Terran Orbital’s Series B Round, and Lockheed’s Small Sat Master Plan

Debra Werner, for SpaceNews, from SmallSat 2018:

Terran Orbital raised $36 million in a Series B round from investors, including Lockheed Martin, Beach Point Capital managed funds and Goldman Sachs, the company announced Aug. 6.

With the new funding, Terran Orbital plans to expand its workforce and buy manufacturing equipment for a new 40,000 square foot facility designed to produce as many as 150 satellites a year.

The trend of small sat production lines continue. Also of interest, this statement by Lockheed Martin:

“Lockheed Martin chose to expand upon our existing relationship with Terran Orbital, as both an investor and a customer, to support the LM 50 Series Satellite Bus System,” Chris Moran, Lockheed Martin Ventures executive director and general manager, said in a statement.

I’ve been curious to hear more about the LM 50 bus for a while now, so it’s good to see it mentioned again in this context.

String a few stories together and you start to get a clear picture of Lockheed Martin’s small sat master plan: they invested in Rocket Lab in 2015, began investing in Terran Orbital last June, unveiled the LM 50 bus last September, and landed an award from the UK Space Agency to develop a launch site in Scotland. It seems like Lockheed wants to be in the business of selling you a full-spectrum, single-stop-shop small sat service: buy our bus, fly it on our vehicle, from our launch site.