Maxar Technologies Inc. is a space technology company headquartered in

Westminster, Colorado The City of Westminster is a home rule municipality located in Adams and Jefferson counties, Colorado, United States. The city population was 116,317 at the 2020 United States Census with 71,240 residing in Adams County and 45,077 residing in J ...

, United States, specializing in manufacturing communication, Earth observation, radar, and on-orbit servicing satellites, satellite products, and related services.

DigitalGlobe DigitalGlobe is an American commercial vendor of space imagery and geospatial content, and operator of civilian remote sensing spacecraft. The company went public on the New York Stock Exchange on 14 May 2009, selling 14.7 million shares at US ...

and MDA Holdings Company merged to become Maxar Technologies on October 5, 2017. Maxar Technologies is the parent

holding company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own shares of other companies ...

Space Systems Loral SSL, formerly Space Systems/Loral, LLC (SS/L), of Palo Alto, California, is a wholly owned manufacturing subsidiary of Maxar Technologies. SSL designs and builds satellites and space systems for a wide variety of government and commercial cust ...

, headquartered in

Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was estab ...

, California, US; DigitalGlobe, headquartered in Westminster,

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

, US; and Radiant Solutions, headquartered in

Herndon Herndon may refer to: People * Herndon (surname), an American surname * Herndon Davis (1901–1962), American artist, journalist, illustrator, and painter Places in the United States Communities * Herndon, California, an unincorporated commun ...

, Virginia, US. Maxar Technologies is dual-listed on the

Toronto Stock Exchange The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX; french: Bourse de Toronto) is a stock exchange located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the 10th largest exchange in the world and the third largest in North America based on market capitalization. Based in t ...

and

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed c ...

as MAXR. In May 2019, the company was selected as the provider of the power and propulsion element for the

Lunar Gateway The Lunar Gateway, or simply Gateway, is the first planned extraterrestrial space station in lunar orbit intended to serve as a solar-powered communication hub, science laboratory, and short-term habitation module for government-agency astr ...

developed by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

. On December 30, 2019, the company announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to sell MDA's assets to a consortium of financial sponsors led by Northern Private Capital for CAD$1 billion (US$765 million). The sale includes all of MDA’s Canadian businesses, encompassing ground stations, radar satellite products, robotics, defense, and satellite components, representing approximately 1,900 employees. On April 8, 2020, the sale of MDA to NPC officially closed. The newly formed privately-held Canadian company was named MDA Ltd., which later listed on the

. On December 16, 2022, Maxar announced it will be acquired by private equity firm

Advent International Advent International is a global private equity firm focused on buyouts of companies in Western and Central Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia. The firm focuses on international buyouts, growth and strategic restructuring in five core ...

, in an all-cash transaction worth $6.4 billion.

Business

Maxar Technologies is the combined operations of

Vricon Vricon was an American geospatial-intelligence data and software provider. It was a joint venture between Saab and DigitalGlobe and is headquartered in McLean, Virginia. Vricon's 3D geodata and 3D visualization uses stereophotogrammetry fo ...

, DigitalGlobe, Radiant Solutions and SSL (Space Systems/Loral). * Vricon, a subsidiary that provides 3D geospatial analytics through satellite data *

, a vendor and producer of high resolution satellite imagery * Radiant Solutions, a subsidiary that provides data modeling; and analytics for satellite data * SSL, a subsidiary that constructs satellites

History

Maxar Technologies was created in 2017 from the combination of

MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates MDA Ltd. is a Canadian space technology company headquartered in Brampton, Ontario, Canada, that provides geointelligence, robotics & space operations, and satellite systems. History MDA (formerly MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates) was founde ...

(MDA) and

, with the resulting company renamed Maxar. The headquarters of the combined entity was then established in Westminster, Colorado. The company was dual-listed on the TSX and NYSE. In 2020, Maxar divested itself of the Canadian MDA portion, returning MDA to a separate operating company. In 2022, Maxar published several satellite images that showed a Russian military convoy during its invasion of Ukraine.

Timeline

* 1969: John MacDonald and Vern Dettwiler founded MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates. * 1993: MDA sells its Electro-Optical Division (EOP) based in Richmond Canada to a Swiss Private Equity firm which merges with Cymbolic Sciences based in California. * 1995: MDA was acquired by

Orbital Sciences Orbital Sciences Corporation (commonly referred to as Orbital) was an American company specializing in the design, manufacture, and launch of small- and medium- class space and launch vehicle systems for commercial, military and other governmen ...

