Loft Orbital orders 10 Airbus buses, 1 Apex Nova bus with option for 9 more
Loft Orbital · Airbus · Apex
Loft Orbital bought 10 Airbus Longbow buses and an Apex Nova bus, with options on 9 more, per Payload.
what happened
Loft Orbital purchased 10 Longbow satellite buses from Airbus Defence and Space and one Nova bus from Apex, with options to buy up to nine additional Nova buses, Payload reports. Apex is scheduled to deliver its first Nova bus by October 2026. The Nova bus can carry up to 300 kg of payload and deliver 1 kW of orbit-average power, larger than Loft's previous small-bus inventory of under 100 kg capacity.
why it matters
Loft Orbital COO Alex Greenberg says customer demand, including from US national-security buyers and constellation programs like Earth Daily and the Altair constellation through its Orbitworks joint venture, is pushing the company into higher-power missions; Loft projects 30 operational satellites by the end of 2027, up from 6 at the start of the year. For bus manufacturers Airbus and Apex, it is a bulk order from one of the largest hosted-payload integrators.
for who
In-space services and hosted-payload customers
signal-to-noise
quick facts
- Companies
- Loft Orbital, Airbus, Apex
- Category
- contract
- Impact
- notable
- SNR
- 3 / 5
- Event date
- 2026-07-15
- Published
- 2026-07-15 17:33 UTC