Muon Space Unveils Condor-Ultra, Starship-Class Spacecraft Platform Built for Scale

Engineered for constellations of hundreds to thousands of satellites, Condor-Ultra brings the power, stackability, and scale that next-generation communications, sensing, and orbital compute missions demand.

Muon Space, the Mission Foundry for high-performance satellite constellations, today unveiled Condor-Ultra, its newest spacecraft platform developed for high-power, networked constellations of hundreds to thousands of satellites. Optimized for stackable mass-deployment from SpaceX’s Starship, Condor-Ultra anchors communications, sensing and data-center class compute missions with the most demanding power, aperture and data requirements at unprecedented scale and unit economics. Configurations for today’s medium-lift launch vehicles, including Falcon 9 and Rocket Lab’s Neutron, are also available.

The announcement marks another milestone in Muon’s rapid product cadence: less than a year after unveiling its XL platform, the company is bringing the Ultra platform to market. Condor-Ultra features 20kW power, >18m2 nadir payload area, Starlink 25Gbps network connectivity, Muon’s groundbreaking Starlight propulsion, and the demonstrated reliability, availability and performance Muon’s Mission Foundry is known for. The first Condor-Ultra pathfinder is slated for delivery in 2028.

Orbital Data Centers

Condor-Ultra’s power, thermal, and networking architecture is designed from the ground up to meet the unique demands of orbital data centers – scalable power generation, high-density compute workloads, and reliable autonomous mission, network, and data operations at constellation scale.

With higher-powered variants up to 100 kW, Condor-Ultra is the foundation for large-scale orbital compute and networking. The platform is architected to integrate next-generation AI inference hardware, including the NVIDIA Space-1 Vera Rubin Module – purpose-built for AI inferencing in space, with the Rubin GPU delivering up to 25 times the AI compute performance of the H100 for orbital workloads.

Through feasibility work with hyperscalers on large-scale AI infrastructure in orbit, Muon has developed deep expertise in the technical and operational requirements of next-generation orbital data centers – expertise that directly informs Condor-Ultra’s architecture and design priorities.

Deep Vertical Integration

Consistent with its mission-optimization strategy, Muon is extending its vertical integration with Condor-Ultra by internalizing all critical subsystems and components. This continues the approach Muon pioneered with avionics, propulsion, communications, GNC, flight software and networking: by controlling more of the spacecraft stack, Muon optimizes at the system level for mission performance, strengthens quality control and deterministic delivery, and reduces recurring costs. For operators with aggressive deployment economics, this level of integration is not a differentiator – it is a requirement.

Key Platform Capabilities

• Stackable launch configuration for SpaceX’s Starship – Minimizes launch costs and enables economical constellation deployment at a scale of hundreds to thousands of satellites.
• Scalable power architecture – 20kW initial power with 100 kW future variants; architecture is modular designed to scale by mission need.
• NVIDIA Space-1 Vera Rubin Module integration – Orbital data center configurations will support NVIDIA’s space-qualified AI inference platform, with the Rubin GPU enabling up to 25x the compute performance of H100 GPUs for large-scale AI workloads in orbit.
• >18 m² nadir payload area – Over 18 square meters of Earth-facing surface area available for sensors and instruments, enabling large and highly capable payload configurations.
• Full-stack, managed autonomy – Muon’s deeply integrated flight, network and ground stack and autonomous operations present a turnkey operational solution to customers.
• Broad mission support – Communications, connectivity, sensing and emerging orbital compute nodes.
• 100 Gbps intersatellite optical mesh networking – High-bandwidth crosslinks enable mesh constellation architectures for communications and distributed compute.
• Always-on 25Gbps connectivity via Starlink – Persistent internet connectivity ensures continuous mission operations and real-time data delivery.

Key Quote

“The most compelling space infrastructure missions of the next decade – from global communications networks to scaled remote sensing to distributed orbital compute – require a managed and integrated platform that is powerful, stackable, and built to scale cost effectively. Condor-Ultra delivers exactly that, and it does it on the strong foundation of a flight-proven satellite, operations, data, and software stack our customers already trust,” said Jonny Dyer, CEO of Muon Space.

Key Links

More information about the Condor-Ultra spacecraft platform from Muon Space