for $67 million in stock * 1996: acquired Iotek, a supplier of signal processing and sonar technology for military customers, for undisclosed sum * 2000: entered joint venture with LandAmerica Financial Group to create LandMDA, a provider of property reports to lenders * 2000/01: Orbital Sciences divested its MDA shares through an initial public offering; trades as * 2002: acquired Automated Mining Systems of Aurora, Ontario for $225,000 * 2002: acquired Dynacs for $3.1 million, with an additional $6.8 million contingent on performance (now "MDA US Systems, LLC", located in Houston, Texas) * 2003: acquired Millar & Bryce, a commercial provider of land information in Scotland, for $21.32 million, with $1.76 million contingent on performance. * 2004: acquired Marshall & Swift / Boeckh for $337.8 million, with $104.9 million contingent on performance. * 2005: acquired business of EMS Technologies Canada (previously RCA Canada, which then became the Montreal division of

SPAR Aerospace SPAR Aerospace was a Canadian aerospace company. It produced equipment for the Canadian Space Agency to be used in cooperation with NASA's Space Shuttle program, most notably the Canadarm, a remote manipulator system. The company went through a ...

), a major supplier and subcontractor, for $8.9 million * 2006: expanded into financial services with acquisition of Mindbox, a supplier of advanced decision systems for mortgage lending, for $12.6 million USD, with up to $10.75 million contingent on performance * 2006: acquired xit2 Ltd. (Nr Charlbury, Oxfordshire, UK), information exchange solutions for lenders and home surveyors and other outsourced service providers * 2006: acquired Lyttle & Co. (Belfast, Northern Ireland), property and related search information * 2007: acquired Alliance Spacesystems, Inc. (now "Maxar Space Robotics LLC", located in Pasadena, CA, US) * 2008: MDA announced the sale of its Information Systems and Geospacial Services operations to

Alliant Techsystems Alliant Techsystems Inc. (ATK) was an American aerospace, defense, and sporting goods company with its headquarters in Arlington County, Virginia, in the United States. The company operated in 22 states, Puerto Rico, and other countries. ATK's ...

Edina, Minnesota Edina ( ) is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States and a first-ring suburb of Minneapolis. The population was 53,494 at the 2020 census, making it the 18th most populous city in Minnesota. Edina began as a small farming and mil ...

for $1.325 billion. However, amongst much media coverage, the sale was rejected by the federal government of Canada under the

Investment Canada Act The Investment Canada Act (ICA) is a Canadian federal law governing large foreign direct investment in Canada. The ICA was one of the first acts of Brian Mulroney's newly elected Progressive Conservative government, receiving royal assent on 20 J ...

. * 2008: Canadian government officially blocked the sale of MDA to ATK on May 8, 2008 * 2012: acquired

Space Systems/Loral SSL, formerly Space Systems/Loral, LLC (SS/L), of Palo Alto, California, is a wholly owned manufacturing subsidiary of Maxar Technologies. SSL designs and builds satellites and space systems for a wide variety of government and commercial cust ...

for US $875 million, making MDA one of the world's leading communication satellite companies.MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates CEO Announces Transformational US Acquisition Conference (Transcript). Retrieved on 06-27-12.
/ref> * 2014: acquired the Advanced Systems business line (formerly ERIM International) of

General Dynamics General Dynamics Corporation (GD) is an American publicly traded, aerospace and defense corporation headquartered in Reston, Virginia. As of 2020, it was the fifth-largest defense contractor in the world by arms sales, and 5th largest in the Uni ...

Advanced Information Systems division. * 2017: Completed its acquisition of

, MDA now will be named Maxar Technologies, dual-listed on NYSE and TSX. MDA will then be a subsidiary of US-based Maxar by 2019. * 2018: Announced acquisition of Neptec for $32 million. * 2019: Completed U.S.

domestication Domestication is a sustained multi-generational relationship in which humans assume a significant degree of control over the reproduction and care of another group of organisms to secure a more predictable supply of resources from that group. ...

, whereby the parent company is now incorporated in the U.S. state of

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...

Maxar Technologies Completes U.S. Domestication."
''Maxar Technologies''. * 2020: MDA is sold to a consortium of Canadian investors led b
Northern Private Capital
This sale includes the Houston-based MDA US Systems, LLC. * 2020: Completed its acquisition of Vricon, Inc for $140 million. Vricon is a global leader in satellite-derived 3D data for defense and intelligence markets * 2022: Maxar to be taken private through an acquisition led by

, in a cash deal worth $6.4 billion.

References

External links

* {{authority control 1969 establishments in British Columbia Aerospace companies of Canada Aerospace companies of the United States Companies based in Jefferson County, Colorado Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange Companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange Manufacturing companies based in Colorado Manufacturing companies established in 1969 Private spaceflight companies Space industry companies of Canada Spacecraft manufacturers Technology companies established in 1969 Westminster, Colorado Announced mergers and acquisitions

Business

History

Timeline

See also

References

External links