WASHINGTON — Dark, a French startup developing air-launched spacecraft technology to capture and dispose of orbital objects, has shut down operations after struggling to establish a sustainable business model, the company announced this week.
The four-year-old Paris-based firm said the decision to cease operations was made by founders and the board following years of work on technology designed to address space debris and potential security threats in orbit.
“This difficult decision, taken by the founders and the board after years of dedication, was ultimately a necessary one,” the company said in a statement.
Dark was founded by veterans from European defense contractors MBDA and Thales with the goal of demonstrating a space weapon system that would launch from a modified commercial aircraft, navigate to orbital targets, capture them and deposit them in the South Pacific Ocean. The company raised approximately $11 million in venture funding.
The startup said it sought to position France at the forefront of space defense capabilities as military doctrine increasingly recognizes space as a critical domain for national security.
“We embraced the doctrinal shift that placed space at the heart of defense strategy and set out to position France at the forefront of this frontier,” Dark said. “Our ambition was to anchor a private capability that would both strengthen national security and generate economic and diplomatic value through export.”
However, the company said the conditions needed to advance its vision “never materialized for us in France.”
“As we step aside, we believe and hope that France will secure access to these critical space-defense capabilities, whether through European partners or transatlantic allies,” the company said.
