Apex Space, the Los Angeles-based spacecraft manufacturing company, announced the confirmed success of Aries SN1, their first production build of Apex’s productized ESPA-class satellite bus. After launching on SpaceX’s Falcon-9 on March 4, Apex’s vehicle is communicating bidirectionally with its ground stations and is healthy.

Apex specializes in building productized satellite buses, starting with their flagship Aries platform. Aries, an ESPA-class 100kg bus, can support payloads up to 100kg. These buses are manufactured at scale and can be configured with various performance packages, enabling Apex customers to leverage the benefits of serial production for diverse mission needs.

Aries SN1 set a historical record as the fastest build of any small satellite. Typical manufacturers spend years designing and months building, while Apex completed the clean-sheet design, engineering work, full assembly, integration, test, and launch in just 12 months of our 200kg Aries. Apex is currently producing additional Aries in 2024, with lead times as short as months.

“One year ago, we had a blank piece of paper. Today, we have a healthy ESPA-class vehicle in orbit. We are thrilled to see the rapid success of our first mission, and even more excited for the buses being produced that will serve our additional customers. With this major success, our mission operations team will continue to work with the customers flying on SN1 to ensure their individual missions are a success,” said Ian Cinnamon, Chief Executive Officer at Apex.

Max Benassi, Apex’s Chief Technology Officer, added, “Upon successful deployment from SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch vehicle, Aries activated its guidance, navigation, and control system. The vehicle then autonomously detumbled and pointed at the sun, deployed its solar arrays, and began bidirectional communications with Apex’s ground network. This allows us to now focus on operational performance, letting us deliver for our customers.”

Apex is continuing to scale the production of the Aries platform while it finishes the development of its planned larger spacecraft bus products: Nova and Comet. Both vehicles are set to enter production in 2025. Nova is designed to support 300kg of payload and is designed for mixed-use constellation customers. Comet is a stackable design, built for large aperture communications payloads, supporting payloads over 500kg.

The executive team, Ian Cinnamon and Max Benassi, lean on their extensive experience across aerospace, dual use, and deep technology companies to bring their vision of Apex to life. Ian, Apex’s CEO, previously led his venture-backed company Synapse through its growth and acquisition by Palantir. CTO Max previously scaled aerospace manufacturing at SpaceX before operating as Director of Engineering at Astra.

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