GoKawiilAn ambitious satellite builder will launch one of the highest-powered spacecraft ever built in the weeks ahead to demonstrate technology that will be required to build data centers in orbit.
K2, founded by brothers and former SpaceX engineers Karan and Neel Kunjur in 2022, has packed its satellite Gravitas into a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket expected to launch as soon as the end of this month. Gravitas has a mass of two metric tons, with a 40 meter wingspan when its solar panels are unfolded.
The point of the big satellite is big power: Gravitas is capable of producing 20 kW of electricity for use by payloads like powerful sensors, transceivers and computers. For comparison, the even larger and more expensive ViaSat-3 spacecraft can generate more than 25 kW of power, while Starlink V2 satellites have been estimated at generating 28 kW. But most spacecraft generate just a handful of kilowatts.
“The future is higher power,” CEO Karan Kunjur explains. K2 has raised $425 million to make that vision a reality and was valued at $3 billion by its investors in December 2025. This launch will be the company’s first step into real space operations—and what Kunjur calls “the start of our iterative journey.”
The Gravitas mission will fly 12 undisclosed payload modules from several customers, including the Department of Defense, as well as a 20 kW electric thruster that the company expects will be the most powerful ever flown in space.
Kunjur said the demonstration will be evaluated across several tiers of success—first, can K2 get the spacecraft deployed and generating power? Second, can it start running its payloads, and test its powerful thruster? And if that goes well, can it use the thruster to raise the spacecraft thousands of kilometers into a higher orbit?
Kunjur is aware that launching a new spacecraft isn’t easy—85% of its components have been designed and built in-house—and that markets are quick to judge anomalies. What’s most important, he says, will be maximizing data collection to feed into the next design of the satellite; K2 plans to launch eleven satellites in the next two years in a mix of demonstration and commercial missions. By 2028, Kunjur expects the company to be producing satellites for customers to build out commercial networks of high-powered space vehicles.
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