K2 Space sets out growth plan to build hundreds of high-power satellites

K2 Space Chief Executive Karan Kunjur set out an expansive growth plan in an October 2026 interview, saying the company aims to build around 100 satellites a year from a first factory and hundreds annually by 2030 to serve rising demand for high-power satellites in communications and compute.

In July 2026, K2 Space closed a $500 million Series D round that valued the company at $6.8 billion. Kleiner Perkins and ICONIQ led the round, with CapitalG, Lightspeed, Altimeter, Spark Capital, Sands Capital, ARK Invest, T. Rowe Price Associates and other existing investors taking part. With the round, K2 has cumulatively raised more than $1 billion in capital and secured more than $1 billion in signed commercial and government contracts.

In the October interview, Kunjur said the round valued the company at close to $7 billion and described it as based on revenue rather than hype, with the higher valuation reflecting expected revenue growth over the next year.

K2 Space’s first mega-class satellite, called Gravitas, reached orbit in March aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 on a rideshare mission, and it will act as a technology pathfinder for raising orbits from low-Earth orbit to medium-Earth orbit ahead of the Trinity mission’s multi-orbit work in 2027. One source dates Gravitas to February 2026. The U.S. Space Force backs Gravitas with a $60 million STRATFI award.

• Gravitas: two tonnes, 20 kilowatts, a dozen payloads including ones for the U.S. military
• Hall-effect thruster: a Krypton-fed 20-kilowatt unit at full power — the company calls it the most powerful Hall-effect thruster flown in space — four times the previous 5-kilowatt high
• Giga-class: 100 kilowatts planned for the second half of 2028; Kunjur cites 165 kilowatts, enough for an entire rack on orbit
• meoSphere: 28 platforms for the initial phase per Kunjur; 30 satellites in the July tranche
• Production: around 100 satellites a year from the first factory; hundreds annually by 2030

The company’s supply chain is 85 percent vertically integrated, with more than 85 percent of each satellite platform built in-house, including flight computer, reaction wheel, embedded avionics and flight software optimized for medium-Earth orbit radiation. The company completed its first in-space demonstration mission, which launched in January 2025, validating those components ahead of Gravitas.

The company is establishing a satellite engineering hub targeting the Bellevue area of the Seattle region and builds satellites at its Torrance, California factory, plus a Washington, D.C. office for policy and strategy. More than 300 people work for the company, with staff already based remotely in the Seattle area.

Kunjur said in October 2026 that K2 will build 28 high-power satellite platforms for the first phase of the SES meoSphere network in medium-Earth orbit, describing the agreement as one of the company’s signature deals. The July 2026 funding announcement said K2’s initial tranche for SES’s meoSphere network totals 30 satellites.

The next mission, Trinity, will send three satellites to space on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in 2027, with deployments in low-Earth orbit and medium-Earth orbit, plus geostationary transfer orbit. The launch will use multiple deployment events on a single rocket.

A 100-kilowatt Giga-class satellite is planned for the second half of 2028 as the base platform for deploying compute capacity on orbit. Company materials from October 2025 said K2’s satellites would support exploring and developing the solar system over the next ten years.

The company concentrates on communications, compute and national security, putting capital into new capabilities beyond its base platform instead of chasing quick profitability. Kunjur said even a 20-kilowatt satellite lacks enough power to matter for compute, while the 165-kilowatt Giga satellite can host an entire rack, though meaningful compute relative to terrestrial capabilities would require hundreds or thousands. The company expects to share more detail about capabilities beyond the base platform over the next six months.

K2’s business splits about 50-50 between commercial and government work, and the company expects announcements at a steady pace over the next 12 to 24 months. Kunjur sees rising sovereign demand, since every country wants resilient communications and compute from orbit in case globally accessible networks fail.

Demand for high-powered satellites should grow from communications and eventually compute through the 2030s, Kunjur expects. The company plans to build giant solar arrays and giant batteries, Kunjur said, entering a hard engineering niche because customers see the difficulty and cannot build the full stack in-house.

K2 Space dates its founding to 2022, when brothers Karan and Neel Kunjur started the company because small satellites cannot generate enough power, given that smaller solar arrays produce less power. Neel Kunjur serves as co-founder and chief technology officer and is a former SpaceX engineer. In January 2026, the company named John Plumb, a former assistant secretary of Defense for space policy, to lead strategy.

Factories in the Seattle region have built more than half of all active satellites, driven mainly by SpaceX’s Starlink factory in Redmond, while Amazon’s Leo constellation satellites come from nearby Kirkland. Blue Origin, based in Kent, Washington, is preparing satellite projects including Terawave and Project Sunrise, a proposed data-center constellation. Other companies building satellites in the region include Starcloud, Xplore, Portal Space Systems, BlackSky and Starfish Space.

Electric propulsion lets each satellite raise its own orbit, cutting launches and time to field an MEO constellation. Kunjur said military infrastructures depend on space capabilities and that K2 aims to be at the center of that dependence, with its platform hosting applications across different orbits for different customers.