A rendering of Apex’s Comet satellite platform. Photo: Apex

Satellite manufacturing startup Apex introduced a new satellite bus offering called Comet, as the largest bus in its lineup, geared toward commercial constellations and national security architectures like the Golden Dome. 

Apex CEO and co-founder Ian Cinnamon told Via Satellite the company developed Comet after seeing a lot of demand for novel communications constellations in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO). Comet is designed to offer more than 5 kilowatts of power to close certain link budgets, with the mass and design to pack “as many as possible” into a standard 5-meter fairing for launch. 

“Whether it’s IoT or backhaul or direct-to-device, we’re seeing a lot of interest there. You need a system that the full economics of that commercial offering make sense,” Cinnamon said. “Comet is able to take a lot of what we’ve learned across Aries and Nova, to find this middle ground where we’re reusing [many] of the core avionics and flight systems, but able to do it at a very reduced price point to really make the budget close for people.” 

Cinnamon characterized the price for a Comet bus in the “mid single-digit millions.” 

Apex, based in Los Angeles, recently raised a $200 million Series C round. The company also offers the Aries bus, which is ESPA-class, and Nova, in the ESPA Grande size. The first Aries satellite passed one year in orbit in March 2025.

While Comet was initially designed with commercial constellations in mind, Cinnamon also sees opportunity for it to meet the needs of national security architectures like the Golden Dome. 

“Once Golden Dome started to get a lot of traction, I think people started to realize this idea of a low cost, huge platform in orbit is something that’s really interesting for carrying things like space-based interceptors,” he said. “When you look at Comet, the idea of it being this huge platform with an open back is a really good fit for something to carry a bunch of high Delta V systems that could then be deployed from it to intercept targets.” 

A number of manufacturers are rolling out satellite offerings for the constellation market. Rocket Lab, for example, recently debuted the “Flatellite” platform geared toward large-scale constellations. Flatellite is designed to launch on Neutron, and Rocket Lab said the offering is a move toward the company potentially operating its own constellation. 

Cinnamon believes the constellation manufacturing market has room for a number of players, and emphasized that Apex operates as a neutral bus provider. 

“We don’t compete with our customers. We remain very neutral. It’s very easy for people to be able to work with us without that threat of competing,” Cinnamon said. “If we can be that neutral body, I think it’s going to be reassuring to the market.