Apex, a satellite manufacturer, has formally announced its Nova satellite bus, designed for more demanding missions from government customers. The first deliveries of the spacecraft are anticipated to begin in the third quarter of 2025.
The Nova satellite bus comes in two versions: a base model weighing 250 kilograms and accommodating up to 300 kilograms of payloads, and a heavier version weighing 400 kilograms with a capacity for up to 500 kilograms of payloads.
Nova has been on Apex's public roadmap as a complement to its smaller Aries bus, which can accommodate up to 150 kilograms of payloads. Ian Cinnamon, Apex's CEO, explained that changes in the market and the company's growth led to the decision to launch Nova now.
“Nova has always been what we describe as the perfect satellite bus for customers running very intense operational missions where they need things like redundant avionics and redundant systems, as well as constellations,” he said. Cinnamon noted the Space Development Agency's request for information for Tranche Three of its Tracking Layer constellation of missile-tracking satellites played a role in the timing of Nova's announcement.
“The reason that we’re announcing it now is we’ve been very fortunate enough quite a lot of customer interest for it,” he said, but declined to disclose whether any contracts have been signed for Nova.
The interest in the new bus, Cinnamon said, originates primarily from projects for the U.S. and allied governments. While there is some commercial interest in Nova for communications and remote sensing systems, "the sweet spot in the market for Nova seems to be, for now, on the U.S. and allied nation government side."
Apex's recent $95 million Series B funding round has enabled the company to invest in Nova's development. “That money let us take the early designs we had done for Nova and really put fuel on the fire and accelerate a lot of that effort,” Cinnamon said.
The development efforts have resulted in a bus capable of providing between one and two kilowatts of orbit-averaged power. Notably, the bus is compatible with SpaceX's XL Plate, a rideshare payload adapter, which caters to customers planning constellations but who may prefer to launch a small number of technology demonstration satellites initially.
Apex launched its smaller Aries bus earlier this year with its own mission in March. Cinnamon revealed that, for now, there are no plans for an Apex-led initial Nova mission. “We’ve seen enough interest from customers that we are planning on delivering the first builds to come off the line directly to customers,” he said, while leaving open the possibility of an internally funded mission in the future to qualify new spacecraft components.
The announcement of Nova comes just a month after Apex unveiled a geostationary orbit version of Aries. However, the company does not plan to pursue a GEO version of Nova at this time, focusing instead on low Earth orbit missions. "We right now see Aries in GEO as meeting the key demand that we’re seeing in the GEO market," Cinnamon explained.