Skyloom Global

Skyloom Global, headquartered in Albuquerque, New Mexico, develops high-performance optical communication terminals (OCTs) for free-space laser links between satellites and between satellites and ground stations — establishing itself as a leading US supplier of SDA (Space Development Agency)-qualified optical communication hardware for the US Department of Defense's satellite communication infrastructure.

Skyloom's OCTs enable the laser crosslinks that form the backbone of the SDA's Transport Layer constellation — an LEO satellite mesh network where satellites communicate with each other through infrared laser links rather than radio frequency bands, providing higher data rates, lower probability of intercept, and reduced congestion on electromagnetic spectrum resources. The SDA Transport Layer is designed as a resilient national security communication backbone, replacing legacy GEO relay satellites with distributed LEO constellations that are harder to target and provide lower latency.

By 2025, Skyloom had delivered approximately 90 optical communication terminals for SDA missions — a remarkable production scale for a specialized defense space hardware company reflecting the SDA's aggressive constellation deployment timeline. This volume production demonstrates Skyloom's manufacturing capability beyond prototype development, validating the company as a production supplier at the scale national security space programs require.

IonQ, the publicly traded quantum computing company, announced plans to acquire Skyloom to accelerate quantum networking infrastructure development — reflecting the emerging field's thesis that free-space optical links between satellites will serve as distribution channels for quantum entanglement and quantum key distribution (QKD) security protocols in future quantum communication networks. IonQ's acquisition positions Skyloom's classical optical terminal technology as the physical layer infrastructure for a future quantum internet.

Skyloom competes with Mynaric, Tesat-Spacecom, SA Photonics, and Ball Aerospace in the defense optical communication terminal market.