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Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting massively scalable, seed-stage, science- and technology-based companies. Founded in 2012 at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management by Professor Ajay Agrawal, CDL has expanded globally to 16 sites. Unlike traditional accelerators, CDL focuses on an objectives-based mentorship program, guiding ventures with experienced entrepreneurs, investors, and scientists. Companies participating in CDL have generated over CAD 51 billion in equity value. They feature specialized streams in areas like AI, Space, Health, Climate, and Quantum Computing. CDL runs an international Space stream, which brings together astronauts, entrepreneurs, and investors. Astronaut Chris Hadfield is a notable mentor.

We identified 68 SpaceTech startups backed by Creative Destruction Lab since its first batch in 2012. Deal activity has increased considerably over the years, peaking in 2022 with 13 startups — the program’s most active year to date. 2020 stands out by far in terms of capital raised, driven by two massive raises: Xona Space Systems (CDL-2020) raised a total of $321.4M while Starfish Space (CDL-2020) followed with $176.4M. Rounding out the cohort, Italy’s AIKO raised €6M that puts the 2020 cohort at roughly $500M+ total, dwarfing every other year. The portfolio reflects considerable geographic diversity, though U.S.-based startups form the largest share, with founding teams predominantly drawn from aerospace engineering backgrounds. Well-funded startups often have second-time entrepreneurs or team members from top companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, Relativity Space, NASA, and Lockheed Martin. If you don’t fit these criteria, don’t be discouraged. It means you may need to put in extra effort to demonstrate your value. Remember, an accelerator is a tool, not a cure-all. Set clear goals and use the accelerator to achieve them. We wish you success on your journey. Sapere aude!

We hope this research inspires both founders and investors to dive into the SpaceTech sector. By the way, if you’re a SpaceTech founder planning to apply to accelerators, check out our articles on 50 startup accelerators and our Y Combinator and Techstars portfolio overview. For in-depth analysis, visit the Space Ambition library.

Top Funded Companies

In this section, we will explore 18 startups with $10M+ in total funding that participated in Creative Destruction Lab’s programme. 5 of them—Xona Space Systems, Pixxel, Starfish Space, Benchmark Space Systems and Lunar Outpost—have raised over $50M+ each, while 13 startups have raised between $10M and $40M. We did not identify any startups that have gone public or completed an M&A with a valuation exceeding $100M, indicating that the portfolio is still in the maturation phase.

Xona Space Systems (CDL-2020) is a US-based startup founded in 2019 that focuses on developing a constellation of small satellites to provide positioning, navigation, and timing services with high precision and reliability. The company recently secured a $4.65M Contract with Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to demonstrate capabilities of Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) GPS Alternative in commercial user equipment. Both co-founders, Adrien Perkins and Kazuma Gunning, hold a Ph.D. degree in Aerospace Engineering from Stanford University and Kazuma has experience as a GNSS Modelling and Simulation Engineer at Booz Allen Hamilton. The company raised a total of $321.4M from Craft Ventures, Gaingels, Samsung NEXT, MaC Venture Capital, ICONIQ Capital.

Starfish Space (CDL-2020) is a US-based startup founded in 2019 that builds small space tugs to provide an on-demand in-space transportation service. SpaceX recently launched Starfish Space’s second spacecraft for an orbital satellite docking test. The co-founder, Austin Link, worked at Blue Origin and Lockheed Martin as a systems engineer, and co-founder Trevor Bennett served at companies like NASA and Blue Origin. The company raised a total of $176.4M from Alumni Ventures, Gaingels, Shield Capital, MaC Venture Capital, Toyota Ventures.

Pixxel (CDL-2019) is an India-based startup founded in 2018 that operates a hyperspectral Earth observation satellite constellation. They recently launched Firefly satellites and achieved successful First Light, Beaming Down the world’s highest-resolution hyperspectral images. The company signed contracts with NASA, USA NRO’s OFFICE, IN-SPACe and SIIS to supply hyperspectral satellite data in Korea. The founders, Awais Ahmed and Kshitij Khandelwal, were part of the founding team at Hyperloop India, one of the finalists of the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition in 2017. The startup has raised a total of $95M from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Google, Techstars, Radical Ventures, and Blume Ventures.

Benchmark Space Systems (CDL-2019) is a US-based startup founded in 2017 that focuses on building a low-cost propulsion system for the rapidly growing small satellite market. The CTO, Jake Teufert, has worked in several space tech startups as a propulsion engineer. The co-founder, Matthew Shea, is an experienced Lead Product Engineer with a demonstrated history of working in the mechanical, automation, and semiconductor industries. The company raised a total of $58.1M from FreshTracks Capital, Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies, LaunchCapital, Minnow Ventures .

Lunar Outpost (CDL-2021) is a US-based startup founded in 2017 that focuses on developing spacecraft and cislunar infrastructure as a service with their beachhead market being lunar surface mobility. The venture provides cost-effective autonomous rovers for space and extreme environments that provide customers with ample power, mobility, data services, and a constrained thermal environment. In February 2025 the company launched its first mission, Lunar Voyage-1 MAPP that landed at the lunar South Pole in March 2025. NASA has awarded Lunar Outpost $220M to build and deliver the first phase of LTVs. All the co-founders, Forrest E. Meyen, Julian Cyrus, Justin Cyrus, and Andrew (AJ) Gemer, are from an engineering background. The startup raised a total of $53.7M from Eniac Ventures, Endeavor, Type One Ventures, Industrious Ventures.

Dhruva Space (CDL-2022) is an India-based startup founded in 2012. It is a full-stack space engineering solutions provider based in Hyderabad. They offer vertically integrated product portfolios, including satellite platforms, launch services, and earth station antennas, to provide a Space-as-a-Solution model, enabling one-stop access to space. The Founder and CEO, Sanjay Nekkkanti, is a seasoned entrepreneur in the space industry with a rich experience of working with start-ups and mid-sized businesses, building products and services in the area of Small Satellites. The CFO, Chaitanya Dora, is a Forbes 40 under 40 honoree. The startup raised a total of $39.5M from IvyCap Ventures, Blue Ashva Capital, Silverneedle Ventures, and Mumbai Angels.

SkyWatch (CDL-2015) is a Canada-based startup founded in 2014. The company provides developers with the tools they need to cost-effectively add Earth observation data into their applications and workflows. The co-founders, Roland Sing, James Slifierz, and Dexter Jagula, all come from different backgrounds, like software engineering and ecommerce, but share the same passion for space. The startup raised $28.2M from Techstars, Golden Ventures, Right Side Capital Management, Space Capital, and BDC Venture Capital.

Quindar (CDL-2022) is a US-based startup founded in 2022. The company is developing automated spacecraft test and mission management software for any satellite bus, payload, and orbit. On Sept, 2025 the company announced it has been selected by AFWERX for a SBIR Direct-to-Phase II contract in the amount of $1.2M focused on automated multi-mission satellite operations, Since 2019, has executed 4,671 contracts worth more than $2B to strengthen the U.S. defense industrial base and drive faster technology transition to operational capability. .The Co-founder and CEO, Nate Hamethas, has worked in the software division of companies like Lockheed Martin and Orbital Effects. All other co-founders, Matthew Regan, David Lawrence, Shaishav Parekh, Sandilya Bhagavathula, and Zach Meza, have backgrounds in aerospace engineering and have worked at several space technology startups. The startup raised $26.8M from Y Combinator, K5 Global, Washington Harbour Partners, Booz Allen Ventures, Liquid 2 Ventures.

NewOrbit Space (CDL-2021) is a UK-based startup founded in 2021. The company is developing a propulsion system that uses atmospheric particles as a propellant, which enables satellites to provide better services by operating efficiently at very low Earth orbits (VLEO). The company received a €175,000 contract from the European Space Agency (ESA) for the further advancement of the air-breathing thruster and cathode. Both the co-founders, Anatolii Papulov and Ruslan Rakhimov, are space enthusiasts. The startup raised a total of $26M from Voyager Ventures, Lifeline Ventures, Atlantic, Seraphim Space.

