Apex - Satellite Platforms

Why is a satellite like a race car? Fortune's Allie Garfinkle has the answer in her recent piece on Apex’s partnership with Toyota Racing Development USA. Leveraging the same precision manufacturing practices used to craft world-class racing engines, TRD is helping Apex scale by mass-producing precision-machined parts for our Apex satellite platforms. “We have to think about manufacturing from the perspective of not just how we build something, but how we build it when we’re factoring in all the variables that matter—quality, speed of production, and affordability,” said Ian Cinnamon. “Too often we say, ‘Oh, we can build a bunch.’ Well, how long does it take? Or, ‘We can build them really cheap.’ Okay, but are they high-quality? We need to find the middle ground between those core elements. And if we can do that, the U.S. manufacturing base can really fall into its stride.” Read the full story here: https://lnkd.in/gTVrRfGW

Apex is proud to supply its Nova platform to Loft Orbital, expanding their off-the-shelf portfolio for future customer missions requiring increased size, weight, and power (SWaP). These missions include proliferated, power-hungry national security applications such as advanced sensing, high-throughput communications, and missile warning/tracking. Under the agreement, Apex will deliver up to 10 Nova platforms, with the first scheduled for delivery later this year. Links to the full story in the comments 🔗

Our very first Nova platform is on the pad, waiting to make history. When the Nova development program began, we were a team of less than 100 — today, we're nearly 400-strong, building Aries vehicles at rate and scaling production of Nova as we speak. At Apex - Satellite Platforms, we do something pretty rare in this industry - we execute on what we say we're going to do. I don't believe in overpromising and underdelivering. We set an ambitious timeline to get Nova in space, and tonight we will hit it - that's a testament to who our team is and how dedicated they are to their craft. Together we are changing how satellite platforms are built and creating a company that will fundamentally transform the U.S. space industrial base. To every engineer, technician, operator, and builder who got us here: thank you. This is your launch. Go Nova! Go Apex!

Nova-1 is set to deploy from SpaceX's Transporter-17 just after midnight tonight. As the first Nova in orbit, Nova-1 will serve as a flying testbed, proving out the Nova platform architecture and the vertically integrated tech stack (power, avionics, solar, flight software) that will underpin all future Apex platforms. Nova mission success has been divided into three discrete phases, each with a clearly defined set of objectives that will help prove Nova’s readiness as a true constellation workhorse. – Phase 1 (Minimum Viable Product): Establish communications and confirm power-positivity. Platform is healthy in orbit. – Phase 2 (Crossing the Threshold): Continue platform commissioning. Power on payloads and downlink data. – Phase 3 (Fully Operational Space Platform): Complete platform commissioning. Begin Project Shadow commissioning and mission ops. – Pushing the Limit: Following Project Shadow, Apex will continue testing the limits of Nova’s performance on orbit. Stay tuned for more mission updates over the next several weeks.

At Apex - Satellite Platforms, we are proud to support America's most critical space programs ensuring safety and security for the next 250. Happy birthday, America.

Nova-1 is ready for launch. More mission updates coming soon.

We're excited to share that Sophia Space has tapped Apex to demo their TILE onboard compute modules on Apex’s Nova platform next year. “Apex was built to power innovative space missions, helping teams move from breakthrough technology to operational spacecraft faster,” said Ian Cinnamon, Co-Founder & CEO of Apex. “Sophia’s vision for real-time orbital computing is exactly the kind of mission our Nova platform is designed to support, giving them a reliable, scalable path to bring edge computing capabilities to orbit.” Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gd77FV3c

Meet Noah Gordon, Senior GNC Engineer here at Apex! Noah brings over seven years of experience as a Senior Guidance, Navigation, and Control Engineer (GNC) from both Boeing and Turion, including five years at Boeing as an Astrodynamics Engineer. He holds a Master of Science from Stanford University and a Bachelor of Science from Purdue University in Aerospace, Aeronautical, and Astronautical Engineering. As a Senior GNC Engineer, Noah brings real-world experience operating 14 different spacecraft in LEO, MEO, and GEO and helps ensure that Apex’s platforms are robustly engineered to navigate the harsh realities of space. Noah works across engineering disciplines and is responsible for ensuring mission success throughout the platform’s lifecycle. Gearing up for launch and throughout the mission, Noah owns the design, implementation, and testing of algorithms and hardware that support safe and reliable spacecraft flight and mission operations. Learn more about Noah here: https://lnkd.in/gvhNyvaC

Our Factory One cleanroom meets Times Square, courtesy of our friends at the NYSE. Learn more about our latest fundraise from SpaceNews here: https://lnkd.in/g9WTFVGQ

ICYMI: Apex Co-Founder & CEO, Ian Cinnamon, joined Edward Ludlow on Bloomberg last week to discuss how Apex’s latest funding round is eliminating the satellite production bottleneck and delivering constellation-scale production to enable the next generation of critical space systems. Watch the full video below: