Auria, a portfolio company of Enlightenment Capital, has acquired RKF Engineering Solutions and Kythera Space Solutions as part of a push to expand its satellite communications capabilities and portfolio of software offerings.
Auria said Tuesday it expects the transaction to support the delivery of an end-to-end platform for managing the full command, control and communications, or C3, lifecycle, including space assets, payloads, ground systems and support to the warfighter.
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What Are Auria CEO Damian DiPippa’s Thoughts on RKF & Kythera?
“Auria has been partnered with RKF and Kythera for several years in support of the Space Force. These acquisitions expand Auria’s capabilities in design, integration, and operations of enterprise-level satellite communications systems,” said Auria CEO Damian DiPippa.
“Their teams deepen our engineering and software capabilities across enterprise SATCOM and payload management, enabling Auria to deliver more resilient, integrated solutions for our government customers’ most critical and complex space missions,” added DiPippa.
What Do RFK & Kythera Offer?
Established in 2002, RFK provides satcom engineering and spectrum management platforms for the U.S. Space Force, other federal agencies and commercial clients. The Bethesda, Maryland-based company’s products support satellite and terrestrial network connectivity and management in a complex orbital and spectrum domain.
Kythera has been providing a proprietary software suite designed to support autonomous management of software-defined satellite payloads since 2018. The Bethesda-headquartered company’s Kythera Operating System enables operators to autonomously manage in-orbit spectrum and satcom resources by serving as the intelligence layer for modern space networks in the public and private space economy.
What Does Auria Do?
Auria develops, integrates and deploys C3 software and related systems that support space operations, satcom, space domain awareness and missile defense for federal, commercial and international customers.
The Colorado Springs, Colorado-based company also has operations in Washington, D.C., Alabama, New Mexico, Utah and California.
In early 2024, private investment firm Enlightenment Capital formed Auria through the merger of its four space and national security portfolio companies: Boecore, Orbit Logic, Ascension Engineering Group and La Jolla Logic.
In June 2024, DiPippa joined Auria as CEO after serving as chief executive of Aretum.