Atomos Space (CDL-2018) is a US-based startup founded in 2018 that focuses on developing a high-power electric-propulsion spacecraft to reach deep space. The company was acquired by Katalyst Space to accelerate its in-space services. It has recently won a $1.6 million AFWERX contract to test multi-party rendezvous. The co-founder and CEO, Vanessa Clark, has work experience in companies like DLR and Lockheed Martin. The company raised a total of $22.8M from Techstars, Cantos, Flybridge, Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund.

Reaction Dynamics (CDL-2018) is a Canada-based startup founded in 2016 that manufactures rocket engines and launch vehicles.The company has recently signed launch contracts with Galaxia Mission Systems, Maritime launch services and Southern Launch. Bachar Elzein holds the CEO position. The startup raised $26.4M from Draper Associates, Canadian Space Agency, NATO DIANA, Government Of Quebec.

Wyvern (CDL-2018) is a Canada-based startup founded in 2018. The company builds and deploys small satellites (also known as CubeSats) to collect high-quality hyperspectral images of Earth. Its Dragonette constellation collects 5.3-metre hyperspectral imaging data from low Earth orbit. The co-founder, Callie Lissinna, graduated from Creative Destruction Lab in 2019 and Y Combinator in 2022 with her co-founders, and she is also a Forbes 30 under 30 honoree. The startup raised a total of $20.7M from Y Combinator, Gaingels, MaC Venture Capital, Squadra Ventures, Uncork Capital.

Leanspace (CDL-2021) is a France-based startup founded in 2020. The company has developed ground and mission control software for spacecraft based on a cloud-based, modular infrastructure that enables customers to easily build fully-integrated and collaborative software systems across the entire mission lifecycle. The CEO, Guillaume Tanier, holds a master’s in space studies and has experience in companies like NASA and Altran. The startup raised €18M from Bpifrance, SeraphimSpace, 42CAP, Karista.

Magdrive (CDL-2022) is a UK-based startup founded in 2019. The company is working on advanced spacecraft propulsion for satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). An in-orbit demonstration of the Rogue thruster—part of the “Going Rogue” mission—was launched in June 2025 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 Transporter-14 rideshare mission, in partnership with D-Orbit. Cofounder Mark Stokes is currently the CEO of Magdrive. He brings experience from previous roles at Entrepreneur First, Archangel Imaging, Ford Motor Company, and BioEpic. The CTO, Thomas Clayson, is a plasma physicist and pulsed power engineer. The startup raised a total of $16.7M from Founders Fund, Alumni Ventures, Entrepreneurs First, redalpine.

Atomic-6 (CDL-2022) is a US-based startup founded in 2018. The company has developed a novel mold design and infusion manufacturing process for space, aerospace, hypersonics, and ballistics. It has signed contracts with Space Force, Space Armor, Startpath Robotics, and Sidus Space for satellite missions. The Founder and CEO, Trevor Smith, is a seasoned entrepreneur and mentor at CDL (Space Stream). The startup raised a total of $13.6M from IronGate Capital Advisors, Starburst Accelerator, J. Hunt Holdings, and Space Force Association.

ION-X (CDL-2022) is a France-based startup founded in 2021. It is a propulsion company developing ionic-liquid thrusters for the fast-growing small satellites segment. Their technology provides twice the current state-of-the-art performance in terms of thrust and fuel efficiency. The startup has successfully performed the first-ever in-orbit firing of a European-developed ionic liquid electrospray thruster recently. The CEO, Thomas Hiriart, is an aerospace engineering graduate and worked in companies like Arianespace and DLR, and also served at BCG as a project leader. The startup raised a total of €13M from European Innovation Council, Innovacom, TechnoFOUNDERS, EIC Accelerator, and Expansion Ventures.

Nordspace (CDL-2024) is a Canada-based startup founded in 2022 that develops vertically integrated solutions for responsive orbital launch vehicles, portable spaceports, and turn-key satellites. The company successfully tested its Integrated Rocket recently, completing a major step towards Canada’s first commercial space launch, It is also developing the Atlantic Spaceport Complex (ASX) in St. Lawrence, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, to conduct historic commercial liquid-fueled rocket launches. The co-founder and CEO, Rahul Goel, has worked as a junior engineer at NASA and also serves as a board member at Launch Canada. The company raised a total of $11.8M from Ontario Centre of Innovation, Canadian Space Agency, Next Generation Manufacturing Canada, Canadian Department of National Defence.

Kayhan Space (CDL-2021) is a US-based startup founded in 2019 that provides a fully scalable, cloud-based collision avoidance system that reduces the response time to potential collision events by 95 percent. Unlike other services, Kayhan’s notification system easily integrates with any form of notification channel and ensures that operators are aware of upcoming high-interest events. It is a contractor to the U.S. Space Force, NASA, NOAA, DARPA, and the Office of Space Commerce. The co-founder and CEO, Siamak Hesar, holds a PhD in aerospace engineering and has worked at several SpaceTech companies. The CTO, Araz Feyzi, is a technologist and a seasoned entrepreneur. The startup raised a total of $11.3M from Alumni Ventures, Techstars, Root Ventures, Initialized Capital, and Space Capital.

Cohort Year - 2025

Only one startup WarpWare graduated from the CDL-2025 space batch. The startup provides software focused on the “mission autonomy” layer for space.

WarpWare is a US-based startup founded in 2023. It is a software firm focused on the “mission autonomy” layer for the space sector, building an AI-orchestration engine that enables satellites and spacecraft to perform complex, multi-agent operations without constant human interaction from ground stations. Founder and CEO, Alex Reynolds spent over four years at Sierra Space leading flight dynamics modeling and simulation for the Dream Chaser Program, following graduate research at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics developing flight software for NASA-backed CubeSat missions.

Cohort Year - 2024

12 startups graduated from the Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) space batch in 2024, we have already discussed Nordspace in the top funded companies section. 9 startups disclosed funding. The funding spanned launch vehicles, propulsion, Earth observation, orbital robotics, and in-space communications infrastructure, with founders drawing heavily on backgrounds at DLR, NASA, and Ispace.

ISPTech is a Germany-based startup founded in 2023. The company revolutionizes the spacecraft market with affordable, quickly available, and high-performing propulsion solutions for every spacecraft. As a spin-off from the German Aerospace Center, ISPTech leverages more than 10 years of R&D to pioneer a new era of space mobility. The company recently signed a contract with Atmos Space Cargo. The co-founder and CEO, Lukas Werling, has worked in DLR as deputy head of the satellite and orbital propulsion department, and co-founder Felix Lauck worked as a scientist at DLR. The company raised a total of €7.5M from HTGF (High-Tech Gruenderfonds), First Momentum Ventures, Faber, MBG Baden Wuerttemberg, Final Frontier (Space & Defence VC).

Marble Imaging is a Germany-based startup founded in 2023. The company develops very high-resolution Earth Observation satellites to provide scalable environmental and security monitoring solutions. The company recently signed a €3 million contract with ESA to provide very high-resolution Earth Observation data for Copernicus Contributing Missions. The co-founder, Dr. Gopika Suresh, is a satellite applications engineer & Earth Observation scientist. The company raised a total of €5.4M from HTGF (High-Tech Gruenderfonds), Robin Capital, Auxxo, Robin Haak, Lightfield Equity.

Lodestar is a US-based startup founded in 2023. The company is addressing security threats in orbit with robotic capability, built for universal interaction with cooperative and uncooperative space assets. The company recently partnered with Magdrive on a mission funded by STFC Business & Innovation and Satellite Applications Catapult. Both the co-founders, Neil Buchanan and Thomas Santini, are from engineering background. The company raised a total of $3.5M from Lunar Ventures, UK Space Agency, Inflection.xyz, Charlie Songhurst, and Mehdi Ghissassi.

Orbital Paradigm is a Spain-based startup founded in 2023. The company is developing the Kestrel space return vehicle, a reusable, low-cost system designed for frequent, low-acceleration re-entry missions, catering to biotech/pharma, advanced materials, and In-orbit demo/validation companies conducting in-space production and experiments. Both the co-founders, Francesco Cacciatore and Víctor Gómez García, are from an aerospace background and have worked in spacetech startups. The company raised a total of €2M from Starburst Accelerator, Akka, Id4 ventures, Demium Capital.

