Orbion's 2024 Year in Review

We've ionized a lot of xenon...

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Orbion Space Technology
January 15, 2025

It’s been a big year for all of us at Orbion. We’ve set an industry bar for the performance of a small-satellite Hall-effect thruster, flew a unique Aurora module in orbit, completed numerous factory improvements, and added great talent to the team as we continue to grow. Thank you for your support as we rewrite the rules of the space industry — one plasma thruster at a time.

— Brad King, CEO

On the afternoon of August 19, our entire crew gathered to watch as our Manhattan Module was launched into orbit. Cake was served. Manhattans were poured.


Our flagship product, Aurora, demonstrated 400,000 Newton-seconds of total impulse (6,758 hours). To put it in lay terms: even though the system only produces a thrust force equivalent to the weight of a dime, when this thrust acts on a 220-lb dishwasher-sized small satellite for nearly 7,000 hours it is powerful enough to bring the spacecraft from a standstill to 8,950 mph. And that’s the beauty of ion propulsion.


2024 was a year of incredible growth, and we couldn't have done it without expanding our amazing team. A huge welcome to the 32 talented individuals who joined us across all departments, from propulsion engineering to the C-suite.

Our AS9100 factory is now producing and shipping multiple module configurations for US, international, commercial, and defense customers. The modularity of the Aurora system, and its adaptability for our customers’ various spacecraft configurations is novel for the industry, and continues to be a key differentiator.

Our Aurora system completed full qualification testing and the results were published in five conference papers presented at the International Electric Propulsion Conference in Toulouse, France to a packed audience of rocket scientists.

A future product, called Nova, was successfully tested at a power of more than 1,000 Watts and is poised to be another New Space game-changer. The wraps will come off of this innovation in 2025.

What’s on the Orbion travel calendar?

Over the next 30 days, we’ll be on site at Space Mobility in Orlando and the SmallSat Symposium in Mountain View. Be sure to connect with Greg Orndorff, Orbion’s VP of Business Development, to engage at either, and don’t miss Brad King’s panel discussion at SmallSat.

Orbion Space Technology is bringing electric propulsion systems into the New Space market. Designed specifically for SmallSats, Orbion's innovative Hall-effect propulsion systems are unlocking capabilities previously unobtainable and setting a new level of expectation for the industry. Our AS9100-certified vertical manufacturing company builds and ships hundreds of the industry’s highest-performing electric propulsion systems each year. Orbion is propelling the small satellite revolution.