Lockheed Martin is increasing its stake in Boca Raton-based small-satellite manufacturer Terran Orbital with a $100 million investment. That will increase the aerospace giant’s total equity stake from 9.4% to 33.5%.
Lockheed Martin has invested in the company since 2017 and selected Terran Orbital to produce 42 satellites for the U.S. Space Force’s Space Development Agency under a $700 million contract.
Terran Orbital plans to spend the new funding to expand satellite manufacturing facilities in Irvine, Calif., and is canceling plans to build a previously announced $300 million manufacturing plant on Florida’s Space Coast in partnership with Space Florida.
“This makes sense for us right now because there is an immediate demand for satellites,” Terran Orbital’s co-founder and CEO Marc Bell recently told SpaceNews. Building an assembly line in Florida was projected to take three years while the expansion in Irvine will only take 12 months, he said. “For me to add on to that is far easier than trying to expand on another coast.”
Terran Orbital, founded in 2013, specializes in small satellites with remote sensors to capture images of activity on the Earth’s surface. The company was originally planning to launch and operate its own SAR satellite constellation, called PredaSAR, but it decided to pivot from those plans and offer the SAR satellites as a product instead of building its own constellation.
Bell said the conflict in Ukraine showed the need for advanced satellite imagery provided by SAR satellites. “We see the opportunity to dramatically ramp up our capabilities and external product offerings, which we believe will move Terran Orbital toward profitability.”
In March, Terran Orbital went public on the NYSE through a SPAC combination.
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