Name

GRAVITAS

Satellite ID

KPDC-5817-0095-1934-1619

NORAD ID

None

Country of Origin

United States of America

Launch Date

2026-03-30T13:20:00+00:00

K2 Space.. The startup is building massive spacecraft under the assumption that launch costs will continue to drop as SpaceX’s Starship and other heavy-lift vehicles come online. It looks like the Space Force is taking up their side of that bet, with K2 Space announcing Thursday that its first full satellite mission will fly a number of Department of Defense payloads under a $60 million contract. That mission, called Gravitas, will fly no earlier than February 2026. The satellite will fly on SpaceX’s Transporter-16 rideshare mission, where it will carry multiple national security payloads. The spacecraft will conduct operations in low Earth orbit (LEO) before raising its orbit to medium Earth orbit (MEO). MEO, which is between LEO and geosynchronous orbit, has “historically been an incredibly challenging orbit to operate in,” K2 Space co-founder and CEO Karan Kunjur said in an interview.