Special Aerospace Services Rebrands as Aurex, a Leader in the New Golden Age of American Space Technology and Deterrence

HUNTSVILLE, Ala.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 4, 2025--

Special Aerospace Services (“SAS”), a Godspeed Capital Management LP (“Godspeed Capital”) backed platform, today announced its official rebranding as Aurex. The rebrand marks a signification evolution into a unified, mission-driven provider of advanced systems, solutions, products and technologies across space, missile defense, and hypersonics. Aurex employs over 250 professionals across its network of strategic locations in Colorado, California and Huntsville, Alabama.

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“We are thrilled to be relaunching as Aurex, a leading provider of critical priorities for the growing demands of our core space and missile defense customers,” said Warren Kohm, CEO of Aurex. “The Aurex brand emphasizes our focus on innovation and the recent completion of a new state-of-the-art MISSION Center, a 44,000 square foot multi-use manufacturing and engineering facility in Huntsville, Alabama, where we are meeting the most complex and emerging national security challenges centered on Space Domain Awareness and Superiority.”

Aurex delivers both field-proven systems and next-generation technologies across the space and missile defense spectrum. The company’s offerings include differentiated space communications, advanced hypersonic and missile defense solutions, and precision manufacturing for government and commercial space clients. These capabilities are designed for rapid deployment to meet the dynamic demands of modern warfare including emergent national defense priorities such as the Golden Dome missile defense initiative.

Headquartered in Huntsville’s space innovation corridor known as ‘Rocket City,’ Aurex operates on a national scale across multiple states. The company maintains multiple manufacturing sites, an advanced technology lab, and the newly completed MISSION Center in Cummings Research Park, Huntsville. The MISSION Center is purpose-built for high-classification programs, rapid prototyping, and advanced manufacturing, is TS-cleared and supports Aurex’s mission to “build at the speed of relevance.”

“Aurex has established itself as an enhanced organization with the proven ability to deliver on the most complex and challenging problems our customers face in their missions to safeguard national security and advance the superior technological capabilities of the U.S. and its allies,” remarked Douglas T. Lake, Jr., Founder & Managing Partner of Godspeed Capital. “The Aurex leadership team is leading the way in innovation, as exemplified by the completion of the new Huntsville facility, for our sophisticated space and missile defense customers by pushing the boundaries of what is considered possible.”

Aurex brings together aerospace veterans, missile defense experts, combat-tested operators, and forward-leaning technologists who have supported hundreds of missions for the Department of Defense, Missile Defense Agency, NASA, and commercial space and defense partners. The team delivers integrated capabilities in hypersonic systems, missile defense, orbital launch, secure communications, digital battlespace training, software development, modeling and simulation, precision hardware, and resilient mission networks for clients across the industry.

The notable growth marks a milestone for the Godspeed Capital-backed platform. Over the past 18 months, Aurex has significantly expanded its capabilities by uniting highly skilled employees across the United States under a single, integrated platform purpose-built to address the most critical national security needs through the strategic acquisitions of SAS, Willbrook Solutions, Quintron Systems, and Concordia Technologies.

“We are thrilled to support the exceptional team at Aurex through this exciting rebrand, a testament to the successful integration of numerous companies into one unified strategic platform capable of supporting advanced mission solutions at scale,” added Nathaniel T.G. Fogg, Partner of Godspeed Capital. “We’re supremely confident in the leadership team and look forward to continuing to support Aurex’s growth and impact in the market.”

The Aurex leadership team brings decades of operational experience across defense, space, and commercial sectors. From capture strategy to production and fielding, the team has delivered systems across every domain of modern warfare, cementing Aurex’s role as a critical partner in national defense and space innovation.

About Aurex

Aurex is a mission-focused aerospace and defense company building the next frontier of deterrence. From hypersonic systems and missile defense to hardened networks and orbital systems, we design, test, and deliver the platforms that turn unproven ideas into battlefield-ready capabilities. Headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama, Aurex has offices across the United States and serves customers in defense, space, and national security. For more information about Aurex, visit aurexdefense.com.

