WASHINGTON — U.K.-based startup Applied Atomics has raised $4 million in pre-seed financing and established a U.S. presence as it seeks to carve out a position in the market for spacecraft mobility, a sector attracting interest from military customers looking for more maneuverable satellites.
The company announced June 10 that the funding round was led by Oxford Science Enterprises. Other investors include Earth to Mars Capital, venture capitalist Tim Draper, Aramco Ventures, Bravo Victor Venture Capital, Jim Pallotta through Raptor Group, Ante-Bellum angels, Tiny Supercomputer Investment Company and Carat Venture Partners.
Applied Atomics said it has opened an office in Fairfax County, Virginia, marking its entry into the U.S. market.
At the center of the company’s strategy is what co-founder and chief executive Ashley Modeste Johnson describes as a “multimode” propulsion architecture that combines chemical and electric propulsion within a single spacecraft using the same propellant.
The concept addresses a longstanding tradeoff in satellite propulsion. Electric propulsion systems consume relatively small amounts of fuel and can operate efficiently over long periods, but they produce little thrust. Chemical propulsion delivers rapid, high-thrust maneuvers but consumes substantially more propellant.
Current spacecraft typically choose between those approaches. Johnson said prospective commercial and government customers have expressed interest in systems that can switch between high-thrust and high-efficiency modes depending on mission requirements.
“We’ve been working on this technology for several years,” Johnson told SpaceNews. “Now we’re seeing demand from both commercial and government customers.”
Multimode propulsion is not a new concept. NASA-funded research programs and commercial firms have studied architectures that combine chemical and electric propulsion. The challenge has been integrating the technologies into operational systems and determining whether future demand will support large-scale deployment.
Applied Atomics plans to focus initially on spacecraft weighing roughly 300 kilograms, a segment Johnson said represents much of today’s market demand.
The company says it has developed proprietary materials that allow propulsion systems to operate in oxygen-rich environments, enabling a single propellant — such as nitrous oxide or similar compounds — to support both propulsion modes.
“We’ve hot fired that, we’ve done all sorts of tests,” Johnson said.
Additional testing is planned under sponsorship from NATO’s Defense Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic, known as DIANA, which supports the development of emerging technologies with potential defense applications.
Applied Atomics said software for its propulsion system will be demonstrated on the upcoming “Give Me Some Space,” a commercial satellite mission expected to launch in 2026 carrying technologies from British and international startups.
The company’s target customers include the U.K., U.S. and allied militaries, which have signaled a demand for spacecraft capable of rapid repositioning, rendezvous and proximity operations, on-orbit inspection missions and other activities that require greater maneuverability than traditional satellites.
Applied Atomics’ ambitions extend beyond propulsion. The company ultimately hopes to build what it calls the Star Reacher Network, a distributed orbital infrastructure architecture in which multiple spacecraft that operate together and share capabilities.
To support that effort, the startup has assembled a roster of advisers that includes former U.K. Space Agency chief executive David Parker, former U.S. Space Force acquisition official Shawn Barnes and former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.
Bridenstine leads Quantum Space, a U.S. startup also focused on highly maneuverable spacecraft for national security missions. Quantum Space, which this week announced plans to go public, is developing spacecraft that combine chemical and electric propulsion using a common fuel source.
“We have an ability to use both chemical and electric propulsion with a single fuel type,” Bridenstine said June 8. “We’re using a chemical propellant for high energy, but we’ve got patents to decompose it, so that we can actually do electric propulsion with a chemical propellant.”
The approach allows both propulsion modes to operate from a single fuel tank and feed system, he said, providing high-thrust maneuvers when speed is required and efficient electric propulsion for longer-duration operations.