Juno Propulsion is a US-based startup founded in 2023. The company develops in-space thrusters for satellite manufacturers, utilizing rotating detonation combustion (RDC) technology to enhance propulsion efficiency for orbit raising, station-keeping, and orbital maneuvering. The co-founder and CEO, Alexis Harroun, holds a Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics and has interned in companies like NASA and Blue Origin. She is also an Activate Fellow. The company has raised $1.4M.

Asteroid Mining Corporation (AMC) is a UK-based startup founded in 2016. UK’s first space mining company. The company aims to develop ground-breaking technologies that will enable the extraction, processing, and use of materials derived from the many millions of asteroids known to exist near Earth and further afield. Mitch Hunter-Scullion is an experienced CEO with nearly a decade in business management, focusing on the space and robotics domains. The CTO, Mickael Laine, has worked in Ispace Inc. as a rover engineer and holds a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering. The company raised a total of $1.2M from Forum Ventures, Right Side Capital Management, and E2IN2.

Cambrian Works is a US-based startup founded in 2020. The company has developed a software suite to manage networking, communication links, and emulation of space systems (i.e., digital twins) for in-space communications and data relay at scale. The company recently announced its upcoming GigRouter launch to the International Space Station. The CEO, Victor Aguero, is a strong engineering professional skilled in Requirements Analysis, Government, Intelligence, Spacecraft, and Systems Engineering. The co-founder, Simon Lee, is a graduate in aerospace engineering and has also worked at NASA as a test engineer. The company raised a total of $255K from National Science Foundation.

O Analytics is a US-based startup founded in 2019 that develops algorithmic software for real-time satellite identification and hypersonic target tracking, detecting and characterizing previously unseen space objects, focusing on low Earth orbit (LEO). Stacey Jones is the founder and CEO of the company. The company raised a total of $120K from Techstars.

Leapspace is a US-based startup founded in 2022. The company is transforming space logistics with rapid-response, mass producible launch solutions designed to eliminate bottlenecks in space access. Leveraging proprietary propulsion technology and modern manufacturing techniques, LEAP delivers scalable and cost-effective launch solutions for national security, commercial payload deployment, and global point-to-point logistics applications.

Parsimoni is a France-based startup founded in 2023. The company is building SpaceOS, a secure, efficient, and flexible operating system for satellite payload computers. It enables in-orbit software management, maximizing satellite utility and paving the way for a future satellite App Store and Satellite-as-a-Service Marketplace. The CEO, Miklos Tomka, is a seasoned entrepreneur.

Spatiam is a US-based startup founded in 2020. The company has developed a commercial Delay and Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) solution designed for interplanetary communication.

Cohort Year - 2023

11 startups graduated from the Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) space batch in 2023. 5 startups disclosed funding. The raises covered in-space logistics, radar sensing, satellite data infrastructure, Earth observation tasking, and space traffic management, with founders drawing on backgrounds at SpaceX, ESA, and Cloudflight.

Argo is a US-based startup founded in 2022. The company provides an in-space logistics service that decouples transportation in space from transportation to space. The venture is building water-powered, refuelable space-resident transport vehicles for commercial, civil, and defense space customers. The company recently announced Anduril as the first customer for a highly maneuverable space mission. Both the co-founders, Ryan Carlisle and Robert Carlisle, are from an engineering background and worked at SpaceX in directorial positions. The company raised a total of $10M from Gaingels, Type One Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Stellar Ventures, Boost VC.

Kapta Space is a US-based startup founded in 2023. The company is developing dual-use, low-cost electronically steerable arrays (ESAs) sensors to launch a Space Based Radar (SBR) constellation for Earth Observation. Both Milton Perque and Adam Bily are co-founders of Kapta Space. The company raised a total of $5.5M from Entrada Ventures, Blue Collective, and MetaVC Partners.

Tilebox is a US-based startup founded in 2022. It is a distributed computing software company for satellite operators, integrators, and data providers. Its framework streamlines data management and enables distributed workflow orchestration to evolve and scale in-house data pipelines for any mission. The co-founders, Laura Costa and Stefan Amberger, have work experience in the space segment of Cloudflight. The company raised a total of $1.7M from Cocoa, Possible Ventures, Remote First Capital, and Findus Venture.

Eartheye Space is a Singapore-based startup founded in 2022. It is a B2B SaaS geospatial enterprise platform that provides on-demand data and actionable insights, aggregating data from hundreds of onboarded satellites with varied sensors in a single workflow. The platform provides direct tasking for over 475 satellites, empowering users with on-demand, frictionless access to Earth observation (EO) data. Shankar Sivaprakasam is a seasoned entrepreneur and the founder of Eartheye Space. The company raised a total of $1.5M from Seraphim Space Accelerator.

Ecosmic is an Italian-Dutch startup founded in 2023. The company provides space traffic management services with their product, SAFE, which enhances the safety of space by offering a service that generates alerts whenever a satellite is at risk of colliding with another satellite or debris. Imane Marouf is a space engineer who also worked at ESA. She co-founded Ecosmic with Benedetta Margrethe Cattani, who is also an aerospace engineer and worked at ESA. The company raised a total of €1.1M from Primo Capital, Seraphim Space Accelerator, and Greentech Europe 2023.

Here is the list of startups that participated in the CDL accelerator in 2023 but didn’t raise any funding:

• Aperture Space is a US-based startup founded in 2023. It is an analytics-first company, initially developing high-resolution sub-canopy structure detection and soil moisture maps augmented by a custom satellite sensor.

• AmplifiedSpace is a US-based startup founded in 2020. The company has developed a new Software-Defined Power Controller (SDPC) system, allowing mass spacecraft production to meet emerging demands in the new space era.

• ARCA is an Italy-based startup founded in 2016. It is a space-based space surveillance company that uses a nanosatellite constellation to detect and map objects of interest on board and in real-time, fusing data from multiple sensors to maintain continuous monitoring, including in the dark.

• Arctic Space Technologies is a Sweden-based startup founded in 2019. The venture offers solutions for high-traffic communication between ground stations and satellites operating in the low Earth orbit (LEO) and EMEA-based geostationary orbits (GEO).

• Protolaunch is a UK-based startup founded in 2019. The company is developing chemical propulsion technology for in-orbit satellite mobility.

• Satsearch is a Netherlands-based startup founded in 2016. The company is building a digital supply chain infrastructure for the space industry. By digitalizing the global space supply chain.

Cohort Year - 2022

13 startups graduated from the Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) space batch in 2022. 9 startups disclosed funding. The raises spanned small satellite systems, mission management software, propulsion, space situational awareness, and orbital debris recycling, with founders drawing on backgrounds at Lockheed Martin, Arianespace, and Ford Motor Company.

Spaceflux is a UK-based startup founded in 2022. The company provides Space Situational Awareness services based on high-quality optical data from its proprietary global network of optical sensors. Marco Rochetto is the founder and CEO of Spaceflux, He is a second time entrepreneur with a PhD in Astrophysics. The company raised £8.9M from Foresight Group, Seraphim Space, Blackfinch Ventures, UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund, SPARX Group.

Kall Morris Inc. is a US-based startup founded in 2019. It is an in-space logistics company dedicated to sustainable orbital operations by providing innovative relocation services in space. The co-founders, Troy M. Morris, Adam Kall, and Austin Morris, are driving the growth of the company through their strategic leadership. The startup has raised a total of $3.4M from Michigan Rise, Stellar Ventures, Red Cedar Ventures, Union Heritage Capital.

Magnestar is a Canada-based startup founded in 2021. The company’s clearing house exchange platform provides 24/7 signal monitoring to predict when signal interference will occur for space operators. The Founder and CEO, Jacqueline Good, has contributed in building data architecture solutions for over four dozen organizations across North America, led the development of seven software applications, and sold over $11M in data infrastructure enterprise software. The startup has raised $1.1M from Business Development Bank of Canada, Entrepreneurs First, BoxOne Ventures, and 1862 Capital.

Build Beyond is a US-based startup founded in 2020. It is a space junk recycling company building devices that capture, harvest, and create metal structures autonomously in orbit. The founder and CEO, Graham Ryland, is an aerospace engineer and has experience in launching companies, consulting startups, and bringing products to market. The startup raised $875K from NASA Small Business Innovation Research / Small Business Technology Transfer.

