WASHINGTON — In a rare acquisition, SpaceX has purchased out of bankruptcy a company that provided components for Dragon spacecraft parachutes.
A federal bankruptcy court in Florida approved an agreement Nov. 22 whereby SpaceX would acquire Pioneer Aerospace for $2.2 million. The deal was first reported by The Information.
Pioneer’s parent company, Aviation Safety Resources (ASR), filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the Middle District of Florida on Nov. 1. ASR acquired Pioneer Aerospace from Safran Electronics and Defense in June 2022.
Connecticut-based Pioneer has developed parachutes for space and other applications for decades. That work ranged from parafoils developed in the 1960s for potential use on Gemini spacecraft to parachutes flown on Mars lander missions and the OSIRIS-REx sample return capsule. It also supplied drogue chutes for SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and its cargo variant.
Pioneer Aerospace filed with the bankruptcy court Nov. 9 an asset purchase agreement with SpaceX, whereby SpaceX would acquire substantially all the assets of Pioneer for $2.2 million. That included intellectual property for drag chutes and drogue chutes, “specifically inclusive of SPX-00000432 Drogue Chute.” The bankruptcy court approved the sale Nov. 22.
Neither SpaceX nor Pioneer Aerospace have publicly commented on the deal, and Pioneer’s website does not even mention the Chapter 11 filing. SpaceX did not respond to questions Nov. 29 about the deal; the company rarely acknowledges media inquiries.
One industry source, speaking on background, said the deal was likely an effort to preserve SpaceX’s supply chain, speculating that the cost to acquire Pioneer out of bankruptcy may have been less than what SpaceX would have spent on finding a new drogue chute supplier and requalifying that component for use on crewed missions.
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