This SpaceX veteran says the next big thing in space is satellites that return to Earth

The reusable rocket has transformed the space industry in the last decade, and a new startup led by a SpaceX veteran wants to do the same for satellites. Brian Taylor, who helped build satellites for networks like SpaceX’s Starlink and Amazon’s Leo, founded Lux Aeterna in December 2024 to develop satellite structures with a built-in heat shield that will allow them to return to Earth with their payloads intact. The company, which came out of stealth last year, announced a new $10 million seed round Tuesday morning led by Konvoy, with participation from Decisive Point, Cubit Capital, Wave Function, Space Capital, Dynamo Ventures, and Channel 39. The company declined to disclose its valuation. The capital will support the design and construction of Lux Aeterna’s Delphi spacecraft, which has a confirmed spot on a SpaceX rocket expected to launch in the first quarter of 2027. That mission will prove out Lux’s technology by offering customers a chance to test hosted payloads and materials that will then be returned to Earth at Australia’s Koonibba Test Range through a partnership with the aerospace company Southern Launch. Bringing anything back from space requires diving back into Earth’s atmosphere at incredibly high speeds, which generates extreme heat. Spacecraft that want to survive the journey must be covered in materials that protect them from that heat, adding extra weight. Because that weight makes getting to space on a rocket more expensive, most spacecraft aren’t designed for a return journey. That calculus typically limits reentry to vehicles that carry humans, like the Space Shuttle (which saw one vehicle lost due to the extreme environment of reentry) or SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft. SpaceX’s repeated attempts to land its massive Starship rocket have made that challenge vivid for anyone who’s watched them on YouTube. Startups like Varda Space and Inversion are tackling the same problem on a smaller scale: They are building reentry capsules that allow customers to perform experiments in space and return samples for analysis, or hypothetically deliver cargo to locations on Earth at high speed. Varda has flown five missions, returning capsules on four; Inversion hopes to launch its Arc vehicle sometime this year. Techcrunch event Disrupt 2026: The tech ecosystem, all in one room Your next round. Your next hire. Your next breakout opportunity. Find it at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, where 10,000+ founders, investors, and tech leaders gather for three days of 250+ tactical sessions, powerful introductions, and market-defining innovation. Register now to save up to $400. Save up to $300 or 30% to TechCrunch Founder Summit 1,000+ founders and investors come together at TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026 for a full day focused on growth, execution, and real-world scaling. Learn from founders and investors who have shaped the industry. Connect with peers navigating similar growth stages. Walk away with tactics you can apply immediatelyOffer ends March 13. San Francisco, CA | October 13-15, 2026 REGISTER NOW A reliable technology for returning payloads to Earth from space is a necessity for several futuristic business models—testing new materials in orbit, manufacturing pharmaceuticals or high-end electronics in microgravity, or harvesting resources like metals from asteroids. The US military has shown interest in the ability to provide logistics support with orbital deliveries or test components for hypersonic weapons. Lux, however, has a bigger idea: making communications and Earth observation satellites reusable. Right now, satellites only have a useful life of five to ten years due to some combination of component failures, running out of propellant, or becoming obsolete. After that, they are destroyed in the atmosphere (no heat shields, remember?) or sent to a graveyard orbit out of the way of normal space activity. “Our ambitions are so much larger than just reentry,” Taylor told TechCrunch, describing the potential for a “dynamic upgrade capability.” Said Taylor, “[I]f you have a payload component, whether it’s compute or a hyperspectral camera, and you want to update that technology every year, instead of having to build new satellites and keep those old ones up in space, you can bring them down and go back.” It’s an exciting vision, but the economic reality will have to add up. The value those new payloads can create will have to be more than the added cost of building, launching, returning, and refurbishing a reusable satellite. There’s also a regulatory challenge. Lux is headed to Australia because obtaining a reentry license to land in the US right now isn’t easy. Varda, which returned the first commercial spacecraft to land on US soil in 2024, saw its plans delayed for several months as it worked to convince the FAA that its returning capsule wouldn’t threaten people or property on the ground below. Its subsequent missions have returned to Australia. Taylor says that the pace of regulatory approvals won’t be a bottleneck for the next three or four years, but expects the FAA to learn alongside the nascent reentry industry and allow for an increased return cadence. “The folks that are backing us really believe that now is the time to put that major, major paradigm shift in orbital operations,” Taylor said. “Not only reentry and bringing things back, [but] about bringing reusability to much larger sections of the satellite industry.”