will feed into later vehicles designed for repeated flights.
The first mission is already fully booked with a mix of government and commercial payloads, Bone said. Lux isn’t identifying the customers.
Bone said the company’s first fleet-scale vehicle is intended to carry more than 200 kilograms of payload and supply more than one kilowatt of power.
A satellite that comes home
Lux Aeterna plans to return Delphi by parachute and recover it on land, an approach Bone said could support military customers carrying sensitive equipment.
It plans to conduct its first recoveries in Australia, which Bone said offers a favorable environment for licensing and managing the risks associated with spacecraft reentry. The company has said Southern Launch will support recovery operations at the Koonibba Test Range in South Australia.
Longer term, Bone said, Lux Aeterna would like to see more opportunities for spacecraft to reenter and land in the continental U.S. A viable business for reusable satellites would require reliable reentry corridors, landing sites, regulatory approvals and facilities capable of inspecting and refurbishing returned spacecraft.
Who owns the fleet?
For commercial customers, the company expects to operate its own fleet and sell payload capacity or missions rather than necessarily selling an entire spacecraft.
Government customers present more options. Bone said Lux Aeterna is discussing models ranging from government-owned spacecraft operated commercially to fleets both owned and operated by the government.
The economics will ultimately be central to whether any of those models gain traction.
Bone said the company expects the cost advantage to emerge after a spacecraft has flown multiple times, spreading its manufacturing cost across several missions. But satellite manufacturing has also been moving in the opposite direction, toward lower cost spacecraft replaced relatively frequently.
That creates a high bar for reuse. Lux Aeterna will have to demonstrate not only that its spacecraft can return intact, but that recovery, inspection, replacement of thermal-protection materials and other refurbishment can be done quickly and cheaply enough to justify flying the hardware again.
The company says it is already working with the government on some of the technology required to do that. Bone said Lux has a Space Act Agreement with NASA’s Ames Research Center and two cooperative research and development agreements supporting work on thermal protection and reentry. The company has also established a defense advisory board.
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