The American space industry appears mature, but the supply chains that deliver all the parts and components for rockets, satellites and other spacecraft are far less mature. Gimbal Space wants to change that, starting with components of the crucial subsystem that allows a spacecraft to orient itself in space – cheaper and much faster.

The startup was founded by Dhaval Shiyani, a mechanical engineer who has made a career out of scaling complex hardware systems. He joined Tesla in 2017 and helped increase production of Model 3 vehicles at the company’s Fremont factory from 50 to 5,000 per week in six months. He then moved to Ethicon, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, where he developed high-volume medical devices. There, the challenge was to ensure that every component was manufactured and tested to be 100% reliable – and that was a million components.

“I learned a lot about mass manufacturing and what it takes to build and scale a company quickly,” he said of his time at Tesla.

Shiyani found his way into the space ecosystem when he joined electric propulsion startup Apollo Fusion. CEO Mike Cassidy brought him on board to take the engine prototype from the lab to production. That meant reducing the number of parts and cutting costs, even if that meant bringing the design of a component in-house. The startup was eventually acquired by Astra, and there Shiyani joined the team that was in the early stages of developing a constellation of 13,000 satellites. He eventually moved to Earth imaging company Planet, where he worked on their next-generation imaging satellite, Pelican.

During his time in the aerospace industry, he said he encountered the same problems over and over again when ordering parts: high costs, extremely long lead times and a general immaturity in the supply chain, as many components were not yet available in bulk. This is a problem of the “concentration, inertia and approach” of existing suppliers, he says.

“There’s a need and a demand that’s not being met by the existing suppliers,” he explained. “These components, these subsystems, are almost always secondary revenue streams. They can charge pretty high premiums for some of these components because they’re very likely to get away with it. It’s a very lucrative, high-margin product line where they have no incentive to deliver it quickly or cheaply.”

The subsystem that Gimbal is focusing on first is called the Attitude Determination and Control System, or ADCS, a device that requires extreme precision and includes components such as star trackers, reaction wheels, and torque rods. Gimbal also plans to eventually expand it to include other components of the ADCS, such as magnetometers, sun sensors, and gyro sensors.

There are a few large ADCS component suppliers in North America, including Honeywell, Blue Canyon Technologies (owned by RTX) and Rocket Lab, which acquired Canada-based Sinclair Interplanetary. Some suppliers specialize in large components, others in very small ones, making the market quite fragmented. (Shiyani’s comments did not refer to any specific supplier.)

In general, suppliers are not interested or have no incentive to lower their prices to compete with other companies, says Shiyani: “There’s not a lot of room for maneuver there. Of course, you can get some preferential treatment as you scale up, but it’s not anywhere close to being able to say, ‘If I can get it from X for this much, then you should lower your prices.'”

Delivery times are also very long: months, if not years, well beyond the capabilities of startups concerned about monthly expenses and costs. In contrast, Gimbal aims to deliver in half the time, at prices 25-30% lower than traditional suppliers. One way the company plans to achieve these drastic supply chain reductions is by moving some of its production to India.

The company has already identified a manufacturing partner in India that can deliver reliable hardware quickly. Gimbal has a director in India to help oversee these efforts. In the short term, Gimbal will do contract manufacturing in both India and the US, but the goal is to build out its own manufacturing capabilities.

The company has raised $1.2 million led by Abu Dhabi-based AUM Ventures, with participation from Shakti VC, Z21 Ventures and others. The money will be used to launch Gimbal’s components into orbit for the first time — whether in a customer’s spacecraft or on a demo flight to demonstrate functionality — grow the team and expand manufacturing. The startup is currently aiming to have the components ready by the end of the year, with the first flight expected to take place within a few months of that.