America’s space industry seems mature, but the supply chain that provides all the parts and components for rockets, satellites, and other spacecraft is considerably less so. Gimbal Space aims to change that, starting with components in the crucial subsystem that enables a spacecraft to orient itself in space — but delivered cheaper and much faster.
Founding Gimbal Space: A Journey from Tesla to Space Hardware
The startup was founded by Dhaval Shiyani, a mechanical engineer who has made a career of scaling complex hardware systems. He joined Tesla in 2017 and helped grow the company’s Fremont factory output of Model 3 vehicles from 50 to 5,000 per week over a span of six months. After that, he moved on to Ethicon, a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary, designing high-volume medical devices.
Learning High-Volume Manufacturing and Entering the Space Industry
“I learned a lot about high-volume manufacturing, what it takes to build a company rapidly, and what it takes to scale it,” he said during his time at Space Tesla.
Shiyani entered the space ecosystem when he joined the electric propulsion startup Apollo Fusion. CEO Mike Cassidy brought him on to take the prototype thruster from the lab to production. That meant reducing part count and lowering costs, even if that involved bringing the design of a component in-house. Astra eventually acquired the startup, and there, Shiyani was pulled onto the team in the early stages of designing a 13,000-satellite constellation. He eventually moved to Earth imaging company Planet, where he worked on their next-gen imaging satellite, Pelican.
Identifying Supply Chain Pain Points in the Space Industry
Throughout his time in the space industry, he says he repeatedly encountered the same pain points regarding parts ordering: high cost, extremely long lead times, and an overall immaturity in the supply chain, where many components were not yet commoditized. He says this is an issue of “focus, inertia, and approach” in legacy suppliers.
The Need for Change: Legacy Suppliers and High Costs
“There is a need and a demand that has not been satisfied through the existing providers,” he explained. “These components, these subsystems, are almost always secondary revenue streams. They can charge extremely high premiums on some of these components because they can most likely get away with it. It’s [an] extremely lucrative, high-margin product line that they have no incentive to deliver fast or cheaply.”
Targeting the Attitude Determination and Control System (ADCS)
The subsystem Gimbal targets first is called the attitude determination and control system or ADCS. This device demands extreme precision and includes star trackers, reaction wheels, and torque rods. Gimbal also plans to expand to other components of ADCS, like magnetometers, sun sensors, and rate sensors.
Current ADCS Suppliers and Market Fragmentation
A couple of major ADCS component suppliers in North America, including Honeywell, Blue Canyon Technologies (owned by RTX), and Rocket Lab, through its acquisition of Canada-based Sinclair Interplanetary. Some suppliers specialize in large components, while others go very small, making it a fairly fragmented market. (Shiyani’s comments were not about any supplier in particular.)
Challenges of High Costs and Long Lead Times in the Industry
Obviously, as you scale up, you can get some favourable treatment, but it’s not anywhere close to, ‘If I’m getting it for this much from X, then like you should lower your prices.’”
Lead times are also very slow: months, if not years, far beyond the possibility for startups concerned about monthly burn and cost. In contrast, Gimbal aims to deliver things in half the time, with 25-30% lower prices than legacy suppliers. The company wants to bring such drastic reductions to the supply chain by moving some of the manufacturing to India.
Gimbal’s Strategy: Leveraging Manufacturing in India
The company has already identified a manufacturing partner in India that can rapidly deliver reliable hardware; Gimbal has a director in India who is helping to oversee that effort. In the short term, Gimbal will be contract manufacturing in India and the U.S., though the goal is to build its manufacturing capabilities.
Funding and Future Goals for Gimbal Space
The company has raised $1.2 million, led by Abu Dhabi-based AUM Ventures and with participation from Shakti VC, Z21 Ventures, and others. That money will go toward getting Gimbal’s components in orbit for the first time—whether on a customer spacecraft or a demo flight just to demonstrate the functionality—growing the team and building out manufacturing. The startup aims to have the components ready by the end of the year, with the first flight occurring within a few months after that.
