A startup wants to bring drone economics to orbit, and the Space Force is funding the experiment to the tune of $50M.
Space Kinetic said Aug. 13 that its Whirlwind maneuverability and deployment system won a $50M other transaction agreement from the service. The award, its biggest yet, follows a $12M seed round the company closed in 2025.
Whirlwind works like a slingshot: a host spacecraft spins ruggedized microsatellites and lets them go at high velocity, supplying most of the initial speed without burning propellant. Each microsat carries its own propulsion and communications, but the host does the heavy work, sidestepping the rocket equation.
Chief executive Ryan Sullivan calls it a “space-based David sling,” built on centrifugal acceleration that predates rocketry by millennia. He said the company spent years proving the physics with government partners before hardening the hardware.
The economics are attritable: if vehicles are cheap enough, a useful life of 30 minutes becomes viable, and maneuver capability shifts from payloads to the host. Whirlwind is designed to work in any orbit with any payload, military or commercial.
The win extends a hot streak for the roughly 50-person company: a DARPA award in November for asymmetric space-based missile defense and a spot in the SpaceWERX Adaptive and Intelligent Space Challenge this July. Space Kinetic keeps its New Mexico roots, including an Albuquerque prototyping lab and a Los Alamos National Laboratory partnership, while building out an El Segundo presence.
