Five years after its arrival in Luxembourg, the geospatial intelligence space scale-up Kleos Space has had to file for bankruptcy. It was one of few select spacetechs working together with the National Reconnaissance Office to provide RF data.
After having run into issues with a couple of its satellites, Kleos Space was unable to extend its credit line and had to begin proceedings to file for bankruptcy, said Lou Weis, a spokesman for Kleos Space to SpaceNews.
“The company’s board has had no alternative but to acknowledge that the company is unable to meet its financial commitments as they fall due and that there is no prospect of viable alternative financial accommodation,” Weis said.
Having launched three clusters of four satellites to detect RF signals, the space company provided RF monitoring data to a variety of government and commercial customers and had only last year been awarded a contract by the National Reconnaissance Office.
The company had also only just replaced its previous CEO Andy Bower with Alan Khalili who was to increase the company’s presence on the US market. Unfortunately, it appears that the setbacks due to space launch delays, satellite issues and financing struggles proved too much for the company.
Despite having to file for bankruptcy within 30 days, Lou Weis rightly said that Kleos Space has “many things to be proud of,” having “developed and delivered new, highly disruptive technology that was helping solve security challenges and also built a global customer base including numerous government agencies.”
