Astro Digital (former Aquila Space)

Astro Digital (earlier Aquila Space) was founded in 2015 in the USA, California, by Bronwyn Agrios, Chris Biddy, Jan King, and Mikhail Kokorich. During Kokorich’s operations in the company, CFIUS has held two reviews of Astro Digital, which failed each time. Moreover, in 2018, a lawsuit filed by Dmitri Kushaev accused Kokorich of fraudulently redirecting $10M in investments from its actual venture to Astro Digital. Because of these issues, Kokorich left the company in 2018 to start focusing on Momentus.

Astro Digital also had another connection with Russia. In 2018, it acquired ImageAiry – EO data marketplace established in 2013 by Katerina Lengold and Aleksandra Kudryashova, both Russians and former students of MIT and Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technologies. After the acquisition of ImageAiry, Lengold worked at Astro Digital as a VP and left the company in 2018.

The company designs, builds, and operates micro-satellite systems supporting space-based turnkey missions for business applications, including earth observation, communications, and in-orbit demonstrations, in addition to various science and exploration applications.

Astro Digital’s core product is a Corvus Platform (ranging from 6U cubesats to ESPA class missions).
Through the partnership with KSAT, the company offers ground station services that include UHF TT&C and High-Speed Ka-band Downlink, with planned expansion into Optical, S, X, and V-band in the coming years.

For the last five years, Astro Digital has been planning to launch the Landmapper constellation (five Corvus satellites, 10 kg each, with 22m resolution) and sell the analytical products based on EO data received from the satellites.

The company’s key partners are Phase Four, Moog, ISIS, Enpulsion.