Here is the list of startups that participated in the CDL accelerator in 2022 but didn’t raise any funding:

• Precursor SPC is a US-based startup founded in 2017. The company gathers earth observation data from a network of proprietary multi-sensor ground stations and specialized satellite systems, which is processed through Machine Learning (ML) algorithms to deliver real-time insights into the changing risks and potential impacts of unpredictable, recurring extreme geospatial events.

• Rebel Space Technologies is a US-based startup founded in 2019. The company is building autonomous threat recognition, threat response, and cybersecurity software for space systems.

• Lumi Space is a UK-based startup founded in 2018. The company provides precise positioning for satellites and space debris, using laser ranging.

• Volta Space is a Canadian startup founded in 2020. The company develops wireless energy transmission systems designed for space applications.

Cohort Year - 2021

The 2021 cohort produced 6 space startups. We have already discussed Lunar Outpost, NewOrbit Space, Lean Space, and Kayhan Space earlier. Five startups disclosed funding totaling over $117M. The raises spanned lunar mobility and robotics, cloud-based space mission software, satellite collision avoidance, and affordable satellite electronics, with founding teams drawing on backgrounds at NASA, MIT, and Altran.

Novo Space is a US-based startup founded in 2019. The company is bringing the pace of commercial innovation to space. To put it simply, the company makes LEGO computers for satellites. It focuses on delivering affordable and high-performance satellite electronics to enable space missions. The co-founder, CEO Rodrigo Diez, holds a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from MIT. The startup raised $6.8M from Techstars, L’ATTITUDE Ventures, Spacecadet Ventures, and SBXi.

Obruta Space Solutions is a Canadian startup founded in 2019. The company develops safe, reliable, and autonomous spacecraft docking systems, enabling any spacecraft to provide on-orbit servicing and logistics services through the integration of a single turnkey system.

Cohort Year - 2020

4 space startups emerged from the 2020 cohort. We have already discussed Xona Space Systems, raising $321.4M and Starfish Space followed with $176.4M. Three startups raised funding headlined by two mega-rounds that dwarf prior years’ totals. The raises spanned positioning and navigation systems, in-space transportation, AI-driven satellite autonomy, and maritime satellite monitoring, with founders drawing on backgrounds at Stanford, Blue Origin, NASA, and Lockheed Martin.

AIKO is an Italy-based startup founded in 2017. The company develops and commercializes algorithms based on Artificial Intelligence to increase the autonomy of small satellite missions. The founder and CEO, Lorenzo Feruglio, is a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering and served at NASA as an intern. The startup raised €6M from Primo Capital, EASME, Club degli Investitori, and Simon Fiduciaria.

Orbital EOS is a Spain-based startup founded in 2019. The company provides satellite-based solutions to challenges in the maritime domain, like oil spill monitoring and ship detection. The co-founders, Pablo Benjumeda and Juan Ibáñez, are experts in maritime surveillance & airborne remote sensing.

Cohort Year - 2019

The 2019 cohort produced 10 space startups, 5 of which disclosed funding — with Pixxel ($95M) and Benchmark Systems ($58.1M) already profiled in earlier coverage. The remaining raises spanned advanced gas storage systems, wildfire detection satellite infrastructure, and spacecraft propulsion and communications, drawing on founding teams with backgrounds in astrophysics and software engineering.

CisLunar Industries is a US-based startup founded in 2019. The company develops power processing units and in-space metal processing systems to enable orbital manufacturing. CEO Gary Calnan has led the company for nine years, with a finance background from IQNavigator. Dr. Jan Walter Schroeder serves as CisLunar’s Chief Product Officer and board member, leveraging a rich multi-disciplinary background that includes co-founding the wearable tech startup Sensovo, extensive engineering roles in human spaceflight and life support systems. The company raised a total of $7.4M from Seraphim Space, Stout Street Capital, United States Space Force, Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade.

Infinite Composites is a US-based startup founded in 2010. The company designs, develops, and manufactures advanced gas storage systems for aerospace, industrial gas, and transportation applications. R. Matt Villarreal and Michael Tate are co-founders of the company. The company raised $4.4M from Techstars, National Science Foundation, Leonid Capital Partners, VentureWell.

NoPo Nanotechnologies is an India-based startup founded in 2011. The company is working towards a vision of making space accessible to everyone by mass-producing the ideal material for spacecraft construction. The CEO, Gadhadar Reddy, has over 12 years of experience in research and development, entrepreneurship, and innovation in the field of nanomaterials. He is a Chevening Scholar from the University of Oxford, a 35 under 35 in Space awardee, an India-France Young Leader, and a Singularity University alumnus. The startup raised a total of $3.1M from Inflexor Ventures, Aureolis Ventures, Spectrum Impact, and Micelio Fund.

Geocento is a UK-based startup founded in 2011. The company offers virtual constellation design and management services for Earth observation. The co-founder and CTO, Thomas Lefort, has served at the European Commission as a scientist and project officer. The startup raised $537K.

4pi Lab is a Canada-based startup founded in 2019. The startup is developing a constellation of high-performance satellites that use non-thermal sensors to detect, geo-locate, and report very small wildfires in real time. . The CEO, Stephen Achal, is an astrophysicist by training. The startup raised a total of CA$330K from Seraphim Space.

Altius Space Machines is a US-based startup founded in 2010. It is a space robotics and technology company that is developing interfaces, robotics, and vehicles for affordable satellite servicing. The startup raised $87.6K.

Interstellar Technologies Corporation is a US-based startup founded in 2015. It is a spacecraft company developing a 3D-printed hydrogen rocket engine for the upper-stage and in-space vehicle market that will expand humanity’s presence in the solar system, with lower costs, increased efficiency, and higher performance.

Froberg Aerospace is a US-based startup founded in 2016. The company is developing paradigm-shifting multi-mode propulsion systems for small satellites.

Cohort Year - 2018

The 2018 cohort produced 10 space startups, 6 of which disclosed funding. We have already discussed Atomos Space (raised $22.8M), Reaction Dynamics (raised $26.4M) and Wyvern (raised $20.7M).

Cognitive Space is a US-based startup founded in 2018. The company develops a generational machine intelligence platform for satellite constellation management. The company has signed contracts with the US Space Force and NOAA for their satellite-tasking software. The founder and CEO, Guy de Carufel, is an aerospace engineer and has work experience in spacetech startups. The startup raised $9.6M from Techstars, Draper Associates, Glasswing Ventures, Cultivation Capital, and Argon Ventures.

Mission Control Space Services Inc. is a Canada-based startup founded in 2015 that focuses on building a full-stack robotic control solution designed for space environments. The company has been selected to receive NASA funding to test its autonomous terrain assessment system (i.e., one aspect of its robotic stack) for Mars2020 at a Mars analogue site in 2019/2020.. The founder and CEO, Ewan Reid, is a board member at Space Canada. The startup raised a total of $4.7M from GreenSky Ventures, Canadian Space Agency.

Bluefield Technologies is a US-based startup founded in 2017. The company provides precise, always-on methane leak detection of greenhouse gas emissions via microsatellites. The co-founder and CEO, Yotam Ariel, is a venture fellow at Columbia University and NYU. The CTO, Richard L. Lachance, has extensive space industry experience with involvement in major satellite programs for NASA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), European Space Agency (ESA) and the U.S. Department of Defense. The startup raised a total of $2.3M from Unshackled Ventures, Ground Squirrel Ventures, CP Ventures, and Nat Turner.

Here is the list of startups that participated in the CDL accelerator in 2018 but didn’t raise any funding:

• SpaceRyde is a Canadian startup founded in 2018. The company uses balloons to launch micro and nano satellites to space, faster and cheaper than anyone else.

• The Launch Company is a US-based startup founded in 2015 that builds hardware to connect the launch vehicle and ground system, standardizing the fitting mechanisms.

• PTScientists is a Germany-based startup founded in 2010 that builds lunar transport and experimentation hardware, landing technology, and roving vehicles.

• AI SpaceFactory is a US-based startup founded in 2016. The company designs and constructs lunar and Mars habitats by utilizing 3D-printing technology that has applications for in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) in terrestrial environments.

Cohort Year - 2015

Only one startup SkyWatch graduated from CDL space stream in 2015, We have already discussed it in the top funded companies section.

