Fortastra Company Spotlight: Building Orbital Defense

Fortastra is building spacecraft for the part of a mission when valuable infrastructure is already in orbit and needs protection nearby. Its maneuverable vehicles are designed to inspect activity around critical assets and respond to potential threats. The company combines spacecraft engineering, autonomy, and a production-oriented approach to orbital defense.

Founded in 2025 by Mike Smayda and headquartered in Torrance, California, Fortastra initially serves national security needs while anticipating commercial applications. Smayda's background includes SpaceX reusable-launch engineering and co-founding the hypersonic aircraft company Hermeus. His new company brings that aerospace experience to the security of assets operating beyond the launch pad.

Fortastra's current hiring gives a detailed view of the organization taking shape around that mission. Flight software roles span ground operations and onboard systems, while autonomy positions connect navigation, perception, and coordinated behavior. For operators, investors, and technical candidates, those responsibilities explain the company more clearly than a general claim to be building the future of space.

What Fortastra is building for orbital protection

Fortastra designs and operates maneuverable spacecraft for on-orbit security. Its intended vehicles can remain near important assets, assess surrounding activity, and respond as conditions develop. The company's public positioning emphasizes compact systems, commercial components, and cost-conscious engineering as a route toward making protection practical across more space infrastructure.

The technical work spans several layers. Guidance, navigation and control establish where the vehicle should go and how it moves; perception helps it interpret observations; flight software connects instructions with the spacecraft's hardware. Autonomy brings those functions into operating behavior, with proximity operations central to the mission the company is pursuing.

These descriptions establish design priorities, rather than a public specification for every defensive capability. Fortastra has not disclosed unit costs, a complete inventory of proprietary technology, or independently audited protection outcomes. Readers evaluating the company should connect its stated architecture with the flight and production evidence as that evidence becomes available.

Manufacturing is also part of the product strategy. A memorandum of understanding with Hadrian creates a framework for examining precision machining, additive manufacturing, and engineering collaboration in spacecraft development. A direct interview with the companies' executives describes an exchange between manufacturing capability and spaceflight requirements. The relationship is an MOU, with no disclosed production-order volume.

The aerospace experience behind the leadership team

Mike Smayda is Fortastra's founder and CEO. The company's public debut announcement describes his work as a senior aerodynamics engineer at SpaceX, including contributions to the reusable Falcon 9 first stage. He later co-founded Hermeus and served as CPO, working across technology, product strategy, and government markets.

Fortastra's April 2026 leadership announcement expanded the management team across engineering, product, and people. Josh Jetter became CTO after serving as senior director of avionics engineering and manufacturing at Relativity Space. Sahil Desai joined as VP of Product, bringing experience from Hermeus programs and Divergent Technologies' aerospace and defense business.

Arnold Nowinski became VP of People after leading Astrion's Space Launch and Sciences business. The company subsequently named Scott Klempner Director of Product, National Security, following his work as Deputy Program Executive Officer for Space Combat Power at Space Systems Command. Together, these roles cover building the vehicle, understanding customer requirements, and forming the team that must deliver it.

That combination matters because orbital security brings a supplier close to infrastructure another organization depends on. Engineering decisions need to reflect operating requirements, while product commitments need to remain connected to what hardware and software can demonstrate. Fortastra's leadership history gives readers relevant experience to assess without substituting biographies for evidence of future execution.

Capital, milestones, and the market Fortastra serves

Fortastra announced a $30M Series A on October 8, 2026, led by First In. Upfront Ventures, Space Capital, Rsquared, Side Door Ventures, and ATX Ventures participated alongside other new and existing investors. The funding supports spacecraft development and commissioning, engineering and operations hiring, autonomy, and manufacturing infrastructure.

The financing follows more than $8M in seed capital disclosed in December 2025, led by Upfront Ventures. Fortastra reports that Watchdog V0 reached orbit about a year after seed funding and describes its initial operation as successful. It also reports initial government contracts, whose customers and values have not been publicly detailed in the announcement.

National security is the company's immediate focus. Smayda anticipates that commercial satellite operators will seek related defensive capabilities, with adjacent civil uses also possible. That commercial demand is management's outlook; the public record does not establish a named commercial customer base or an operational fleet covering multiple orbits.

For the wider space ecosystem, Fortastra represents a business being organized around protecting infrastructure after deployment. Its development path links proximity operations with the ability to produce additional vehicles. The capital and partnerships give the company resources for that work, while future contract disclosures, flight results, and manufacturing data will provide more detailed evidence about the resulting business.

What the hiring tells builders and operators

Fortastra's careers page lists openings across guidance and control, mechanical engineering, RF, avionics, thermal and propulsion engineering, autonomy, perception, flight software, ground software, and recruiting. These are current listings in Torrance, rather than a guarantee that every role will remain open. Their breadth illustrates the disciplines a spacecraft company must coordinate.

The Autonomy Engineer role describes coordination, vehicle navigation, trajectory planning, and sensor fusion. The Flight Software Engineer role spans ground mission operations, embedded software, telemetry, commanding, and testing. Both descriptions make collaboration across engineering functions explicit, and the flight software position specifies on-site work in Torrance.

The company says it values technical rigor, clear judgment under pressure, and ownership from development through flight. Its stated employee support includes equity, employer-paid family medical, dental and vision coverage, retirement support, and flexible time off. These are Fortastra's descriptions of its workplace and benefits; they provide useful questions for candidates to explore in their own evaluation.

For a builder considering the team, the interesting detail is the distance a responsibility can travel. A ground tool influences a mission plan, an onboard system executes it, and tests establish whether the two agree. Fortastra's open roles put that connection into concrete assignments, where the next software change or hardware decision will eventually have to answer to a vehicle in orbit.