Vestigo Aerospace
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
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Sections to complete：02 · 05
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Vestigo Aerospace, founded in 2018 in San Luis Obispo, California, developed the Spinnaker line of drag sails — passive deorbit devices that deploy like parachutes from satellites and rocket upper stages at end of mission, increasing atmospheric drag so the hardware burns up in the atmosphere within years instead of decades. The technology, licensed through Purdue University, was sized from small CubeSats up to 1,000-kilogram stages, helping operators comply with the FCC's five-year deorbit rule. In February 2026 the company was acquired by Applied Aerospace & Defense.
02 / FAILURE REASONS
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03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Company founded
Vestigo Aerospace was founded in San Luis Obispo, California, to commercialize drag-sail deorbit technology licensed through Purdue University.
- Funding round
Vestigo raised $750,000 — $375,000 in seed funding from Manhattan West, matched by NASA under an SBIR Phase II-Extended contract — to pivot the Spinnaker line to commercial manufacturing.
- Product launch
On 15 March 2025 Vestigo launched its Sphinx drag-sail demonstrator on a SpaceX rideshare mission, with the sail deployment planned for April.
- Acquisition
In February 2026 Applied Aerospace & Defense acquired Vestigo Aerospace and its Spinnaker product line, moving the technology into the mainstream aerospace supply chain.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
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Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN / AFTERMATH
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