The first step to fighting a war in space is knowing what’s happening tens of thousands of miles above the planet. Toward that end, defense tech darling Anduril is buying boutique data firm ExoAnalytic Solutions.
ExoAnalytic operates a network of 400 telescopes around the world, which it uses to track spacecraft in high orbits above the planet. The company’s engineers develop software that converts those observations into situational awareness tools for U.S. national security agencies watching adversary spacecraft and coordinating American assets on orbit.
“This is a company we’ve been working with closely for the last 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 the [Department of Defense] deserves the best catalog of everything going on in space.”
The privately-held companies did not disclose the terms of the deal. 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, though Subramanian said it would continue to serve existing and future outside customers. 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. That system is expected to include thousands of satellites to track and target enemy missiles, and maintaining real-time awareness and coordination among them will be a heavy lift.
Anduril is planning to launch three spacecraft this year as internally-funded R&D projects that will draw on capabilities gained in the acquisition. Subramanian said ExoAnalytic’s experience 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 execute two missions in high orbit 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 ExoAnalytic has developed to spot satellites in orbit are also useful for interceptors trying to track and engage with 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 a 2024 interview. The company’s early growth was funded by grants and contracts from the federal government, including $26 million in SBIR grants since 2010.
U.S. Space Force officials have expressed deep concern about Chinese and Russian spacecraft that fly closely alongside American and European satellites, where they could potentially intercept communications or damage the satellite with electronic or other weapons.
“Two years ago, an [U.S. commander in the Pacific told] me that the fleet cannot leave the port without the space layer being secured,” Subramanian said. “We’ve been on a mission for the last several years to figure out how to be a part of that solution.”
