LOGAN, Utah — Terran Orbital raised $36 million in a Series B round from investors, including Lockheed Martin, Beach Point Capital managed funds and Goldman Sachs, the company announced Aug. 6.
With the new funding, Terran Orbital plans to expand its workforce and buy manufacturing equipment for a new 40,000 square foot facility designed to produce as many as 150 satellites a year.
“We just finished building a 40,000 square foot facility in Irvine, California, and are raising money because we are growing fast and require more equipment and personnel,” Marc Bell, Terran Orbital Corporation co-founder and chairman, told SpaceNews.
Lockheed Martin Ventures announced its first investment in Terran Orbital of Irvine, California, in June 2017. That investment showed many nanosatellite builders and investors that aerospace giants were beginning to see the promise of tiny cubesats. Terran Orbital owns Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, a business established in 2011 by cubesat inventor Jordi Puig-Suari and Scott MacGillivray, who led nanosatellite programs for Boeing Phantom Works.
“Lockheed Martin chose to expand upon our existing relationship with Terran Orbital, as both an investor and a customer, to support the LM 50 Series Satellite Bus System,” Chris Moran, Lockheed Martin Ventures executive director and general manager, said in a statement. “Together, we work to provide responsive and innovative solutions for our customers. We look forward to continuing our work together so we can better enable our customers to confront the challenges of today.”
Terran Orbital is expanding alongside the small satellite market as a whole. “The economics of what we do continues to improve because people can do more and more of the jobs previously performed by traditional satellites with less money and more quickly,” Bell said.
Terran Orbital will consider further acquisitions as the small satellite market consolidates, Bell said.
