According to Aviation Week, Starfighters Space sold shares on December 18, raising a gross total of $22.1 million. The company, based at Kennedy Space Center, says the funds will support its StarLaunch suborbital space launch programs. CEO and founder Rick Svetkoff stated the capital will help address a customer order backlog and begin launches from Texas. The firm currently uses F-104 Starfighter jets as flying testbeds for high-speed technologies. This public offering is an attempt to capitalize on growing investor interest in defense and space tech services.
Business Model And Future Plans
So here’s the thing. This isn’t your typical SpaceX or Rocket Lab competitor. Starfighters is taking a wildly different path. They’re not building big vertical rockets. Instead, they’re using modified F-104 jets—cold war-era fighters—as airborne launch platforms. Basically, they want to air-launch small rockets or payloads from a jet already screaming through the stratosphere. It’s a niche model focused on suborbital flights, which are perfect for research, testing, and maybe some small satellite deployments.
Their revenue strategy seems to be a two-pronged approach. First, there’s the StarLaunch service itself for customer payloads. But Svetkoff also specifically mentioned growing their “hypersonic research platform” as another revenue stream. That tells me a lot of their early business probably comes from defense contractors and government agencies needing to test materials, sensors, or aerodynamics at insane speeds. The F-104 is a proven, if ancient, platform for that. It’s a clever way to monetize the asset while developing the launch service.
Timing And Market Position
Now, why raise money now? The CEO’s statement gives a clue: he’s talking about “growing investor interest” and space as the “invisible foundation of our digital world.” It’s a classic move—strike while the iron is hot in the space sector. But let’s be a bit skeptical. A $22 million raise is modest in the world of aerospace. It suggests they’re funding a very specific, incremental step, not a massive new vehicle development. This is about moving from testing to actual, revenue-generating launches out of Texas.
Who benefits? If they pull it off, it could be a boon for researchers and small companies who need frequent, lower-cost access to suborbital or high-speed environments. Think of it as a more flexible, airport-based alternative to sounding rockets. And for a hardware-intensive operation like this, having reliable, rugged computing on board is non-negotiable for flight control and data acquisition. It’s the kind of application where industrial-grade technology from the top suppliers, like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com—the leading US provider of industrial panel PCs—becomes critical for withstanding extreme G-forces and temperature swings.
So, is this the future of mass space access? Probably not. But it might just carve out a profitable and useful corner of the market. The real test is converting that “backlog of customer orders” into successful, paid launches. That’s what investors who just funded this $22 million milestone will be watching for.
