Capella Space is an American space company with satellite and unclassified SAR data and missions solutions for government and commercial use. Its

Earth observation satellite An Earth observation satellite or Earth remote sensing satellite is a satellite used or designed for Earth observation (EO) from orbit, including spy satellites and similar ones intended for non-military uses such as environmental monitoring, me ...

s are equipped with

synthetic-aperture radar Synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) is a form of radar that is used to create two-dimensional images or three-dimensional reconstructions of objects, such as landscapes. SAR uses the motion of the radar antenna over a target region to provide fine ...

sensors that can collect imagery through clouds and at night. The company is headquartered in

San Francisco, California San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

with offices in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, and

Louisville, Colorado The City of Louisville () is a home rule municipality located in southeastern Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 21,226 at the 2020 United States census. Louisville began as a mining community in 1877, experienc ...

. The company was founded in 2016 by Payam Banazadeh, a former engineer at

Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) in La Cañada Flintridge, California, Crescenta Valley, United States. Founded in 1936 by Cali ...

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

, and William Walter Woods., has more than 200 employees (January 2024), and raised venture capital from investors such as

Canaan Partners Canaan Partners, LLC (Canaan) is an American venture capital firm headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut with offices in San Francisco, Menlo Park and New York City. The firm focuses on investing in early stage companies in the technology and h ...

, Data Collective, Pear VC and

Spark Capital Spark Capital Partners, LLC is a multi-stage venture capital firm based in the U.S. with operations in San Francisco, New York, and Boston. Spark is a generalist VC firm with a portfolio that spans verticals such as consumer internet, enterpris ...

. Capella designs, manufactures and operates its fleet of SAR satellites to provide high-resolution, all-weather imagery to the

U.S. government The Federal Government of the United States of America (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States. The U.S. federal government is composed of three distinct branches: legislative, executi ...

and commercial customers. Sequoia, the first-generation satellite, launched in August 2020. Six second-generation Whitney satellites were launched between January 2021 and January 2022 on SpaceX Transporter rideshare missions into a polar Sun-synchronous orbit. In 2023, Capella began launching its third-generation, Acadia satellites. Capella is launch agnostic, partnering with diverse launch providers to place its satellites in a variety of orbits, both mid-inclination and sun-synchronous. Capella Space has raised about $250 million in total equity and debt financing since its founding in 2016. In May 2025,

IonQ IonQ, Inc. is an American quantum computing hardware and software company headquartered in College Park, Maryland. The company develops general-purpose trapped ion quantum computers and accompanying software to generate, optimize, and execute ...

, a quantum computing startup, announced their intent to purchase Capella Space in an all stocks transaction.

Contracts

In 2019, the

National Reconnaissance Office The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is a member of the United States Intelligence Community and an agency of the United States Department of Defense which designs, builds, launches, and operates the reconnaissance satellites of the U.S. f ...

(NRO) awarded Capella a contract to study the integration of Capella's commercial radar imagery with the NRO's government-owned surveillance satellites. The

U.S. Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its origins to 1 ...

awarded Capella a contract in November 2019 to incorporate the company's imagery into the Air Force's virtual reality software. Capella also has a contract with the

Navy A navy, naval force, military maritime fleet, war navy, or maritime force is the military branch, branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral z ...

, and the

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is a combat support agency within the United States Department of Defense whose primary mission is collecting, analyzing, and distributing geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) to support national se ...

signed a

Cooperative Research and Development Agreement In the United States, a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA or CRDA) is an agreement between a government agency and another government agency, a private company, non-profit, or university to work together on research and developme ...

(CRADA), earlier in 2020 to allow researchers from the

's intelligence community to assist Capella. An inter-satellite link with

Inmarsat Inmarsat is a British communications satellite, satellite telecommunications company, offering global mobile services. It provides telephone and data services to users worldwide, via portable or mobile terminals which communicate with groun ...

's network of geostationary communications satellites enables real-time tasking of Capella's satellites. Customers can use a self-service electronic portal and API to task a Capella satellite for a radar image. In 2021, Capella received a $3 million research contract in support of the Space Development Agency's National Defense Space Architecture. Capella was chosen through a ''broad agency announcement''. In 2023, Capella was awarded
Proliferated Low Earth Orbit Satellite-Based Services
(PLEO) contract through the U.S. Space Systems Command (SSC) to support SSC and the U.S. Space Force with access to SAR imagery for key missions. Capella was also awarded two Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition (CSDA) contracts with

to determine the suitability of Capella's data to advance NASA's Earth science missions:
multi-year blanket purchase agreement
and
n indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity, multiple-award contract
This enables NASA research evaluators from across the country with easy access to Capella's high-resolution data archive and automated tasking capabilities as they find novel new ways to monitor the Earth and the environment. Capella was also awarded $15 million by the U.S. Air Force to develop a next-generation SAR sensor and received an award from the Space Development Agency to participate in th
HALO contracting vehicle
In partnership wit
Pacific Geomatics
Capella imagery is available to government offices across

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

through Canada'
National Master Standing Offers
Canadian officials have easy access to Capella's high-quality imagery and automated tasking capabilities for a variety of use cases including monitoring natural resources, mining operations, ice flows, maritime activity and more.

