Space Machines Company

Space Machines Company (SMC) is an Australian in-space transportation and servicing company founded in 2019 by Rajat Kulshrestha and George Freney, headquartered in Sydney. The company develops autonomous Orbital Servicing Vehicles (OSVs) that provide what it calls 'roadside assistance in space' — deploying payloads, inspecting satellites, extending spacecraft lifespans, and removing debris across LEO, MEO, GEO, and cislunar orbits.

SMC builds both its spacecraft and its own Scintilla propulsion engine in-house — a metal 3D-printed monopropellant thruster delivering 50 N of thrust with over 40 demonstrated restarts and 1,200+ seconds of cumulative test time. The Optimus OTV, Australia's largest privately built satellite at the time of its launch in March 2024 aboard SpaceX Transporter-10, demonstrated the company's end-to-end vertical integration capability. A second-generation vehicle, Optimus 2 (~450 kg), is planned for 2026 via NewSpace India's SSLV for the AUD $8.5M Space MAITRI space domain awareness mission with India.

In December 2024 SMC unveiled Optimus Viper — a rapid-response space domain awareness platform designed to deploy within 24 hours and operate within 10 km of target satellites at $2–3M USD per LEO inspection. The company also announced Australia's largest industrial-scale spacecraft manufacturing facility, OF-01 at UTS Tech Lab, targeting initial production in early 2026 with capacity for 20+ vehicles per year. Additional partnerships include Lúnasa (UK, in-space servicing) and Spaceium (cryogenic in-orbit refueling demonstration).