When it comes to space innovation, SpinLaunch Inc. is certainly a dark horse in its unconventional approach to sling payloads beyond the stratosphere with kinetic energy.
Using centrifugal acceleration that involves a fast-revolving carbon arm inside a 100-meter round vacuum chamber, the SpinLaunch system can reduce the fuel and structures in a typical rocket by up to 70%.
Originally founded in Sunnyvale in 2014, the Silicon Valley-native made its way onto Southern California’s booming aerospace scene in early 2019. The company has attracted much investor interest, raising $30 million in series C funding last year for the development of a low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite broadband constellation called Meridian Space. ATW Partners led the funding round, which included a $12 million investment from Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace. SpinLaunch has raised $203 million to date.
Facing a new project in the works, SpinLaunch Chief Executive Massimiliano “Massi” Ladovaz sat down with the Business Journal to touch on the company’s future plans and market navigation in Long Beach’s sprawling aerospace cluster.
The aerospace industry is attracting a lot of attention and investment in Long Beach. What are some key areas that SpinLaunch will focus on this year?
This year is a significant one for us. We’ve always described SpinLaunch as a disruptive space solutions company – and the announcement of Meridian Space is really the natural next step in that story. Meridian Space is our ultra-low cost, high-performance LEO broadband constellation, built from the ground up on fundamentally different technology to everything else out there.
We didn’t wake up one day and decide to build a satellite constellation. This has been part of the vision from the very beginning. We started accelerating development back in 2022, and now we’re at a point where we can formally bring it to market.
The focus this year is very clear: continue de-risking the system, execute on our First Customer Link (FCL) satellite, complete the development of the production system and engage customers around a model that offers something genuinely new – real ownership and control of space-based communications infrastructure.
SpinLaunch occupies a unique position in Long Beach’s aerospace corridor. What would you say is SpinLaunch’s core strengths in this competitive landscape?
At our core, we are a disruptive engineering company. This is a team that has taken on some of the hardest problems in aerospace – from kinetic launch to rethinking the cost structure of LEO constellations – and delivered.
What differentiates us is not incremental improvement. It’s the willingness to challenge long-held assumptions. The Meridian architecture reflects that mindset: simpler, lighter and more efficient by design, with a fundamentally different cost structure and got to market model.
Artificial intelligence and automation continue to rapidly transform the aerospace industry. How does SpinLaunch plan to bring new technologies into its fold?
It’s embedded in how we work every day. Our engineering team uses these tools across design, modeling, simulation and antenna data processing. It accelerates iteration and shortens the path from concept to validation.
On the constellation side, we’re thinking carefully about how these tools factor into network operations, ground segment management and optimizing capacity for customers. But I’ll be honest – in this industry, you can’t afford to chase hype. You use what works and you move on.
What are some of the challenges that SpinLaunch needs to tackle before the launch of Meridian Space? Furthermore, what’s the timeline for launch?
The good news is that we have already addressed many of the fundamental risks.
Our core technology – the reflectarray antenna – has been extensively tested and validated on the ground, including with independent partners. That was the key gating item. Once you solve that, the rest of the system becomes significantly simpler.
Now the focus is execution: integration, manufacturing scale-up and preparing for our FCL launch, which is scheduled for October 2026. Every constellation faces challenges around deployment and cost. What we’ve done is simplify the system to reduce those risks. Fewer moving parts, lower mass and a more straightforward architecture give us a much clearer path toward success.
With numerous competitors on the Low Earth Orbit track – including SpaceX and Amazon.com – how would SpinLaunch navigate the market? What are some of the company’s short-term and long-term goals?
We are not trying to replicate what others are doing. Most LEO constellations follow a similar model – very high capital investment, vertically integrated and focused on selling capacity. That approach works at scale, but it also creates very high barriers to entry.
We are taking a different path. Our model is built around enabling ownership, whether that’s a sovereign government, a regional operator or an enterprise. Full constellation ownership, or fractional ownership with guaranteed access and control.
In the short term, we’re focused on the FCL satellite, the initial deployment and locking in the right anchor customers. Longer term, we see this scaling to a 1,190-satellite system delivering dozens of terabits of global capacity, built in a disciplined, staged way.
Why Long Beach?
It is the place to be for space. The region has deep aerospace heritage, strong universities and a rapidly expanding cluster of world-class space companies, all of which translate into access to top talent. The broader space community, appropriately named “Space Beach,” has incredible energy to it. And the support from the mayor and the city has been real and meaningful. And frankly, it’s a great place to live. That matters when you’re asking teams to do hard things. Coming from London, I don’t take the sunshine for granted.
How do you see SpinLaunch reshaping the economics of small satellite launch?
The kinetic launch system is a true step change. Traditional launch is complex, expensive and constrained by supply. Our approach is fundamentally different: it simplifies the system and dramatically reduces cost. But more importantly, it changes how constellations are deployed and maintained. High-cadence, low-cost access to space means you can think about replenishment, upgrades, and scaling in a completely different way.
That has a direct impact on the economics of any space-based system, including Meridian.
How would you describe investor interest in this moment as the commercial space race continues to heat up?
The level of interest in the sector is extremely strong, but it’s also becoming more disciplined. Investors are looking for credible execution paths – cost control, clear milestones and a realistic route to revenue. That’s exactly where we’ve been focused, and it’s why we continue to see strong support from a group of committed, long-term investors.
More broadly, the industry is entering a more mature phase, where differentiation and capital efficiency will matter more than ever.
