Orbion Space Technology

Orbion Space Technology is an electric propulsion manufacturer headquartered in Houghton, Michigan, founded in 2016 as a spinout from Michigan Technological University by Dr. Brad King and Lyon Brad King. The company designs and produces Hall-effect thrusters — the Aurora HET — for small satellites in the 100–1,000 kg class, where efficient low-thrust electric propulsion is increasingly required for orbit maintenance, collision avoidance, and orbit raising.

Orbion's Aurora thruster is designed for high production rates and has been selected by multiple commercial smallsat customers, including constellation operators and government programs. The company has announced manufacturing scale-up to hundreds of units per year and has raised Series B and C rounds from investors including Material Impact, Invest Michigan, and Wake Capital.

Orbion competes in a growing electric-propulsion market alongside Busek, ENPULSION, ThrustMe, Phase Four, Morpheus Space, and Exotrail, each targeting different thrust ranges and power classes. Orbion's focus on North American supply-chain independence has attracted particular interest from U.S. national-security customers.