Northwood Space Raises $100M Series B and Wins $50M Space Force Contract for Ground Station Network
Ground station startup Northwood Space closed a $100 million Series B co-led by Washington Harbour Partners and Andreessen Horowitz and simultaneously won a more than $50 million U.S. Space Force contract to support satellite control operations.
Northwood Space announced on January 27, 2026 the simultaneous close of a $100 million Series B funding round and the award of a more than $50 million contract from the U.S. Space Force to support the Satellite Control Network (SCN). The funding round was co-led by Washington Harbour Partners and Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Founders Fund, Alpine Space Ventures, Balerion Space Ventures, Fulcrum, 137 Ventures, and others.
What Northwood Builds
Northwood Space develops software-defined ground station infrastructure. Its "Portal" product is a compact, deployable ground station array capable of managing multiple satellite links simultaneously — current-generation portals handle eight concurrent links, with next-generation portals expected to handle ten to twelve. The company targets both commercial satellite operators and government customers, providing the radio frequency hardware and software infrastructure required to communicate with and control spacecraft in orbit.
The Space Force contract tasks Northwood with supporting the SCN, which is used to track satellite launches, support early on-orbit operations, and provide emergency control for spacecraft that have lost contact or are tumbling. This function has historically been handled exclusively by purpose-built government infrastructure. The award reflects a broader U.S. government trend of leveraging commercial space infrastructure for national security missions.
Expansion Plans
Northwood plans to deploy over 82 operational beams across 18 global ground sites by the end of 2026 and scale manufacturing to produce more than a dozen Portal arrays per month. By end of 2027, the company's network is expected to communicate with hundreds of satellites concurrently.
The dual announcement of commercial funding and a government contract on the same day signals a maturing commercial space infrastructure market. For infrastructure and networking professionals, Northwood's approach — applying software-defined networking principles and commodity hardware to satellite ground stations — mirrors the same disaggregation trend reshaping terrestrial data center infrastructure.
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