We hope this overview of Creative Destruction Lab’s portfolio companies inspires you to launch a SpaceTech startup or invest in one. If you plan to seek investment or apply to top accelerators, we’d be happy to assist. Please email us at denis@spaceambition.org.

For decades, the standard venture capital model has struggled with the realities of deep tech. Breakthroughs in materials science, space infrastructure and biotech require long, capital-intensive research and development cycles. The traditional lab operates at human speed, bounded by manual execution, siloed data and iterative trial and error.

As a physicist, I remember the painstaking, manual nature of traditional scientific research. Today, as the general partner of Beyond Earth Ventures, my perspective has shifted from the lab bench to the cap table, evaluating deep tech startups across space tech, energy, robotics and compute. What I am seeing across our deal flow and portfolio is a fundamental paradigm shift. We are entering the era of the “Self-Driving Lab”—a convergence of artificial intelligence, hardware integration and data synthesis that is drastically compressing the timeline of scientific discovery. For venture capitalists and institutional allocators, this is not just a technological evolution; it is a total rewrite of deep tech economics.​

The Rise Of The AI Co-Scientist

The true power of AI in R&D extends far beyond predictive text or data analytics; it is now actively interfacing with the physical world as a tireless “AI co-scientist.” By connecting advanced AI models and AI agents directly to laboratory hardware via APIs, we are seeing the creation of closed-loop, automated experimentation systems.

Here is how this new infrastructure is actively accelerating scientific progress:

• Intelligent Instrument Integration: AI systems are no longer passive observers; they are active operators. We are seeing software connect directly to robotic pipettes for high-throughput wet lab work, to electron microscopes for real-time atomic analysis, and to orbital telescopes for dynamic space observation.

• Bridging Public Research And Private Data: Historically, leveraging decades of public academic research alongside proprietary, private institutional data was a monumental, manual task. Today, the AI co-scientist instantly ingests, synthesizes and cross-references massive public datasets with private lab IP, identifying hidden patterns and bypassing redundant experiments.

• Drafting And Automating Experiments: Instead of a human scientist spending weeks designing an experiment, AI can instantly draft optimal experimental protocols based on synthesized data. The system then commands the connected hardware to execute the experiment autonomously.

• Real-Time Validation: As the experiment runs, the AI continually ingests the incoming data, validates the results against the hypothesis in real time, and dynamically adjusts the parameters for the next iteration without human intervention.

• Capturing The Value Of Negative Results: In traditional R&D, human scientists typically discard or fail to publish unsuccessful trials. The AI co-scientist, however, meticulously documents every negative result. This creates a proprietary, highly valuable database of “what doesn’t work,” preventing future teams from wasting capital on dead ends and fundamentally altering the intellectual property landscape.

The Capital Impact: Accelerating The Deep Tech Supercycle

For the financial sector and venture ecosystem, the implications of Self-Driving Labs are profound.

First, it drastically alters capital efficiency. When an AI co-scientist can run thousands of automated, micro-adjusted experiments overnight—and perfectly log the failures alongside the successes—the “burn rate” associated with early-stage scientific discovery plummets.

Second, it de-risks deep tech investments at an unprecedented pace. The primary risk in frontier technologies is technical viability. By accelerating the feedback loop from hypothesis to validated result, founders can prove commercial viability in a fraction of the historical time frame.

We are standing on the precipice of a new, multitrillion-dollar economic stack. The companies that will define the next century of space infrastructure, sustainable energy and advanced materials will not be built by humans pipetting by hand. They will be built by visionary founders who harness Self-Driving Labs to innovate at machine speed.

For investors, the mandate is clear: The risk is no longer in backing deep tech. The risk is in ignoring the autonomous revolution that is accelerating it.

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A mission control center is the place where a satellite ceases to be just a piece of hardware in orbit and becomes an active mission. From there, operators monitor the status of onboard systems, plan and send commands, calculate trajectories, and decide what to do when things don’t go according to plan.

Over the course of my career, I’ve worked at three very different mission control centers. I started as a developer at the control center of a major space agency, where we were building a system to monitor dangerous close approaches — both between satellites and with space debris. Later, I developed the concept for the control center of Armenia’s first domestic satellite, Hayasat-1, and after its launch I worked there as an operator. But my favorite project remains WBA-25, a simulated Mars mission crewed by professional astronauts where I served as flight director: the same procedures, the same roles, the same decision-making process — except that on the other side of the glass wasn’t a satellite, but a crew living on a Martian schedule.

A government agency with a long history, the first national satellite startup built almost from scratch, and a Mars simulation — three completely different organizations. Yet their procedures turned out to be strikingly similar.

In the previous article, we talked about space software in general. In this article, I want to draw on that experience to describe what the software for a mission control center used to be, and what has changed since.

What does a mission control center do?

From the outside, a mission control center looks like a room full of screens with something always happening on them. In reality, it runs four processes in parallel, almost continuously.

Telemetry and status monitoring. The spacecraft constantly reports its state: temperatures, voltages, currents, battery charge, attitude, and the status of every instrument. That means thousands of parameters, arriving in packets during each communication session. The software receives them, checks them against acceptable ranges, and writes them to an archive. In normal operation, no one looks at all the parameters — they look at a summary: what is out of range, what is behaving suspiciously, and what has changed since yesterday.

This is a rather underappreciated part of the job — tracking long-term trends. Batteries degrade, solar panels lose efficiency, and sensors drift out of calibration. None of this is visible in a single session, but these are exactly the changes that tell you how much operational life the spacecraft has left and when it is time to adjust its operating mode.

Commanding. The opposite direction: commands are sent from the ground up to the spacecraft. Here what matters is the cost of an error — a command is executed literally; it cannot be recalled once transmitted, and a faulty sequence can put the spacecraft into the wrong mode or cause it to lose attitude. That is why an entire procedure sits between “the operator made a decision” and “the command reached the spacecraft”: building the command sequence, testing it on a simulator, getting it approved, and only then uplinking it.

A digital twin of the spacecraft has been a mandatory element of any standard mission control center since the 1970s. Commands are first run through the model, and only if the model behaves as expected are they sent to the actual spacecraft.

Flight control. Orbit determination from tracking measurements, motion prediction, and maneuver planning. A satellite never flies exactly along its calculated trajectory: atmospheric drag slows it down, Earth’s gravity field is non-uniform, and solar radiation pressure gradually pushes the spacecraft off course. The orbit has to be refined continuously and corrected periodically through maneuvers.

This is also where the task I started my career with belongs: computing dangerously close approaches. A spacecraft has to be tracked not only against its own predicted orbit, but also against the trajectories of everything nearby — other satellites and space debris. I will come back to this later, because in recent years it has shifted from an engineering problem to a market of its own.

Planning. The least visible part from the outside, and the most resource-intensive. A spacecraft is limited in everything at once: power, onboard memory, heat that has to be dissipated, communication windows with ground stations, imaging windows over target areas. Imaging, downlinking, charging, maneuvering, reaction wheel desaturation — all of it competes for the same resources, and not all of it can be scheduled together. This is essentially a combinatorial optimization problem, and for decades it was solved by hand, relying on the experience of specific people.

Payload data — images, signals, measurements — usually travels a distinct fifth process. There is normally a separate team handling it, and often a separate control center as well.

Mission Control as a Legacy

If you look at ground segment software from a software development perspective, the first thing you notice is that it is a project, not a product. There is no universal “satellite control application” you can simply install and configure. Each mission — and sometimes each spacecraft within a mission — gets its own stack assembled from the ground up: its own flight dynamics model, its own session scheduler, its own telemetry analysis tools.

There are three reasons for this, and none of them is that the industry has fallen behind.

First, the physics really does differ. Low Earth orbit and geostationary orbit call for different perturbation models: in one case the dominant factor is atmospheric drag, in another the non-uniformity of Earth’s gravity field, in a third solar radiation pressure. Spacecraft differ in their propulsion, their attitude control systems, and their power constraints. A universal tool here either becomes so general that it stops being accurate, or accumulates so many custom settings that it is easier to rewrite from scratch.

