A new space infrastructure company founded by the engineers who built and scaled SpaceX’s Starlink network has officially launched from Redmond, Washington, with the ambition of making megaconstellation satellite ownership accessible to governments and enterprises that have until now lacked the scale or capital to build their own sovereign space communications infrastructure.
Eclipse Space made its public debut last week at the Space Capital Summit in New York City and describes itself as the first company focused exclusively on enabling nations and enterprises to deploy and operate their own satellite constellations. The company is backed by investors including Space Capital, Tectonic Ventures, and Ubiquity Ventures, and enters the market with active engagements across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
CEO and co-founder Derek Huerta said the company was built to challenge the concentration of megaconstellation capability in the hands of a small number of extremely well-capitalised players. “Until now, building a megaconstellation has required either enormous capital investment or dependence on someone else’s infrastructure, with all the strategic vulnerability that comes with it,” Huerta said. “Eclipse was founded to change that by giving sovereign and commercial customers constellation infrastructure built to their requirements, operated on their terms, and aligned with their strategic interests.”
Chad Anderson, CEO of Space Capital, described the founding team’s credentials as unique in the industry. “It is only fitting that the team that made Starlink the world’s most successful satellite constellation is now applying that expertise to bring that capability to the rest of the world,” Anderson said.
Eclipse is built around what it calls a fabless model, owning the architecture, design, and software stack while drawing on a global network of manufacturing and integration partners across North America, Europe, and Asia. The company says the model supports a minimum production rate of five satellites per day and can be replicated regionally for nation-state customers who require in-country manufacturing and local workforce participation. Rather than selling hardware, Eclipse positions itself as delivering what it calls space capability enablement, the full ability for a nation or enterprise to own and operate world-class constellation infrastructure from end to end.
Alongside its launch, Eclipse announced the acquisition of the engineering team behind Rendered.ai’s Agent Studio, an AI-powered platform for spacecraft design, along with an exclusive licence to develop the technology. The deal brings a specialised AI engineering team in-house and pairs it with Eclipse’s satellite, electrical, mechanical, and radio frequency engineers to build tools that automate and accelerate the time-intensive work of designing, customising, and optimising large-scale space systems.
First hardware deliveries for commercial customers are targeted for later this year. Eclipse’s demonstration satellite is planned for launch in 2027, intended to validate the company’s full technology stack ahead of customer constellation deployments.
Eclipse Space is headquartered in Redmond. More information is available at eclipse.space.
