Xona unveils program to verify Pulsar-compatible devices
SAN FRANCISCO – Xona, the Silicon Valley startup establishing Pulsar, a precision positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) constellation, announced a high-profile roster of partners developing compatible equipment.
Xona unveiled the Pulsar Verified program July 9, which gives partners including Trimble, Septentrio, STMicroelectronics, Safran, StarNav and Keysight, a technical path to validate the compatibility of receivers and simulation equipment with the low-Earth orbit PNT constellation.
"Satellites tend to get all the attention because satellites are cool," Xona CEO Brian Manning told SpaceNews. "Everyone tends to forget the satellites are pointless unless user equipment can pick up and use the service."
Xona has been working for years with industry partners including the largest commercial manufacturers of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) chipsets "to accelerate the transition to LEO navigation within the trusted channels that people already get GNSS equipment from today," Tyler Reid, Xona co-founder and chief technology officer, said in a July 9 blog.
Partners have invested significant resources into helping Xona develop the Pulsar service and in integrating Pulsar into their products, Manning said.
Safran's Skydel and Keysight's PNT X, GNSS simulators that can model the behavior of the Pulsar constellation, have attained Pulsar Verification. Receiver devices compatible with Pulsar are beginning to ship to customers as they are verified.
Xona's first Pulsar satellite, Pulsar-0, launched in June 2025. In the last year, the company "ran more than 350 transmission passes across four continents, pulled down 22 terabytes of observation data, pushed four software updates to the satellite itself, and watched a dozen-plus commercial receivers track our signals everywhere from Finland to Australia," Reid said.
Once six additional Pulsar satellites reach orbit later this year, Xona will be able to begin beta-level testing.
"If you're using equipment that is Pulsar Verified and putting that in your drone, in your robot, in your phone, in your IoT device or whatever, you will be able to pick up and use the service as it comes online," Manning said.
There is growing demand for alternative PNT constellations that can pinpoint locations more precisely than the Global Positioning System. Through Pulsar, Xona plans to offer centimeter-level precision, signals that are about 100 times stronger than GPS, plus protection against spoofing and jamming.
In April Xona opened a satellite integration and assembly facility in Burlingame, after raising $170 million in a Series C funding round in March.
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