Second, the cost of an error. Taking someone else’s code means taking on their assumptions along with it. To fly it on a real mission, you have to revalidate all of it — and in terms of effort, that is comparable to writing your own. Rewriting proven physics costs more than maintaining it, which is why new missions often do not start from a blank page: they clone and adapt a codebase the agency or contractor already has. The core of many orbit determination and rendezvous analysis systems traces back to algorithms written half a century ago in Fortran and C++. This is not a figure of speech, and it is not laziness: the formulas have not changed in that time, and the code has been validated by actual flights, over and over. What has changed is the architecture around it — or rather, has not changed.

Third, plain economics: the market was small. When a few dozen missions launch each year, each with its own customer and its own budget, there is no demand for a universal mission control center. Building a product makes sense when there are many similar customers; with dozens of one-off orders, it is cheaper to assemble a project from scratch for every contract.

My Own Experience

When I joined the space agency as a junior engineer — about ten years ago — a good part of the mission control software was half a century old and written in Fortran. A standard task for a newcomer was to take a chunk of that code and rewrite it in C++. I hope today’s juniors get something a little more fun to work on :))

One distinctive feature of government projects is that the development standards require you to write most of the math and the basic functions from scratch, without off-the-shelf libraries. The logic behind it is clear: every piece of code the mission depends on has to be verified, and verifying someone else’s library is harder than verifying your own. In practice, this means every new team reimplements what has already been implemented dozens of times over. Development slows down, but you do not argue with the standard.

By the time we started work on the first Armenian satellite, Hayasat-1, the situation had changed. The ballistics tools we simply took off the shelf — the Orekit library and NASA’s GMAT. Telemetry was covered by a solution from the platform supplier: they delivered the satellite components together with the software to operate them. The mission control center and the payload ground segment, though, we still built ourselves — off-the-shelf solutions cost about as much as the satellite, so it was easier to do it in-house.

The Mars simulation turned out to be the extreme case: it needed an IT department of its own. Software for the rovers, communications with the crew, scheduling the crew’s day — all of it was developed in-house. And the uniqueness here was neither in the physics nor in the reliability requirements: it was simply that no one had ever solved these tasks in this particular setting, and there was nothing to buy in the first place.

Three very different situations — and in each of them a large part of the ground software was written from scratch. In the first case the standard demanded it; in the second there was no suitable product at an acceptable price; in the third no such product existed at all. Off-the-shelf components have appeared over the years, and they work, but you still cannot assemble a complete ground control segment out of them.

It looks the same as on Earth

Taken together, this adds up to a familiar picture. Enterprise software went through a similar phase: products existed, but the delivery model was a project rather than a service — a long implementation, a dedicated instance, and enough customization to make every deployment effectively unique.

What changed was the economics. Development got cheaper, which put these systems within reach of smaller customers, and once the customer base was large and uniform enough, serving everyone from one shared platform made more sense than maintaining an instance each.

Space is at the same fork, roughly fifteen years behind. Shared components have started to appear, and they are already good enough that a small mission can build on them instead of writing everything from scratch. What has not happened yet is the shift from instance to platform.

Mission Control Center as a Service

Many tasks that companies used to handle on their own have now moved to service providers.

Ground Stations as a Service. Antenna sharing was the first to catch on — and for good reason. A ground station is a serious capital expense: the site, the antenna, the frequency licences, the maintenance. And for a single low Earth orbit satellite, it is in use only a few minutes a day. An operator with five satellites cannot afford a global network, and without one, contact is limited to whatever passes over their own building.

This became possible once the ground station shifted from hardware to software: the modem and the signal processing moved into software, and a single antenna learned to work with different satellites on different passes. Then came the cloud offerings — [AWS Ground Station, Leaf Space, ATLAS, KSAT] — billed per pass or per minute of contact, exactly like compute.

Collision Avoidance as a Service. Here the mathematics explains everything else: the number of spacecraft grows linearly, while the number of potentially dangerous pairs grows quadratically.

That is where the flood of close approach warnings comes from — and only a handful of them actually call for an avoidance maneuver. The decision threshold is arbitrary: collision probability is computed with large uncertainties, and the threshold above which you maneuver is a convention rather than a physical constant. Meanwhile, every maneuver costs money — propellant, obviously, and every avoidance maneuver eats into the spacecraft’s operational life. On top of that, the mission is interrupted, and the schedule has to be rebuilt.

Commercial players — [LeoLabs, Slingshot, Kayhan, Vyoma, Neuraspace] — sell independent tracking data, probability assessments, automated processing, and ready-made maneuver recommendations.

As satellite numbers grow, autonomous collision avoidance matters more and more. Starlink runs on exactly this: its satellites automatically move away from any object flagged by a conjunction alert, rather than negotiating with the other operator over who should dodge. The scale explains why. Between December 2025 and May 2026 alone, Starlink performed 207,152 avoidance maneuvers, bringing the yearly total past 355,000 — more than three times the 2024 figure. That works out to over 40 maneuvers per satellite per year. No procedure that puts a human in front of every warning survives that.

But will mission control ever be offered as a service?

Handing over an antenna is easy: it is just a communication channel. Handing over control means handing over responsibility for a spacecraft worth tens of millions.

That is why the market is shifting: not “we operate your system” but “we give you a platform to operate it yourself” — ready-made telemetry and commanding interfaces, routine tasks automated, but the operator still makes the decision. It is the same trade-off as in corporate IT between full infrastructure outsourcing and a managed platform: the latter sells more easily because it does not ask you to give up control.

So can mission control become a service? The question is open. At first glance, the missions are too unique, and satellite operations involve too much sensitive and restricted information. Having built both satellites and the control centers for them, I find handing control to a third party risky.

Although banks, insurers, and government agencies said exactly the same thing when cloud storage first appeared on Earth. And a solution was found: providers built in certification and data isolation, regulators wrote rules that made the cloud acceptable. The same thing may well happen in space — the mechanisms for it simply have not been built yet.

Until then, the split looks roughly like this. For CubeSats and university missions, the question does not really arise: the hardware costs less than the operations, so it makes sense to hand them off. For the large organizations, I think the current model will hold — a turnkey mission control center delivered as equipment, software, and staff training, but operated in-house.

There is also a third option. Loft Orbital sells not the mission control center but the entire mission: the company owns and operates the satellites itself and takes on platform procurement, launch, licensing, insurance, and operations. The customer brings its own payload and controls just that payload through an interface — or gets involved in mission operations as far as it wants to. Operational control of the spacecraft stays with Loft, and the system merges the requests of every customer sharing the platform into a single operations plan.

The Bottom Line

Mission control is the most conservative part of the space industry, and there were reasons for that: the physics unique to each mission, the high cost of an error, and a market too small to make products worth building.

What is breaking this structure is not technology but scale. Once there are thousands of spacecrafts and they are identical within a constellation, demand becomes uniform, and functions start moving out to services in the same order they did in terrestrial IT: first the infrastructure that makes sense to share (antennas), then the overhead where no competitive advantage exists (computing close approaches). Next on that list is everything an operator does not consider its own know-how.

Mission control has not moved to a service model yet, but the centers themselves are changing too. And it is worth asking what a control center for orbital data centers would even look like.

Here at Space Ambition, we like looking ahead. Tell us what you think — is mission control as a service realistic?

The Global Space Awards will shine a spotlight on the breakthroughs and leaders defining the future of space. Our awards are guided by a commitment to integrity, innovation, and global collaboration.

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On August 11, 2026, our co-founder, Denis Kalyshkin, a U.S. venture capitalist with more than 12 years of experience, will launch a series of webinars in which he will share his framework for investing in DeepTech startups. Participants will also explore successful DeepTech investment case studies based on publicly available information. If you would like to join, please contact Denis at denis@spaceambition.org.

Disclaimer: The information contained herein is provided solely for general informational and educational purposes and does not constitute, and should not be construed as, financial, investment, legal, tax, or other professional advice, nor does it constitute an offer, solicitation, or recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security, financial instrument, or other investment. Any references to companies, funding rounds, markets, or investment opportunities are for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as the sole basis for making investment decisions. You should conduct your own independent research and due diligence and consult with a qualified financial, legal, tax, or other professional adviser before making any investment decision. All investments involve risk, including the possible loss of principal. To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, the author and publisher disclaim any liability for any loss or damage arising from the use of, or reliance on, the information provided herein.

