The story
What is now Lanteris Space Systems was formed in 1957 as the Western Development Laboratories (WDL) of Philco, whose control was assumed by the Ford Motor Company (FMC) in 1966. Years later, Ford made the Space Systems Division a stand-alone division of its Ford Aerospace (FA) unit.
In 1990, after acquiring it for $715 million, Loral Corp. changed the name of this former independent division to Space Systems/Loral. All other divisions of FA including Western Development Labs located in San Jose were also acquired by Loral at that time.
In 2012 Space Systems/Loral was acquired by the Canadian aerospace company MacDonald Dettwiler (later simply MDA) for $875 million. The company continued operating as SS/L, and by the end of 2012, simply SSL.
In 2017, MDA acquired DigitalGlobe, rebranded the combined business as Maxar Technologies, and moved its corporate headquarters from Canada to San Francisco. Maxar's Canadian units continued to use the name "MDA."
While Maxar Technologies moved its corporate headquarters to Westminster, Colorado in 2018, SSL adopted the name Maxar Space Solutions (MSS) the following year. Subsequently, Maxar sold its Canada MDA units to Northern Private Capital, while MSS transitioned its name to Maxar Space Systems.
After completing the purchase of Maxar Technologies in 2023, Advent International began operating MSS and Maxar Intelligence as separate companies. Some industry sources cited the name "Maxar Space Infrastructure" for the manufacturing business around this time.
On October 1, 2025, Maxar Space Systems rebranded as Lanteris Space Systems. On January 13, 2026, two months after announcing it would acquire Lanteris, Intuitive Machines reported that it had completed the transaction for approximately $800 million.
From Wikipedia’s article on Lanteris Space Systems, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3