Private space pilots are flying orbital missions for the US Space Force

And now things get interesting: The two companies are prepared to perform new exercises in the weeks ahead with increasing difficulty, which could include Rocket Lab’s Puma trying to evade True Anomaly’s Jackal and performing its own inspection maneuvers.

Founded in 2022 by Rogers and a cadre of former military space experts, True Anomaly planned to build both the hardware and software to enable the new tasks assigned to the U.S. Space Force when it was created in 2019. After several years of development missions, last month’s demonstration has begun to realize that vision.

“That’s the secret sauce of this company,” said Seth Winterroth, a partner at Eclipse Ventures who sits on True Anomaly’s board. “It’s not one spacecraft architecture or one piece of software or a certain set of payloads — it’s a deep, deep understanding of what tactics and doctrine look like in this domain.”

True Anomaly has raised just over $1 billion, including a $650 million round in March. Now the company will look to compete for a number of task orders, particularly in the Space Force’s $6.2 billion Andromeda program, which looks to the private sector for exactly this kind of maneuverable reconnaissance.

“Flight heritage is everything, and demonstrated capability is what speaks the loudest with these opportunities,” Rogers said.