Satellites

Sequoia satellite

The Sequoia Earth-imaging satellite was originally supposed to launch as a

secondary payload Secondary payload, also known as rideshare payload, is a smaller-sized Payload (air and space craft), payload space transport, transported to orbital spaceflight, orbit on a launch vehicle that is mostly paid for—and with the date and time of l ...

on the Indian rocket

Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) is an expendable medium-lift launch vehicle designed and operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It was developed to allow India to launch its Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellite ...

(PSLV) in late 2019, but the mission was postponed, prompting Capella to move the satellite to a

Falcon 9 Falcon 9 is a Reusable launch system#Partial reusable launch systems, partially reusable, two-stage-to-orbit, medium-lift launch vehicle designed and manufactured in the United States by SpaceX. The first Falcon 9 launch was on June 4, 2010, an ...

rocket A rocket (from , and so named for its shape) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using any surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely ...

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an America, American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase, Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the compa ...

, according to Payam Banazadeh. It was booked to fly as a rideshare passenger on the Falcon 9 launch with Argentina's

SAOCOM 1B SAOCOM (Satélite Argentino de Observación COn Microondas, Spanish for Argentine Microwaves Observation Satellite) is an Earth observation satellite constellation of Argentina's space agency CONAE. Two satellites are already orbiting the Eart ...

radar observation satellite in late March 2020. But that launch was also delayed at the request of Argentine's space agency (

CONAE The National Space Activities Commission (Spanish language , Spanish: ''Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales'', CONAE) is the civilian agency of the government of Argentina in charge of the national space programme. History Sociedad ...

) as travel and work restrictions were implemented at the onset of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. That left Capella looking for another ride for Sequoia. Capella had previously signed a contract with

Rocket Lab Rocket Lab Corporation is a Public company, publicly traded aerospace manufacturer and List of launch service providers, launch service provider. Its Rocket Lab Electron, Electron orbital rocket launches Small satellite, small satellites, and ha ...

for a dedicated launch for a future satellite, and Banazadeh said the company decided instead to put Sequoia on the

mission. Rocket Lab encountered delays after an Electron launch failed on 4 July 2020. Meanwhile, SAOCOM 1B launch preparations resumed and the Argentina satellite lifted off earlier on 30 August 2020 at 23:18:00 UTC, hours before the Rocket Lab mission with Sequoia, on 31 August 2020 at 03:05:47 UTC. The Electron launcher delivered Sequoia to a 525 km orbit, inclined 45.0°. Sequoia has a launch weight of 100 kg.

Whitney satellites

Six Whitney satellites were originally planned. The first two (Capella-3 and Capella-4) were launched on the

Transporter-1 rideshare mission to a

Sun-synchronous orbit A Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO), also called a heliosynchronous orbit, is a nearly polar orbit around a planet, in which the satellite passes over any given point of the planet's surface at the same local mean solar time. More technically, it is ...

on 24 January 2021. Capella-6 (Whitney-4) was launched as a rideshare on Starlink V1.0 L26 on 15 May 2021. Capella-5 (Whitney-3) was launched as a rideshare on the mission Transporter-2 on 30 June 2021. Capella-7 and Capella-8 were launched as a rideshare on the mission Transporter-3 on 13 January 2022. Capella-9 (Whitney-7) and Capella-10 (Whitney-8), two additional satellites in this series, to be launched no earlier than 10 January 2023.

Acadia satellites

In August 2022 the company announced the development of a new generation of SAR satellites, called "Acadia". These new satellites represent an improvement from Capella's previous satellite generations with increased radar bandwidth from 500 MHz to 700 MHz, able to provide better resolution, higher imaging quality and shorter times between customer orders and delivery. They are compatible to be equipped with optical communication terminals (OCTs). Capella Space was the first commercial SAR company to demonstrate Optical Inter-Satellite Links. In early 2023, Capella announced a multi-launch agreement with

for four dedicated launches, including a launch of Capella's first Acadia satellite. The launch of the first satellite took place on 23 August 2023 at 23:45 UTC.

References

{{reflist

External links

* Capella Spac
website
Companies based in Palo Alto, California Aerospace companies of the United States Spacecraft manufacturers Manufacturing companies established in 2015 Technology companies established in 2015 2015 establishments in California