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Capella Space

Company type	Subsidiary
Industry	Earth Observation
Founded	March 2016; 9 years ago (March 2016)
Founders	Payam Banazadeh Will Woods
Headquarters	San Francisco,California, U.S.
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Frank Backes (CEO)
Products	High-Resolution (0.25m)SAR satellite Imagery andgeospatial solutions End-to-end mission solutions
Parent	IonQ
Website	capellaspace.com

Capella Space is an American space company with satellite and unclassified SAR data and missions solutions for government and commercial use. ItsEarth observation satellites are equipped withsynthetic-aperture radar sensors that can collect imagery through clouds and at night.^[1]

Headquartered inSan Francisco, California,^[2] the firm has offices inWashington, D.C., andLouisville, Colorado.

The company was founded in 2016 by Payam Banazadeh, a former engineer atJet Propulsion Laboratory ofNASA, and William Walter Woods.^[3] As of January 2024, the company had more than 200 employees and raised venture capital from investors such asCanaan Partners, Data Collective, Pear VC andSpark Capital.^[4]

Capella designs, manufactures and operates its fleet of SAR satellites to provide high-resolution, all-weather imagery to theU.S. government and commercial customers. Sequoia, the first-generation satellite, launched in August 2020. Six second-generation Whitney satellites were launched between January 2021 and January 2022 on SpaceX Transporterrideshare missions into apolar Sun-synchronous orbit.^[5]

In 2023, Capella began launching its third-generation, Acadia satellites. Capella is launch agnostic, partnering with diverse launch providers to place its satellites in a variety of orbits, both mid-inclination and sun-synchronous.

Capella Space has raised about $250 million in total equity and debt financing since its founding in 2016.^[6] In May 2025,IonQ, a quantum computing startup, announced their intent to purchase Capella Space in an all stocks transaction.^[7] The acquisition was completed in July 2025.^[8]

In 2019, theNational Reconnaissance Office (NRO) awarded Capella a contract to study the integration of Capella's commercial radar imagery with the NRO's government-owned surveillance satellites. TheU.S. Air Force awarded Capella a contract in November 2019 to incorporate the company's imagery into the Air Force's virtual reality software. Capella also has a contract with theNavy, and theNational Geospatial-Intelligence Agency signed aCooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA), earlier in 2020 to allow researchers from theU.S. government's intelligence community to assist Capella. An inter-satellite link withInmarsat's network of geostationary communications satellites enables real-time tasking of Capella's satellites. Customers can use a self-service electronic portal and API to task a Capella satellite for a radar image.^[9] In 2021, Capella received a $3 million research contract in support of the Space Development Agency's National Defense Space Architecture. Capella was chosen through abroad agency announcement.^[10]

In 2023, Capella was awarded a Proliferated Low Earth Orbit Satellite-Based Services (PLEO) contract through the U.S. Space Systems Command (SSC) to support SSC and theU.S. Space Force with access to SAR imagery for key missions. Capella was also awarded two Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition (CSDA) contracts withNASA to determine the suitability of Capella's data to advance NASA's Earth science missions: a multi-year blanket purchase agreement and a n indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity, multiple-award contract. This enables NASA research evaluators from across the country with easy access to Capella's high-resolution data archive and automated tasking capabilities as they find novel new ways to monitor the Earth and the environment.

In 2024, Capella was awarded $15 million by the U.S. Air Force to develop a next-generation SAR sensor and received an award from the Space Development Agency to participate in the HALO contracting vehicle.^[11][2]

In partnership with Pacific Geomatics, Capella imagery is available to government offices acrossCanada through Canada's National Master Standing Offers. Canadian officials have easy access to Capella's high-quality imagery and automated tasking capabilities for a variety of use cases including monitoring natural resources, mining operations, ice flows, maritime activity and more.

The SequoiaEarth-imaging satellite was originally supposed to launch as asecondary payload on the Indian rocketPolar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) in late 2019, but the mission was postponed, prompting Capella to move the satellite to aFalcon 9rocket ofSpaceX, according to Payam Banazadeh. It was booked to fly as a rideshare passenger on the Falcon 9 launch with Argentina'sSAOCOM 1Bradar observation satellite in late March 2020. But that launch was also delayed at the request of Argentine's space agency (CONAE) as travel and work restrictions were implemented at the onset of theCOVID-19 pandemic. That left Capella looking for another ride for Sequoia.^[12]

Capella had previously signed a contract withRocket Lab for a dedicated launch for a future satellite, and Banazadeh said the company decided instead to put Sequoia on theRocket Lab mission. Rocket Lab encountered delays after an Electron launch failed on 4 July 2020. Meanwhile, SAOCOM 1B launch preparations resumed and the Argentina satellite lifted off earlier on 30 August 2020 at 23:18:00 UTC, hours before the Rocket Lab mission with Sequoia, on 31 August 2020 at 03:05:47 UTC.^[12] The Electron launcher delivered Sequoia to a 525 km orbit, inclined 45.0°. Sequoia has a launch weight of 100 kg.

Six Whitney satellites were originally planned. The first two (Capella-3 and Capella-4) were launched on theFalcon 9 Transporter-1 rideshare mission to aSun-synchronous orbit on 24 January 2021.^[5]

Capella-6 (Whitney-4) was launched as a rideshare on Starlink V1.0 L26 on 15 May 2021.^[13]

Capella-5 (Whitney-3) was launched as a rideshare on the mission Transporter-2 on 30 June 2021.^[14]

Capella-7 and Capella-8 were launched as a rideshare on the mission Transporter-3 on 13 January 2022.

Capella-9 (Whitney-7) and Capella-10 (Whitney-8), two additional satellites in this series, to be launched no earlier than 10 January 2023.^[15]

In August 2022 the company announced the development of a new generation ofSAR satellites, called "Acadia". These new satellites represent an improvement from Capella's previous satellite generations with increased radar bandwidth from 500 MHz to 700 MHz, able to provide better resolution, higher imaging quality and shorter times between customer orders and delivery. They are compatible to be equipped with optical communication terminals (OCTs). Capella Space was the first commercial SAR company to demonstrate Optical Inter-Satellite Links.^[16] In early 2023, Capella announced a multi-launch agreement withRocket Lab for four dedicated launches, including a launch of Capella's first Acadia satellite.^[17] The launch of the first satellite took place on 23 August 2023 at 23:45 UTC.^[18]

• Earth observation satellite
• COSMO-SkyMed
• ICEYE
• iQPS
• Planet Labs
• RADARSAT
• TerraSAR-X

• Capella Spacewebsite

• Companies based in Palo Alto, California
• Aerospace companies of the United States
• Spacecraft manufacturers
• Manufacturing companies established in 2015
• Technology companies established in 2015
• 2015 establishments in California
• 2025 mergers and acquisitions

• Articles with short description
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