Scaling smallsats: A conversation with Muon Space President Gregory Smirin

Muon Space is racing to expand production capabilities following a $90 million funding boost, targeting the growing appetite for increasingly capable satellites in the 100–500+ kilogram range.

The California-based company recently introduced its largest small satellite platform yet, the 500-kilogram-class MuSat XL, to support more demanding missions at the upper end of the category. The expansion comes as Muon brings more manufacturing in-house to head off supply chain risks.

President Gregory Smirin discussed market trends, platform design choices and where the manufacturer sees the next opportunities in the small satellite market. This Q&A has been edited for clarity and length.

SN: What are the mission types driving growth in the 100–500+ kg class, and which of those are expanding fastest?

GS: The 100-500+ kg class is seeing strong growth across several mission areas, including missile warning and missile tracking, communications — ranging from IoT networks like Hubble to broadband constellations — RF and ELINT payloads, space domain awareness and electro-optical imaging.

Right now, the fastest-expanding segments are communications constellations, particularly broadband and IoT systems, with multiple players racing to compete with SpaceX’s market dominance; and missile warning and tracking, driven by heightened national security requirements and proliferated LEO architectures under development by both government and commercial operators.

Is the move toward more capable smallsats being driven more by payload complexity or by operator desire to consolidate mission scope onto fewer platforms?

It’s primarily being driven by the payload use case. As mission requirements evolve, operators are looking to support more capable, higher-performance payloads, often with larger power budgets and more demanding duty cycles.

That push for payload optimization is what’s driving the move toward larger, more capable smallsat platforms, rather than simply a desire to consolidate multiple missions onto fewer satellites.

How do you see propulsion requirements evolving in this class, especially in light of debris mitigation, multi-orbit maneuvering and national security use cases?

Muon’s in-house zinc-based Hall-effect thruster system enables a much greater propellant density than any system flown to date. As such, it enables the ability to “maneuver without regret” better than anything else out there. Muon’s propulsion design tenet ensures ample impulse available for orbital changes and for de-orbit.

What advantages does a vertically integrated platform like MuSat XL offer over traditional bus-plus-payload separation models?

Vertical integration across Muon’s product line provides significant advantages in both performance and schedule reliability customer missions. Muon’s Halo technology stack, which underlies MuSat XL, allows for optimal configuration for each mission rather than following a one-size-fits-all approach.

By modularizing each layer of the stack and owning the entire technology and production pipeline, Muon’s design and production process scales individual subsystems to meet specific mission requirements while maintaining proven heritage and core product reliability.

Integration is the hardest part — full system control is critical for maximizing mission success. When you own the complete integrated system, you can optimize interfaces between subsystems, ensure compatibility and maintain performance standards that might be compromised in traditional bus-plus-payload models where multiple vendors must coordinate.

The other major driver behind our vertical integration strategy is schedule reliability — one of the most pressing challenges facing the smallsat industry today. Supply chain complexity has become a primary source of delays and cost overruns. By fully owning our supply chain, production processes, and delivery timelines, we can provide customers with greater predictability and faster time-to-orbit.

Our acquisition of Starlight earlier this year exemplifies this approach. Propulsion systems were previously one of our highest-risk dependencies, so bringing that capability in-house was a strategic move to eliminate a major scheduling bottleneck while ensuring seamless integration with our platform.

You’ve emphasized low-latency and edge computing as differentiators. How are customer expectations changing around in-orbit processing for smallsats?

We’re seeing a clear shift toward doing more processing in orbit rather than sending all the raw data back to the ground. Customers increasingly expect higher onboard compute, memory, power, downlink and crosslink capabilities so they can extract insights in real time.

It’s about reducing latency and enabling faster decision-making. Whether it’s defense operations or wildfire detection, data that takes hours to process loses much of its value, making the ability to deliver actionable information within minutes increasingly essential.

How is Muon balancing bespoke capability with manufacturing throughput as constellation operators move toward standard buses with rapid iteration?

Our approach is to use standardized, scalable building blocks within a highly optimized, vertically integrated system. We start with the mission requirements and leverage our MuSim modeling and simulation platform to rapidly configure bespoke missions that rely on the same proven technology and subsystems. This allows us to deliver mission-optimized constellations with the speed and efficiency of a standard bus, but with superior on-orbit performance.

SN: How is the competitive landscape shifting in the smallsat market?

GS: We see the market shifting toward a demand for comprehensive, end-to-end missions that deliver operationally. We’re not just a bus provider; we deliver a complete, mission-optimized system that includes far more than just the satellites themselves — extending from early mission design to on-orbit operations and data delivery.

What really sets us apart is our approach and our vertically integrated Halo technology stack. Over 90% of the satellite is designed and built in-house, including in many cases the mission payloads. This, coupled with our approach to integrated mission design, delivers far more value to our target customer than a commodity satellite Frankensat bus.

What is the next frontier in the smallsat category? Onboard autonomy, intersatellite networking, AI-enabled tasking or something else?

We see the next frontier as the seamless integration of all these capabilities. The future isn’t about one single technology, but about creating an intelligent, end-to-end system. This means satellites that can sense, process data on board, network with each other to reduce latency, and be smart enough for true on-orbit autonomy

Our focus is on building the foundational technology to make this vision a reality, transforming data collection into a system that delivers actionable intelligence in real time. High-volume intersatellite data transfer, which has historically been a chokepoint, will be key to making that possible. It not only accelerates the flow of information, but also enables advanced capabilities like AI-driven tip-and-cue tasking.