Sierra Space Corporation
Spaceplanes, defense satellites, habitats and spacecraft subsystems.
Sierra Space was carved out of Sierra Nevada Corporation in 2021 and handed the parts of that business pointed at orbit. It remains owned by Eren and Fatih Ozmen, employs somewhere between 1,300 and 2,000 people, and closed a 550 million dollar Series C led by LuminArx Capital Management in March 2026 at an eight billion dollar valuation. Louisville, Colorado is home, with work spread across Wisconsin, Florida, Texas, Alabama and North Carolina. Three lines carry the company. Satellite and spacecraft missions, space subsystems sold to other builders, and in-space infrastructure for people to live and work in.
Dream Chaser is the vehicle outsiders know. A reusable lifting body that rides a rocket up and lands on a runway, it was picked by NASA for the second round of Commercial Resupply Services, and the first flight article, Tenacity, spent two years in acoustic and launch certification testing at Kennedy Space Center before returning to Colorado in April 2026. Its cargo module, Shooting Star, sells separately as a free flying payload carrier. Ghost is the odd sibling, a low ballistic coefficient reentry vehicle meant to put cargo anywhere on Earth within ninety minutes. It came out of an internal defense incubator called Axelerator, which also produced the Spectre rendezvous and proximity operations satellite and the Sierra Black OS autonomy software.
National security space has grown fastest. The Eclipse bus family, unveiled in 2024 and built at a plant the company calls Victory Works, comes as a Velocity variant for agile single missions, a Horizon variant for proliferated low orbit constellations and a Titan carrier for last mile delivery and on-orbit refuelling. Sierra Space is a prime on the Space Development Agency Tranche 2 Tracking Layer, took an accelerated Tranche 3 award in July 2026 for eighteen missile warning and tracking vehicles tied to Golden Dome, holds a Resilient GPS design contract from the Space Force, and sits on the Andromeda vehicle for space based space domain awareness.
The subsystems catalog is the quiet half and the older one. Sierra Space builds solar arrays and electrical power systems, solar array drives, precision pointing and motion control, deployable structures, docking and berthing hatches, launch adapters and separation systems, paraffin actuators, thrust vector control, fluid controls, heat exchangers and radiators, and it has flown environmental control and life support hardware since the Space Station programme began. Hypersonics and propulsion run on the patented Vortex thrust chamber, including the VR35K-A upper stage engine developed under Air Force contract. The habitat line is the long bet. LIFE is an expandable module that passed a full scale burst test in January 2024 well beyond the NASA margin, and it forms the residential half of Orbital Reef, the commercial station Sierra Space is developing with Blue Origin under NASA's Commercial LEO Destinations effort. Human spaceflight training and a microgravity platform for orbital research round the portfolio out.
- Reusable spaceplane design and operations
- Small and medium satellite bus production
- Missile warning and missile tracking payload integration
- Expandable space habitat structures
- Environmental control and life support systems
- Spacecraft electrical power and solar arrays
- Precision mechanisms, docking and separation systems
- Vortex rocket engines and in-space propulsion
- Rendezvous and proximity operations
- Spacecraft autonomy software
- Reentry and point to point delivery vehicles
- Microgravity research services
Reusable winged cargo spaceplane that launches vertically and lands on a runway.
First Dream Chaser flight article, built for NASA cargo resupply missions.
Detachable cargo and payload module flown with Dream Chaser or as a free flyer.
Low ballistic coefficient reentry vehicle for rapid point to point payload delivery.
Modular spacecraft bus line built with surface mount production for national security missions.
Agile Eclipse variant sized for flexible single spacecraft payload missions.
Eclipse variant for proliferated low orbit constellations needing persistent coverage.
Eclipse carrier spacecraft for last mile delivery and on-orbit servicing.
Satellite built for precision rendezvous and proximity operations.
Artificial intelligence operating system spanning space, air and ground systems.
Expandable pressurised habitat module tested to burst well past the NASA safety margin.
Commercial low Earth orbit space station developed with Blue Origin.
Air, water and thermal management hardware with Space Station heritage.
Patented vortex flow thrust chamber technology for liquid and hybrid rocket engines.
Vortex upper stage rocket engine developed under United States Air Force contract.
Solar arrays, drives and power electronics for spacecraft primes.
Pointing and motion control, deployable systems and paraffin actuators for spacecraft.
Mating hardware for crewed and uncrewed spacecraft interfaces.
Structural adapters and separation hardware for payload deployment.
Heat exchangers, radiators, heat switches and louvers for spacecraft.
Series production line rated above thirty spacecraft a year.
Orbital research accommodation and payload services for science customers.
Astronaut training academy and commercial human spaceflight preparation.
Programs & Platforms
$83,761,852 total contract value across 12 awards · $46,293,007 actually paid to date · Source: USASpending.gov
Contract value is total awarded ceiling, including option years that may never be exercised — not a single-year budget figure.
Louisville, Colorado, USA
Ownership
Privately held