This SpaceX Veteran Says The Next Big Thing In Space Is Satellites Returning To Earth

The reusable rocket has transformed the space industry over the past decade, and a new startup led by a SpaceX veteran wants to do the same for satellites.

Brian Taylor, who helped build satellites for networks like SpaceX’s Starlink and Amazon’s Leo, founded Lux Aeterna in December 2024 to deploy satellite structures with a built-in heat shield that would allow them to return to Earth with their payloads intact.

The company, which emerged from stealth last year, announced a new $10 million round on Tuesday morning led by Konvoy, with participation from Decisive Point, Cubit Capital, Wave Function, Space Capital, Dynamo Ventures and Channel 39. The company declined to disclose its valuation.

The capital will support the design and construction of Lux Aeterna’s Delphi spacecraft, which has a confirmed seat on a SpaceX rocket expected to launch in the first quarter of 2027. This mission will demonstrate Lux’s technology by offering customers the opportunity to test hosted payloads and materials that will then be returned to Earth at Australia’s Koonibbace in partnership with Southern Test Range a Launch asp.

Bringing anything back from space requires diving back into Earth’s atmosphere at incredibly high speeds, which produces extreme heat. Spacecraft that want to survive the journey must be covered in materials that protect them from this heat, adding extra weight. Because this weight makes it more expensive to go into space on a rocket, most spacecraft are not designed for a return trip.

This calculus typically limits reentry to human-carrying vehicles, such as the Space Shuttle (which saw one vehicle lost due to the extreme environment of reentry) or SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft. SpaceX’s repeated attempts to land the massive Starship rocket have made this challenge come alive for anyone who has watched them on YouTube.

Startups like Varda Space and Inversion are tackling the same problem on a smaller scale: They’re building re-entry capsules that allow customers to conduct experiments in space and return samples for analysis, or hypothetically deliver cargo to locations on Earth at high speed. Varda flew five missions, returning capsules on four. Inversion hopes to launch its Arc vehicle sometime this year.

A reliable technology to return payloads to Earth from space is a necessity for many futuristic business models – testing new materials in orbit, manufacturing pharmaceuticals or high-tech electronics in microgravity, or harvesting resources such as metals from asteroids. The US military has shown interest in the ability to provide logistical support with orbital deliveries or test components for hypersonic weapons.

Lux, however, has a bigger idea: to make reusable communications and Earth observation satellites. Currently, satellites have a useful life of only five to ten years due to some combination of component failure, propellant depletion, or obsolescence. After that, they are destroyed in the atmosphere (without heat shields, remember?) or sent to a graveyard orbit outside of normal space activity.

“Our ambitions are much bigger than just re-entry,” Taylor told TechCrunch, describing the potential for a “dynamic upgrade capability.” Said Taylor, “[I]”If you have a payload component, whether it’s a computing or a hyperspectral camera, and you want to update that technology every year, instead of having to build new satellites and keep those old ones in space, you can take them down and come back.”

It’s an exciting vision, but the economic reality will have to add up. The value these new payloads can generate should be greater than the additional cost of building, launching, returning and refurbishing a reusable satellite.

There is also a regulatory challenge. Lux is headed to Australia because getting a re-entry permit to land in the US is not easy right now. Varda, which returned the first commercial spacecraft to land on US soil in 2024, saw its plans delayed for several months as it tried to convince the FAA that the returning capsule would not threaten people or property on the ground. Her next expeditions returned to Australia.

Taylor says the pace of regulatory approvals won’t be an obstacle for the next three or four years, but he expects the FAA to learn along with the burgeoning reentry industry and allow an increased rate of return.

“The people who support us really believe that now is the time to put this major, major paradigm shift into orbital operations,” Taylor said. “Not just re-entering and resetting things, [but] for reuse in much larger parts of the satellite industry.”