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WASHINGTON — After nearly three years operating in stealth mode, Seattle-based startup Kapta Space emerged on Feb. 21, announcing plans to demonstrate metasurface antenna technology for space-based radar. The company aims to solve one of the defense sector’s most elusive challenges: continuous tracking of moving targets from orbit.
Kapta Space, founded by Milton Perque, formerly of Echodyne, and Adam Bily, an alumnus of Apple and Astranis, secured $5 million in seed funding to support its space-based electronically-steered radar technology. The investment round was led by MetaVC Partners, a firm focused on metamaterials technology and backed by Bill Gates, with additional participation from Entrada Ventures and Blue Collective.
New approach to space-based radar
Kapta is adapting metasurface technology — currently used in electronically-steered antennas in the wireless communications industry — for space-based imaging and tracking applications.
Metasurface technology is a way of controlling and shaping electromagnetic waves using specially designed ultra-thin materials, making antennas smaller and lighter for applications like radar and wireless communication.
Kapta wants to produce a lower-cost and more energy-efficient alternative to traditional Active Electronically Steered Arrays (AESAs). The company envisions its metasurface arrays being used in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) for geospatial imaging, as well as military applications such as tracking ground-based targets.
“This is not a science project,” Perque, Kapta’s CEO, told SpaceNews. “This is high-readiness level technology that has been produced in the thousands and backed by hundreds of millions of private investment.”
Perque brings deep expertise from his time at Echodyne, which specializes in metamaterial electronically scanned array radar systems.
Defense is the key market
Kapta’s main focus is on the military market. In 2023, the company secured a nearly $1.8 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop an electronically-steered antenna for spaceborne radar. Kapta has also obtained security clearances necessary to execute classified defense contracts.
Perque said the company aims to address the long-standing challenge of Ground Moving Target Indication (GMTI) — the ability to track slow-moving ground targets from space. “GMTI is incredibly challenging, and it has never existed in space at scale,” Perque said.
DARPA decades ago attempted to develop a constellation of radar satellites for moving-target detection and high-resolution imaging. However, these efforts were ultimately abandoned due to high costs and technical obstacles, including the need for large, high-power antennas and real-time data transmission. Consequently, the Department of Defense shifted GMTI capabilities to aerial platforms. More recently, the National Reconnaissance Office and the U.S. Air Force have collaborated on a space-based GMTI initiative leveraging SpaceX’s Starshield satellite technology.
Kapta sees significant untapped defense market potential for space-based radar beyond GMTI, including applications in maritime domain awareness, space-based ballistic missile defense, and space domain awareness.
Road to space deployment
Kapta’s immediate goal is to get its technology into space as quickly as possible. The DARPA SBIR project will serve as a foundational step toward building a one-meter-square antenna for aerial and space-based demonstrations. To further its development, the company is actively seeking additional private and military investment.
“We are reaching out to the combatant commands and trying to understand if there are certain priorities or key capability gaps that we could service,” Perque explained.
To validate the ability to maintain custody of moving targets, Kapta plans an in-orbit demonstration involving at least two, possibly three, satellites, he said. These satellites would not only track moving objects but also transfer tracking custody between themselves — something that is difficult to achieve with current systems.
Perque started Kapta literally in his basement in 2022. “I was able to get some meetings with some DARPA program managers, and we started talking about space situational awareness, and what an electronically steered metasurface antenna and radar could do,” he said. This led to the SBIR contract and the security clearances needed to understand moving-target tracking requirements.
While Perque recognizes that Kapta faces a steep climb in the defense market as a startup, he remains optimistic: “We’re very energized because we have a solution that can meet a myriad of mission sets,” he added. “A key focus for us has been understanding the requirements and then building something that someone wants.”
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