Barely a year ago, Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. was flirting with bankruptcy as it searched desperately for hundreds of millions of dollars to fund its operations. Today, the New York-based broadcaster has plenty of money on hand and has just announced it may seek to raise an additional $500 million -- not to stay alive, but to grow.

The turnaround in Sirius’ financial situation reflects an overall improvement in the public equity and debt markets that has occurred during the past few months, said Matt Karnes, a satellite industry analyst with SG Cowen, a New York-based investment bank. Satellite companies are benefiting as investors conclude that space projects can yield healthy returns, he said. “The [financing] market is rebounding, Karnes said. “We’re beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel.”

Another company whose fortunes have changed in the past year is Com Dev International Ltd., a Canadian builder of satellite subsystems that has been dealing with depressed revenue and earnings. The company’s net loss was down sharply in its most recent quarter, which ended July 31, but revenue also declined compared with the same period a year ago.

Nevertheless, since Com Dev’s recent disclosure that it anticipates growing at a 20 percent clip during the coming year, bankers have been contacting the company with offers to help it locate investors, said John Keating, Com Dev’s chief executive officer.

“They said ‘we are growing confident in Com Dev’s business strategy … and we’d love to get you in front of institutions so they can take positions’” in the Cambridge, Ontario-based firm, Keating said in an interview. Keating said Com Dev should be able to fund its operations without borrowing money, but added that he’s encouraged by interest from potential investors. “We have a bunch of people reaching to help us raise money, and we’re not sure if we need it.”

Sirius, meanwhile, said Sept. 2 that it filed a so-called shelf registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that will make it easier for the company to raise more financing should it decide to do so. Sirius officials noted that the firm has enough money to fund operations through mid-2005, when it expects to break even based on sales, but they said they want to be ready to take advantage of the improving finance market.

Jim Collins, a Sirius spokesman, stressed that Sirius currently has no plans to go to the market for more money. He said the company has $560 million on hand from a refinancing completed earlier this year, and described the shelf registration as a technical filing.

Still, Sirius’ declaration that it is well-funded and thinking about expansion, not just survival, is a significant change from the situation last year. In October, Sirius asked creditors to trade $700 million in debt that it could not repay for a majority equity stake in the firm. Around the same time, Sirius rival XM Satellite Radio of Washington also was facing a funding shortfall. XM was able to resolve its situation through a December deal with chief backer General Motors Corp. of Detroit. In June, XM shored up its position by raising $175 million in debt on its own.

In another example of how formerly tight credit markets have opened to the space industry’s benefit, Orbital Sciences Corp. in July refinanced $135 million in debt under considerably more favorable terms than it was able to arrange in August 2002. Like Sirius, Orbital Sciences of Dulles, Va., faced a credit crunch last year and had to raise money under whatever terms it could arrange.

Com Dev’s Keating said the positive attention Com Dev is receiving from the financial community is heartening given the rough conditions the company has dealt with over the past several years. With orders for commercial satellites reaching their lowest point in memory in 2002, sales at Com Dev dropped and the company’s cash reserves dwindled.

Even given the likelihood that Com Dev will have to pay more than 20 million Canadian dollars ($14.4 million) for essentially worthless shares of the defunct SkyBridge satellite broadband venture because of an earlier agreement, Keating said he is not concerned about Com Dev’s future. The company expects to be able to pay for its unwanted SkyBridge stake with money from operations, assuming they improve as the firm predicts in the coming months.

If not, Keating said, Com Dev now knows it can turn once again to the financial markets for the necessary funding.