D-Orbit ION satellite on orbit. Photo: D-Orbit

Italian space logistics company D-Orbit is expanding to the U.S., establishing D-Orbit USA. D-Orbit announced the company on Wednesday, a  joint venture led by CEO Mike Cassidy, along with Mark Krebs, Miles Gazic, Danny Field, and David Harrower. D-Orbit USA is a joint venture with D-Orbit and based in Boulder, Colorado.

The D-Orbit USA team will focus on satellite bus design, manufacturing, and sales. This expansion comes after D-Orbit closed a $107 million Series C funding round earlier this year. The company has deployed 13 successful satellites missions with its ION orbital transfer vehicle. 

“I am super excited about our stellar founding team coupled with our robust flight heritage,” said D-Orbit USA CEO Mike Cassidy. “I believe this combination will allow us to respond very quickly to customer schedule needs and to offer very price competitive solutions.” 

The founding team is composed of aerospace executives. Krebs led attitude control, flight dynamics, and vehicle integration teams on both Starlink and Kuiper. Gazic developed avionics, flight, and ground software for a wide variety of space programs including spacecraft for Starlink, Kuiper, Capella Space, and PlanetIQ. 

Field was a lead engineer at OneWeb, Raytheon, and General Atomics. Harrower has deep experience in satellites and network applications from his work at Terran Orbital, Kymeta Corporation, VT iDirect, and Comtech. And Cassidy was the CEO of Apollo Fusion.