About Godspeed Capital

Godspeed Capital is a lower middle-market Defense & Government services, solutions, and technology focused private equity firm investing alongside forward-thinking management teams that seek an experienced and innovative investment partner with unique sector expertise, operational insight, and flexible capital for growth. While a typical investment will involve companies generating approximately $3 million to $30 million of EBITDA, Godspeed Capital has significant support to complete larger transactions through strategic co-invest relationships. The firm focuses on control buyouts, buy-and-builds, corporate carve-outs, and special situations. For more information, please visit the Godspeed Capital website at godspeed.com.

Aurex’s new Mission Center in Huntsville, AL

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Myanmar insisted Friday that its deadly military campaign against the Rohingya ethnic minority was a legitimate counter-terrorism operation and did not amount to genocide, as it defended itself at the top United Nations court against an allegation of breaching the genocide convention.

Myanmar launched the campaign in Rakhine state in 2017 after an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group. Security forces were accused of mass rapes, killings and torching thousands of homes as more than 700,000 Rohingya fled into neighboring Bangladesh.

“Myanmar was not obliged to remain idle and allow terrorists to have free reign of northern Rakhine state,” the country’s representative Ko Ko Hlaing told black-robed judges at the International Court of Justice.

African nation Gambia brought a case at the court in 2019 alleging that Myanmar's military actions amount to a breach of the Genocide Convention that was drawn up in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust.

Some 1.2 million members of the Rohingya minority are still languishing in chaotic, overcrowded camps in Bangladesh, where armed groups recruit children and girls as young as 12 are forced into prostitution. The sudden and severe foreign aid cuts imposed last year by U.S. President Donald Trump shuttered thousands of the camps’ schools and have caused children to starve to death.

Buddhist-majority Myanmar has long considered the Rohingya Muslim minority to be “Bengalis” from Bangladesh even though their families have lived in the country for generations. Nearly all have been denied citizenship since 1982.

As hearings opened Monday, Gambian Justice Minister Dawda Jallow said his nation filed the case after the Rohingya “endured decades of appalling persecution, and years of dehumanizing propaganda. This culminated in the savage, genocidal ‘clearance operations’ of 2016 and 2017, which were followed by continued genocidal policies meant to erase their existence in Myanmar.”

Hlaing disputed the evidence Gambia cited in its case, including the findings of an international fact-finding mission set up by the U.N.'s Human Rights Council.

“Myanmar’s position is that the Gambia has failed to meet its burden of proof," he said. "This case will be decided on the basis of proven facts, not unsubstantiated allegations. Emotional anguish and blurry factual pictures are not a substitute for rigorous presentation of facts.”

Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi represented her country at jurisdiction hearings in the case in 2019, denying that Myanmar armed forces committed genocide and instead casting the mass exodus of Rohingya people from the country she led as an unfortunate result of a battle with insurgents.

The pro-democracy icon is now in prison after being convicted of what her supporters call trumped-up charges after a military takeover of power.

Myanmar contested the court’s jurisdiction, saying Gambia was not directly involved in the conflict and therefore could not initiate a case. Both countries are signatories to the genocide convention, and in 2022, judges rejected the argument, allowing the case to move forward.

Gambia rejects Myanmar's claims that it was combating terrorism, with Jallow telling judges on Monday that “genocidal intent is the only reasonable inference that can be drawn from Myanmar’s pattern of conduct.”

In late 2024, prosecutors at another Hague-based tribunal, the International Criminal Court, requested an arrest warrant for the head of Myanmar’s military regime for crimes committed against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority. Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who seized power from Suu Kyi in 2021, is accused of crimes against humanity for the persecution of the Rohingya. The request is still pending.

FILE - In this Sept. 7, 2017, file photo, smoke rises from a burned house in Gawdu Zara village, northern Rakhine state, where the vast majority of the country's 1.1 million Rohingya lived, Myanmar. (AP Photo, File)