Meridian Space spins out from SpinLaunch as independent satcom company
Meridian Space · SpinLaunch
SpinLaunch's satcom unit Meridian Space becomes an independent company, weeks before its first in-space demo.
updates
- 2026-09-30score 2 → 3Meridian says SpinLaunch is not for sale, and named its Kongsberg NanoAvionics-built demo satellite and France and Miami ground-test sites ahead of Thursday's Transporter-18 launch.
what happened
SpinLaunch and Meridian Space are separating into two independent companies, Meridian Space CEO Massimiliano Ladovaz told Payload. Meridian will carry forward the satcom-infrastructure business, built around an in-house reflect-array antenna design the company says uses less power than existing satcom payloads, while SpinLaunch continues developing its kinetic launch system for hypersonics and lunar applications; a Meridian spokesperson told Via Satellite that SpinLaunch is not for sale. The split comes weeks before Meridian's first in-space demo, a satellite called First Customer Link with a bus built by Kongsberg NanoAvionics, expected to launch on SpaceX's Transporter-18 rideshare no earlier than Oct. 1 to test its antenna technology using a ground site in France and a Miami site run by digital-infrastructure partner Equinix.
why it matters
Meridian is pitching a cheaper, lower-power alternative for operators who want their own satcom network without joining a global system like Starlink or Amazon Leo or building one from scratch; the company says the antenna design could let a constellation of 250-plus satellites deploy on a single dedicated launch. The spinout lets Meridian pursue satcom customers, which Ladovaz says include sovereign governments, on its own timeline rather than as a side project of SpinLaunch's launch-vehicle business.
signal-to-noise
quick facts
- Companies
- Meridian Space, SpinLaunch
- Category
- financial
- Impact
- noise
- SNR
- 4 / 5
- Event date
- 2026-09-28
- Published
- 2026-09-28 14:50 UTC