Orbital picks Reflex Aerospace as exclusive bus partner for orbital data center
Orbital · Reflex Aerospace
LA-based Orbital named Germany's Reflex Aerospace exclusive satellite platform partner for its first orbital data center satellite.
what happened
Orbital, a Los Angeles-based orbital data center startup, selected German satellite manufacturer Reflex Aerospace as the exclusive design-and-development platform partner for Orbital-1, the first satellite in a planned constellation of up to 100,000, targeting a 2028 launch, the companies announced, per Payload. Reflex will supply the flight-tested bus while Orbital focuses on the GPU compute payload; it is Reflex's first U.S. customer.
why it matters
The deal pulls a German satellite manufacturer into the crowded, well-funded orbital-data-center field alongside Starcloud, SpaceX and Blue Origin, and signals Orbital is sourcing bus manufacturing from Europe rather than building in-house as it scales toward a 250 kW-per-satellite design.
for who
Satellite bus manufacturers, orbital compute operators
signal-to-noise
quick facts
- Companies
- Orbital, Reflex Aerospace
- Category
- partnership
- Impact
- notable
- SNR
- 4 / 5
- Event date
- 2026-09-10
- Published
- 2026-09-10 17:31 UTC