Series A+ Deals

K2 Space (US) raised a $500M Series D round (total funding: $925M). The company develops high-power satellite platforms for orbital missions using vertically integrated hardware and manufacturing processes.

SWISSto12 (Switzerland) raised a €61M Series C round (total funding: $202M). The company designs and manufactures 3D-printed satellite payloads, RF antennas, and small GEO satellites (HummingSat) for next-generation satellite communications.

Venus Aerospace (US) raised a $91M Series B round (total funding: $134M). The company develops a high-thrust rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE).

Array Labs (US) raised a $21M Venture round (total funding: $56.6M). The company designs, builds, and operates the world’s most advanced SAR satellites.

Dhruva Space (India) raised a $6.2M Series B round (total funding: $39.5M). It is a full-stack space company building small satellite platforms, satellite deployers, and ground station infrastructure as integrated or standalone solutions for Earth observation, IoT, communications, and defense applications.

Pre-Seed and Seed Deals

DeltaVision (Germany) raised a €10.2M Seed round (total funding: $11.6M). The company designs and manufactures fluidic control systems (valves, pumps, couplers) for spacecraft propulsion, with the goal of building a complete in-orbit satellite refuelling infrastructure.

Outlier Space (New Zealand) raised a $10.5M Seed round (total funding: $10.5M). The company builds a reusable, uncrewed satellite platform providing scalable access to microgravity and enables the safe return of payloads to Earth.

ORiS Space (Italy) raised a €4.5M Pre-Seed round (total funding: $5.6M). The company develops laser-based wireless power transmission systems for satellites, drones, and lunar infrastructure.

BAAS Technologies (India) raised a $524K Pre-Seed round (total funding: $524K). The company develops suborbital and orbital launch vehicles for satellite deployment and manufactures aerospace components, including solid rocket motors, structural components, recovery systems, and electronics hardware.

Orbes Space (US) raised a $330K Pre-Seed round (total funding: $550K). The company builds free-flying robots (ORB for in-station maintenance and filming, and Exo-ORB for external inspection and satellite defense) to automate the maintenance of space stations and orbital infrastructure.

Aphelion Aeronautics (US) raised an undisclosed Pre-Seed round (total funding: undisclosed). The company develops a spherical motor actuator designed to make satellite electric-propulsion steering systems significantly lighter, smaller, and more power-efficient.

SPECTRAINTEL (South Korea) raised an undisclosed Seed round (total funding: undisclosed). The company develops compact hyperspectral imaging sensors for space and terrestrial applications.

CherithAI (Nigeria) raised an undisclosed Seed round (total funding: undisclosed). The company develops a proprietary GeoAI Location Intelligence Module designed to identify, prioritize, and validate optimal locations for structural development.

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At Space Ambition, we believe SpaceTech investment will present major opportunities over the next decade. If you share our vision and want to discuss promising niches, feel free to reach out at denis@spaceambition.org —we’d love to chat!

While capital in space chases rockets and satellites, a less visible but growing part of the market is the software without which the entire fleet is useless. The number of spacecraft in orbit has grown by an order of magnitude, and with it, demand for onboard computers, ground control systems, and data processing. Yet space software as an industry has always lagged a good decade behind its terrestrial counterpart: weak hardware, radiation shielding, and strict mass constraints left no room for the luxury of modern architectures. That’s changing now — and in this article, we’ll break down what’s happened with space software in recent years: from onboard computers to the cybersecurity of orbital data centers.

We provide consultancy services for stakeholders in the SpaceTech and DeepTech sectors. Whether you’re an investor, corporation, aerospace agency, accelerator, incubator, ecosystem builder, startup founder, or planning to launch a SpaceTech or DeepTech business, we can help.

Contact us at denis@spaceambition.org—we’d be happy to assist. Good luck with your future endeavors!

I began my career at Mission Control as a developer. We were building a system that uses ground-based instruments (telescopes) to monitor outer space and predict dangerous close approaches and collisions between satellites. I was responsible for forecasting the trajectories of spacecraft and debris, translating the physical equations of spacecraft flight dynamics into code.

That experience gave me a front-row seat to how space software actually works under the hood. So let’s start with the basics: all space software can be divided into the following categories:

The “Onboard” and “Ground” categories are essentially about infrastructure, “Development and Testing” is about building and testing that infrastructure, “Data Processing” is about operating the infrastructure and the results it produces, and “Space Services” is the product itself.

Let’s go through each of these in more detail.

Onboard — Hardware and Software

Here we mean the spacecraft itself, the vehicle carrying the payload. The key component of a satellite is the onboard computer — the brain of the spacecraft, which issues commands to all subsystems and oversees their operation.

Interestingly, your smartphone is more powerful than a satellite’s onboard computer. The reason is that in space, the main enemy of electronics — beyond the cold and the vacuum — is radiation. Charged particles can flip a single bit in the processor’s memory (a “bit flip,” 1 instead of 0 or vice versa) or knock a chip out entirely — and while on Earth such an error would at worst freeze an app, in orbit it can mean the satellite losing its orientation or breaking down with no chance of repair.

That’s why the industry trades performance for reliability. Instead of the latest process nodes used to make chips for iPhones, satellites fly on components based on architectures that were used on Earth 10-15 years ago, but have been extensively tested for radiation resistance.

On top of that come strict constraints on mass and power consumption: every watt on a satellite has to be harvested by solar panels and somehow dissipated as heat, and every extra gram is a line item in the launch cost. As a result, a typical satellite onboard computer is comparable in processing power to an early-2000s smartphone — and that’s not the industry falling behind, but a deliberate trade-off between “fast” and “will survive 15 years in orbit with no tech support.”

Ground — Satellite Control

Here we’re talking about the software behind Mission Control — and this is where some of the most interesting changes are happening right now.

When I worked at Mission Control five years ago, we had strict procedures for controlling the spacecraft. Operators worked in shifts, 24/7, with a scripted scenario for every communication session, manual confirmation of every command, a log recording everything down to the second, and a separate team standing by to analyze telemetry. And that was all for a single satellite.

Now we’ve entered the era of multi-satellite constellations — and that old model simply doesn’t work anymore. I shudder to think how many operators it would take to manage 10,000 Starlink satellites without automation. So the operator’s role itself has changed — they no longer fly a specific spacecraft, but instead oversee an automated system that manages entire clusters of satellites on its own. Routine procedures are automated, maneuvers are calculated without human involvement, and AI monitors the health of all systems in real time.

Another key change tied to the growing number of satellites is the massive increase in the volume of data transmitted from space. There are more images, and the images themselves are larger. Meanwhile, a ground station only sees a given satellite passing overhead for about ten minutes per session — and physically pushing that much data through such a narrow window is difficult. Building your own global network of ground stations to solve this isn’t something every company can afford — it’s expensive.

Two solutions have emerged from this. The first is ground stations as a service: instead of building your own network, you plug into a provider that already operates a global network of ground stations — they pick up the data from your spacecraft and deliver it straight to you on the ground. Speaking as someone who’s launched a satellite myself, it’s a genuinely convenient option.

The second is onboard data processing. Since you can’t push the entire volume through such a narrow communication window anyway, part of the work shifts to the satellite itself: AI and increasingly powerful onboard computers make it possible to compress and pre-process data right in orbit, so what comes down isn’t a raw stream, but an already refined result.

What’s more, satellites have learned to exchange data with each other directly — via laser communication (we’ve covered this in more detail in a separate article). This makes it possible to distribute the load across the constellation more evenly: an overloaded satellite can hand off part of its data to a less busy neighbor, which then sends it down to Earth during its own communication window.

Satellites Development and Testing

Naturally, as the number of satellites grows, so does the need for their development — and with it, the need for software. This area includes some very specific tasks, such as supporting the testing of low-thrust engines and similar work.

