Galaxia builds OSPREY satellite to test orbital data transfer

Galaxia announced on November 4, 2026 that it is building the OSPREY satellite to test moving data from older spacecraft to a new orbital satellite and processing it there. The Halifax company disclosed the mission as part of a Department of National Defence IDEaS challenge award. Galaxia says the orbital data handoff could help older satellites with limited ground links deliver collected information faster.

OSPREY will be built on Galaxia’s Halifax Class satellite bus for defence sensing and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in areas with poor communications such as the Canadian Arctic. The company describes the bus as a proprietary Canadian-designed platform for sophisticated small-satellite missions. The mission targets remote and communications-constrained defence environments. Galaxia constructs and operates satellites and produces computers that process data while in orbit.

OSPREY will explore routing data from legacy spacecraft to an orbiting satellite equipped with Galaxia’s technology suite, then processing the data onboard or forwarding it through other low Earth orbit networks. The traditional approach requires a satellite to hold collected information until it passes over a ground station. Galaxia says the alternative could give older satellites limited by ground links a faster way to deliver what they collect. Galaxia expects its cyber layer in space to reduce the volume of data sent to the ground and deliver results to users sooner.

The company says processing data in orbit occurs closer to where it is collected, cutting transmission needs and accelerating relevant results for ground users. OSPREY is intended to support baseline monitoring and technology tests that inform future Canadian hybrid space architectures. The mission aims to validate technologies for distributed constellations linking different kinds of satellites and communications systems. Arad Gharagozli, founder and chief executive of Galaxia, said the company builds intelligent spacecraft for cooperative operations, resilient communications, secure space-based networks, onboard observation processing and near-real-time information delivery.

The CEO added that the company can “process observations onboard and deliver relevant information to users in near real time.” MÖBIUS-1, Galaxia’s first satellite, reached orbit in June 2025. MÖBIUS-1 was the first commercial satellite designed and built in Atlantic Canada.

Arad Gharagozli founded Galaxia in 2020. Chief executive Arad Gharagozli was a student at Dalhousie University in Halifax when he and other students developed a nanosat mission that flew to space in 2022. MÖBIUS-1 launched in 2025 with CSA support for Earth observation using a software-defined satellite platform. The chief executive followed up the 2022 nanosat feat at Galaxia in 2025 with the CSA-supported launch.

Galaxia closed a $4.5 million seed round. The company also received around $219,000 CAD in February via an Atlantic Canada-focused stream of the Government of Canada’s Regional Defence Investment Initiative. The tranche funds hiring, upgrading a satellite-manufacturing facility, and seeking new export customers.

Galaxia partnered with Belgium’s Simera Sense in September 2026 to incorporate hyperspectral wavelengths into its satellite systems. Galaxia aims to build intelligent satellites with edge-compute platforms for real-time space insights. The company’s focus is on Earth observation security.

Kepler Communications announced in August that its new optical-data-relay satellite network is operational. The network uses resilient connectivity, onboard computing, and hosted payloads. Galaxia operates in the same field of intelligent satellites and edge computing. Other Canadian companies in this field include Kepler Communications, which announced in August that its new optical-data-relay satellite network is operational.

In February, Galaxia agreed with Palo Alto’s Apolink to fly an inter-satellite link on one of its missions in 2027. Galaxia’s vice president of mission operations, Lucas Rowlands, said Apolink’s relay service would be tested with a satellite planned for deployment in 2027. The collaboration covers mission definition, system design and link development.

Galaxia and Apolink announced a partnership on Feb. 9 to work on mission definition, system design and link development for an unnamed satellite. A satellite to be built by Galaxia for launch in 2027 is being lined up for a study to improve Apolink’s proposed in-orbit data relay services. Galaxia’s vice president of mission operations, Lucas Rowlands, said Apolink’s relay service would be tested aboard a satellite planned for deployment in 2027.

Rowlands declined to elaborate on the details. The collaboration with Apolink was announced Feb. 9. Onkar Batra, Apolink’s founder, said the Galaxia satellite should connect with either a debut cubesat or a new inter-satellite link demonstrator using radio-frequency links in S- or X-band spectrum.

Apolink plans to deploy 32 first-generation satellites by 2029 linked by optical connections. The network would offer downlink speeds up to 512 kilobits per second and uplink rates of 9.6 kbps. A $2.5 million contract from Defence Research and Development Canada last year funded Galaxia’s construction of the Canadian Tactical Operations Satellite.

Galaxia has not announced when OSPREY will fly. The company was targeting a 2027 or 2028 launch for CTOS when it announced that contract, but no OSPREY launch date has been disclosed. DND awarded Galaxia a competitively sourced contract valued at roughly $5.7 million on April 6 for the OSPREY work.

SpaceQ confirmed the record corresponds to the OSPREY contract. This is the only DND contract listed for Galaxia since its tactical satellite award the previous year. The Gateway to the Stars challenge provides as much as $5 million before taxes to build and test a prototype.

DND issued the Gateway to the Stars challenge in September 2025 as one of five new IDEaS challenges. Proposals for the challenge closed on Oct. 22, 2025. A proposal that launches a new satellite typically carries a budget of about $2.5 million according to the challenge page.

DND said in an Oct. 21 release that the challenge is investing $17.9 million in projects to improve satellite connectivity. Contract records list Kepler’s DND contract at roughly $4.6 million, dated Sept. 24.

Galaxia’s MissionOne turnkey service covers spacecraft manufacturing, launch and operations for commercial and government customers. The Halifax, Nova Scotia-based venture targets commercial and government customers through this program. The company also develops next-generation spacecraft platforms.