Salient Motion, an aerospace and defense component supplier, has developed motion control systems for commercial aircraft that can achieve certification in months rather than years, marking a significant departure from traditional aerospace development timelines. The company is working with Boeing to advance actuation systems—the mechanisms behind aircraft functions ranging from passenger seating to cargo handling—using a modular platform that reuses certified components across programs.

Salient Motion’s technology replaces decades-old, single-use hardware architectures with a reconfigurable platform that’s built more like a modern software stack, reusable, upgradable, and fast to certify. Founded in 2022, the company is moving through the certification process at a pace unusual for the aerospace industry.

“In aerospace, certification costs and timelines have always been the biggest drag on innovation,” said Vishaal Mali, Salient Motion’s co-founder and CEO. “By modularizing hardware and reusing certified software across systems, we're compressing development timelines and cutting those costs dramatically.”

A Strategic Signal from AE Ventures

The company's approach has attracted investment from AE Ventures, reflecting growing market interest in startups that can accelerate aerospace digital transformation. Unlike conventional supplier relationships, Salient Motion's model treats OEMs as development partners—sharing R&D investment and aftermarket revenue while reducing non-recurring engineering costs for each new program.

“Our modular platform lets aerospace evolve the way software does,” Mali said. “Certify once, deploy everywhere. That’s the leverage modern aviation has been missing.”

Why it Matters: A New Economics of Innovation

The aerospace industry has long been trapped by single-source suppliers and certification cycles that push costs to the breaking point. Salient Motion’s modular platform breaks that pattern.

By reusing previously certified hardware and software across aircraft programs, the company can develop and qualify new systems in a fraction of the time, dramatically lowering the cost of getting components to market. Standardized digital interfaces further simplify integration, reducing engineering overhead and shortening production timelines.

The result is a new era in aerospace manufacturing—one where certification accelerates, costs decline, and innovation breaks free from the limits of legacy suppliers.

“We are focused on components where we can drive meaningful performance and cost improvements with our motion control technology,” said Mali. “By focusing on building cost-effective, certifiable systems for our OEM and airline partners, we’re able to provide a second source more efficiently than ever before.”

Beyond Actuation: The Road Ahead

Salient Motion's broader mission is to replace legacy components across commercial aviation, defense, and space applications. The company's modular, software-driven platform is designed to extend beyond actuation into a wide range of aircraft systems, positioning Salient Motion as a comprehensive technology partner capable of transforming multiple aspects of the aerospace industry.