An ambitious satellite builder will launch one of the highest-powered spacecraft ever built in the weeks ahead to demonstrate technology that will be required to build data centers in orbit.
K2 Space, founded by brothers and former SpaceX engineers Karan and Neel Kunjur in 2022, has packed its satellite Gravitas into a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket expected to launch as soon as the end of this month. Gravitas has a mass of two metric tons, with a 40 meter wingspan when its solar panels are unfolded.
The point of the big satellite is big power: Gravitas is capable of producing 20 kW of electricity for use by payloads like powerful sensors, transceivers, and computers. For comparison, the even larger and more expensive ViaSat-3 spacecraft can generate more than 25 kW of power, while Elon Musk has said Starlink V3 satellites will generate 20 kW. But most spacecraft generate just a handful of kilowatts.
“The future is higher power,” CEO Karan Kunjur explains. K2 has raised $450 million to make that vision a reality, and was valued at $3 billion by its investors in December 2025. This launch will be the company’s first step into real space operations — and what Kunjur calls “the start of our iterative journey.”
The Gravitas mission will fly 12 undisclosed payload modules from several customers, including the Department of Defense, as well as a 20 kW electric thruster that the company expects will be the most powerful ever flown in space.
Kunjur said the demonstration will be evaluated across several tiers of success — first, can K2 get the spacecraft deployed and generating power? Second, can it start running its payloads, and test its powerful thruster? And if that goes well, can it use the thruster to raise the spacecraft thousands of kilometers into a higher orbit?
Kunjur is aware that launching a new spacecraft isn’t easy — 85% of its components have been designed and built in-house — and that markets are quick to judge anomalies. What’s most important, he says, will be maximizing data collection to feed into the next design of the satellite; K2 plans to launch 11 satellites in the next two years in a mix of demonstration and commercial missions. By 2028, Kunjur expects the company to be producing satellites for customers to build out commercial networks of high-powered space vehicles.
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As satellites continue to play a larger role in the economy, power helps close new business cases. Kunjur expects the first impact to be on communications networks — more power means more throughput and a signal that is less susceptible to jamming. As data processing on orbit becomes more important, high-powered satellites will be needed to operate advanced processors.
Still, the big challenge for data centers — and big satellites of all kinds — is the expense of launching them into space. K2’s founding pitch was leveraging the power of Starship, the enormous rocket currently being developed by SpaceX which may be able to deliver large reductions in the cost of getting to orbit. However, it’s not yet clear when the vehicle will be operational, or start delivering low-cost service.
But the growing demand for more power on orbit gives K2 a different framing for its unique spacecraft. Massive communications networks like Starlink and Amazon LEO, hyperscalers mulling the potential of orbital compute, and the Pentagon’s plans for a $185 billion missile defense system with thousands of new satellites all point toward satellites with more electrical clout.
K2 argues that its spacecraft still make sense in a world where they might cost roughly $7.2 million to launch (at customer rates on a Falcon 9) instead of $600,000 (a world where Starship cuts launch costs for outside customers). Kunjur argues that Gravitas’ $15 million price point still makes it cheaper than high-powered satellites built by traditional contractors while more powerful than equivalently-priced smaller spacecraft.
And once the biggest rockets start flying regularly, Kunjur says his team will be ready with even bigger options.
“The thinking is, let’s build all the components that we’re going to go need to be a first mover when Starship and New Glenn are available for everybody else,” he told TechCrunch. K2 has designs ready for a 100 kW satellite all taped out on its factory floor, stretching across the entire building.
This story has been updated to with a more recent measure of Starlink satellite power generation.
