Apex wants to provide satellite buses to primes building proliferated constellations, which means building at scale, CEO Ian Cinnamon says.
The company recently announced plans to make an XL version of its Comet satellite bus, adding power and mass yet still remaining small enough to fit 16 on a Falcon 9, Apex CEO Ian Cinnamon said in a recent interview.
But, he said, “I think what everybody tends to forget about is the need to really build these at really high rate production. And that’s really the focus around Comet.”
Cinnamon said Apex builds at scale by reusing avionics and other systems from its earlier, medium-sized Nova bus—but also by using Octopus, the custom software that he calls his company’s “secret sauce.”
“Effectively, it’s not even our manufacturing operating system; it’s our entire company operating system,” he said. “It controls everything from, you know, forecasting demand, understanding on inventory, receiving quality from suppliers. How many, you know, kits we’re holding on inventory at any given time, all the way to work, instructions on the factory floor, tracking, NCRs, traceability on orbit.”
Like seemingly everything else these days, Octopus “uses a significant amount of artificial intelligence, a significant amount of software automation for processes,” the CEO said.
But what Apex doesn’t use—at least not yet—is industrial robotics.
“We do not believe that automation and robots, in terms of the hardware manufacturing, makes sense at all at the scale that we’re building,” he said. “It does not make sense at the scale of hundreds of vehicles per year…When you go above that scale, it may begin to make sense.”
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A new ad is pushing Congress to fund American shipbuilding to combat China and its growing commercial and naval fleets—and also increase jobs and domestic manufacturing. The USA Shipbuilding Coalition, composed of shipbuilders and unions, released the video Wednesday—with timing that appears to coincide with SHIPS Act legislation challenges.
- The ad, which targets national streaming platforms and local TV markets in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, highlights the decades-long decline in American shipbuilding capacity as China’s has increased, something the second Trump administration has focused on.
- “We cannot out-China the Chinese, competing in a system they have bent to their advantage.
- We need to alter the terms of competition and that means beginning where maritime strength begins, cargo. It means using public policy to create the conditions for predictable demand, fleet formation, shipyard investment and workforce continuity,” Capt. Stephen Carmel, maritime administrator for the Transportation Department told Congress last week.
- “Without cargo, there is no requirement for ship construction, no vessel deployments, no utilization of port infrastructure, and no operating environment within which maritime services can occur,” he said in written testimony.
Defense tech startup Firestorm Labs snags $82 million in its Series B funding round led by Washington Harbour Partners, which said the company is “building a new model for manufacturing.” The new capital will help Firestorm increase production of its mobile 3D-printing xCell platform that can be set up in a matter of hours, manufacturing everything from drones to prosthetics to tools.
- Background: The company announced a $100 million deal with the Air Force for additive manufactured drones earlier this year and boasts a $153 million total investment counting this latest funding round.
- Just a thought: What’s interesting is the idea of bringing digital-based one stop manufacturing shops that could help troops fill basic needs, like printing knee braces instead of ordering them, in tactical environments. I wonder if these platforms could make an appearance in an upcoming military exercise…
One more manufacturing thing: Pentagon-funded institution BioMADE is putting up $21.4 million to expand domestic biomanufacturing. The funds will support 14 projects in areas like biosensors to help detect disease, plastics used for 3D printing, and proteins for wound healing and chemical defenses.
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