The first step to fighting a war in space is to know what is happening tens of thousands of miles above the planet. In this connection, defense technology darling Anduril buys the retail data company ExoAnalytic Solutions.
ExoAnalytic operates a network of 400 telescopes around the world that it uses to track spacecraft in high orbits above the planet. The company’s engineers develop software that converts these observations into situational awareness tools for U.S. national security agencies that watch for enemy spacecraft and coordinate U.S. assets in orbit.
“This is a company we have worked closely with for the past several years on a number of programs and they are experts in space domain awareness and missile defense,” Anduril VP of Engineering Gokul Subramanian told reporters. “We believe in [Department of Defense] deserves the best catalog of everything going on in space.”
The privately held companies did not disclose the terms of the agreement. Anduril is in the process of raising a $4 billion round from investors Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, Reuters reported last week.
ExoAnalytics will be directly integrated into Anduril, not run as a separate subsidiary, although Subramanian said it would continue to serve existing and future external clients. Currently, Anduril has 120 employees focused on space defense, a number that will more than double with the addition of 130 ExoAnalytics employees.
The company’s technology could help Anduril win government contracts supporting Golden Dome, the missile defense system that the US Congress has appropriated billions of dollars to build. This system is expected to include thousands of satellites to track and target enemy missiles, and maintaining real-time awareness and coordination between them will be a heavy lift.
Anduril plans to launch three spacecraft this year as internally funded R&D projects that will draw on the capabilities gained in the acquisition. Subramanian said ExoAnalytics’ experience in processing space data would be used in an infrared tracking satellite it plans to launch this year in partnership with Apex Space. The space tracking data will be used to carry out two high-orbit missions expected to launch this year in partnerships with Impulse Space and Argo Space, respectively.
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There’s another potential angle to the acquisition — the machine vision algorithms that ExoAnalytic has developed to spot satellites in orbit are also useful for interceptors trying to track and engage incoming threats. Anduril received a contract from the Pentagon in late 2025 to begin developing a space-based missile interceptor.
ExoAnalytic was founded in 2008 to adapt missile defense sensor technology to track spacecraft in orbit after U.S. military officials called for new and better ways to understand what was happening in space, CEO Doug Hendrix said in an interview in 2024. The company’s early growth was funded by grants and contracts from the federal government, including $26 million in SBIR grants since 2010.
US Space Force officials have expressed deep concern about Chinese and Russian spacecraft flying in close proximity to US and European satellites, potentially intercepting communications or damaging the satellite with electronic or other weapons.
“Two years ago, an [U.S. commander in the Pacific told] me that the Navy cannot leave port without the space layer being secured,” Subramanian said. “We’ve been on a mission for the last several years to figure out how we can be part of that solution.”