To Infinity, And Beyond: ATLAS, Orbion, And Northern Michigan's Soaring Space Industry

There are 15,000 satellites orbiting Earth, enabling everything from GPS navigation, TV and internet service to military intelligence. And the numbers are growing exponentially, especially as the U.S. government moves forward on its proposed “Golden Dome” missile defense system. Thanks to two startups – one based in Traverse City, the other in Houghton – northern Michigan stands to be a big part of the story.

In the past year, York Space Systems – described by Traverse City businessman Casey Cowell as “the coolest, most avant-garde designer, builder, and launcher of satellites in the world” – has bought two Michigan companies. The first, Traverse City’s ATLAS Space Operations, operates a vast-and-growing network of ground-based antenna stations that communicate with orbiting satellites. The second, Houghton’s Orbion Space Technology, builds propulsion systems to keep satellites in orbit.

ATLAS relocated to Traverse City in 2017 thanks to Cowell and the encouragement of his investment firm, Boomerang Catapult. Nearly a decade later, Cowell says ATLAS has more than come into its own due to the proliferation of low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellites.

“LEO satellites are about 200 miles up, and they are going very fast in order to overcome the gravitational pull of Earth,” Cowell explains. “These satellites are only visible horizon-to-horizon for about 11 minutes, so you've got to string together a lot of ground stations to be able to talk to them as they're going overhead, in order to download these ever-increasing terabytes of data as they observe every square inch of planet Earth, 24 hours a day.”

Last summer, in a bid to verticalize its operations, York acquired ATLAS. The news came two months after York announced a nine-figure deal with the U.S. Space Force for national security projects, including the Golden Dome.

“The Golden Dome will require thousands, if not tens of thousands, of LEO satellites, and with that, you need to scale the ground infrastructure,” ATLAS CEO Corey Geer tells The Ticker. “Frankly, the government doesn't have the capacity to run that type of satellite system. So, the reason York bought us is because we could probably triple or quadruple the size of our network without having to add a bunch of overhead.”

In January, York went public on the New York Stock Exchange, raising $629 million. All that capital, Geer says, will enable the company to invest in future growth – potentially “tens of millions of dollars” on ground infrastructure.

Achieving anything close to the Golden Dome vision, Geer explains, would require the government to have “tens of thousands of satellites” in the sky, which would in turn necessitate “dozens and dozens and dozens of new ground stations.”

“We have access to over 50 antennas right now,” he says. “We would like access to closer to 100 to 200 in the medium term, and in the long term, we’d like to have full global coverage.” ATLAS is exploring potential acquisitions to grow its network.

Then earlier this month, York announced the acquisition of Orbion.

“We build the propulsion systems each satellite uses to maneuver,” says Brad King, the Michigan Tech professor who co-founded Orbion in 2016 and serves as its CEO. “It might need to maneuver from one orbit to another. It might need to avoid collisions with the many other satellites that are up there. And then, increasingly important, at the end of its life, the satellite will use our thruster to purposely re-enter the atmosphere so it burns up and doesn't leave junk behind. We have an engine that happens to be very, very fuel efficient, because that's also key: Once you run out of gas in space, you're done.”

King is thrilled to have Orbion in the York family. While York’s 2012 founding only makes it a little bit older than ATLAS and Orbion, King says the company is now routinely “beating well-established defense contractors like Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon at their own game.”

“To continue to gear up and fight the battle, [York] is looking across the globe for the best partners to bring in, and they landed in Michigan twice,” King says. “They didn't start out looking in Michigan. They looked everywhere, and they happened to find the best technology for two of their key sub-systems right here.”

Now Geer expects at least some Golden Dome RFPs to be awarded before the year is out.

“The government has a huge amount of money that they've got to spend between now and the next two years,” he says. “That’s when this presidential administration will need to have committed all the money that they've said they're going to spend, which is hundreds of billions of dollars.”

With or without the Golden Dome, Cowell and Geer see a huge upside for Traverse City. One of York’s preferences, Geer notes, is that new hires “be based at a home office,” which means much of the “operational expertise” for ATLAS will come from people in northern Michigan. He’s also confident ATLAS and Orbion are just the beginning of what Michigan could do in the space industry.

“One of the things we need in the state to grow this high-tech entrepreneurial economy is success stories,” Geer says. “We need the creative, innovative students or tinkerers to see ATLAS and Orbion, and think, ‘Hell, if they did it, why can't I do it too?’”

“Talent flows to where the capital is, and this is step one,” Cowell adds. “We have all this human intelligence and human capital here, being brought to bear to develop incredible technology and services of value, and when companies out in other parts of the world find out about what we can do, they want it, and they buy it, and it's huge for our local and state economy. It’s not tourism; it’s people who live here year-round, who invest their money locally, and who make the community strong for the long-term.”

Pictured: An ATLAS Space Operations antenna site in Barrow, Alaska.