Since I worked on calculating satellite trajectories myself, let me tell you what’s going on here. There are, of course, ready-made commercial solutions for this kind of task — AGI STK, for example. But an enterprise license can cost several hundred thousand dollars, and even then it doesn’t always cover the full range of functionality you need — so you end up building custom solutions on top of it anyway. On top of that, many companies deliberately choose to develop this kind of software in-house, for the sake of reliability and information security, rather than relying on an external closed-source product. This is where open-source libraries come in: the Orekit library, for instance, is used by ESA, CNES, and other agencies, covers nearly the entire spectrum of orbital mechanics (gravitational harmonics, atmospheric drag, solar radiation pressure), and is free. The learning curve and software development is steeper than with commercial alternatives, but for a team with strong engineering expertise, it’s a viable alternative to STK. But, of course, developing the software in-house—even when using off-the-shelf libraries—is also expensive and quite time-consuming. Even so, you often still end up doing manual work on top of it.

Payload Data Processing

A satellite can be roughly split into two parts: the BUS — all the supporting systems (onboard computer, data transmission channels, power system) — and the payload, the actual reason the spacecraft exists in the first place. And even if every component of the satellite is bought ready-made from suppliers, you still have to develop software specific to each payload — software that makes it work exactly the way your particular mission needs it to.

When we were developing our satellite, one of the biggest challenges turned out to be getting our payload software to talk to the software of components bought from suppliers — the onboard computer above all. Interfaces, data exchange protocols, timing — none of this tends to line up smoothly on the first try, and without support from the supplier, you can end up chasing down these mismatches for weeks. Supplier tech support really saved us here. So if you ever have a choice — don’t skimp on tech support :)

This is where a key economic feature of payload software comes in — one that sets it apart from almost any other industry: it’s hard to reuse across missions.

In regular IT, you write software once and sell it a thousand times — that’s the whole economic logic behind SaaS. In space, it’s the opposite: every new payload, even one tackling a similar task to the last, needs software built almost from scratch — different sensors, different interfaces, different precision requirements. That’s why the industry doesn’t have, an “app store for satellites” the way it has an App Store on Earth — and that’s one of the reasons satellite development stays so expensive and slow: every time, you’re paying not just for the hardware, but for software written from scratch for that one specific job.

You’d think the obvious fix would be standardization — common standards that universal software could be built around, like USB or HTTP on Earth, where a single protocol works across billions of devices. There have been attempts at this — the CCSDS (Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems) standards for data formats and communication protocols, for instance — but in practice the industry never fully standardized, and each company and mission still writes much of its own software. And this, too, ultimately comes down to economics: payload tasks are so varied and unique that no single standard can cover them all. Unlike USB, which solves the same simple problem — “move data between two devices” — payload software solves hundreds of fundamentally different problems that have no common denominator.

Space Services

It’s probably no surprise to you that as the number of satellites grows, a huge range of space services has sprung up around them:

• Earth observation data as a service (EO-as-a-Service)

• Connectivity as a service

• Ground Station as a Service (already mentioned in the Ground section)

• Launch as a Service / rideshare brokering

And on the more forward-looking side:

• In-orbit servicing

• Debris monitoring and Space Situational Awareness

Taken together, these examples point to a broader pattern: the space market is following the same path that land-based IT walked about fifteen years ago — a shift from selling hardware to selling services. Buying a presence in space used to mean buying a satellite or a rocket. Today, more and more often, you can just buy the outcome — an image, a communications link, collision insurance — while all the infrastructure and physics stay on the provider’s side. It’s the same shift that happened on Earth with the move from “buy a server” to “rent the cloud” — space is just replaying it with a couple of decades’ delay.

What’s Changing? The Data Center Hype

AI is, of course, absolutely everywhere these days — we covered this in a separate article a year ago, links here (optical com), here (optical terminals) and here.

Beyond the market’s evolution from selling hardware (satellites, rockets) to selling services and subscriptions, there are other interesting shifts underway.

The industry is moving toward a point where computing power in orbit becomes a sellable resource in its own right, rather than just “a feature of the satellite.”

We’ve already talked about part of the data processing moving onboard. But there’s a more radical idea the industry has arrived at: what if computing power in orbit becomes a standalone product — not “a feature of a specific satellite,” but a resource you can sell the same way you sell cloud computing power on Earth?

It looks like we’ll see spacecraft whose actual payload is powerful computing hardware that can simply be rented.

And naturally, at the largest scale, data centers are impossible to ignore.

In November 2025, Google announced Project Suncatcher — a research moonshot aimed at putting data centers into space. The idea: a constellation of 81 satellites equipped with Google’s own TPU chips (the same ones used to train models like Gemini), linked by laser communication and powered by solar panels.

The startup Starcloud has already launched Starcloud-1, a satellite carrying an Nvidia H100 chip on board, and is aiming for a 5 GW data center built on a 4 km solar array.

At Space Ambition, we did an in-depth study on orbital data centers and worked out the costs and how the whole thing would actually operate. If you’d like to hear our take on space data centers — email us to ivan@spaceambition.org and we’ll send you our findings.

A Word on Security

Naturally, more and more data is being transmitted from space — and with computing moving into orbit, the stakes are only getting higher, making security an increasingly pressing issue.

There have already been cases of spacecraft being hacked, which you can easily find online. But there’s a telling pattern across these incidents: attackers most often go after not the satellite itself in orbit, but the ground control software or the communication link to it — the very link we discussed in the Ground section. And as more constellation-management functions get automated and shift into software, the attack surface only grows. That’s why cybersecurity is more relevant to space than ever.

This isn’t a uniquely space problem, by the way — Earth-based data centers and cloud services went through exactly the same thing. When businesses started moving to the cloud en masse in the 2000s, the industry ran into the very same pain points: researchers demonstrated that you could pinpoint where a specific client’s data was physically located within “the cloud” and use that for targeted attacks. There were also data losses caused by failures in the cloud infrastructure itself — not an attack, just the unreliability of a young technology. And there were plain old stories, too, like a small cloud service’s servers going down and permanently wiping out all its users’ data.

So the logic of “new infrastructure → new attack vectors nobody saw coming” repeats itself almost exactly. Back then, the industry responded with standardization — and there’s good reason to believe space will follow the same path, just with the couple-decade delay we’ve already talked about above.

The Bigger Picture

If you look at the whole arc — from an onboard computer weaker than a smartphone to data centers in orbit — the same logic shows up at every level. Space software isn’t behind Earth’s because the industry is slow-moving; it’s behind because every constraint (radiation, mass, power) demands its own, far more expensive solution to a problem that off-the-shelf software solved on Earth long ago. But wherever that constraint eases up — whether it’s onboard computing power, data transfer speed, or launch economics — space almost literally retraces the path IT already walked on Earth: from hardware to service, from manual control to automation, from closed systems to the same cybersecurity questions that were once new territory for the cloud, too.

The difference is that here, this path isn’t playing out over decades — it’s happening in front of us. And, importantly for us, there’s still time to get in on the parts of it that are just now taking shape: whether that’s software for orbital compute, tools for managing constellations, or services built on top of space data. That’s actually exactly what we do at Space Ambition — mapping out where in this transformation there’s room for new business.

If this topic resonated with you — we have a separate study on orbital data centers with a full cost breakdown, and we’re continuing to dig into these subjects. Text us to ivan@spaceambition.org and we will share our opinion and results.

And if you’re personally thinking about how to get into the space industry — as a strategist, investor, or entrepreneur — that’s exactly the kind of work we do in Space Ambition’s consulting practice: from market mapping to developing a concrete business concept. Get in touch with Denis via denis@spaceambition.org — let’s talk about what’s on your mind.

If you see yourself in the description above, then this message is for you. Stop wasting your time passively reading endless newsletters about space!

Our co-founder, Denis Kalyshkin, a US DeepTech VC with more than 12 years of experience, together with his team of aerospace engineers, scientists, and physicists, is launching an initiative designed specifically for people like you. They will guide you through the maze of SpaceTech and DeepTech ideas and market niches, helping you identify the right idea for your future startup while building the network you’ll need and introducing you to potential co-founders.

If you’d like to give it a try, send an email to denis@spaceambition.org, and we’ll get in touch with you.

Throughout his career, Denis has seen numerous successful startups built by exceptional entrepreneurs, C-Level managers, and investors without a relevant technical background. He firmly believes the sector needs more people like them. The technology and the technical co-founder will emerge along the way. That’s exactly why he’s launching this initiative.

Not an accelerator. Not another startup course. A highly personal program designed to guide future DeepTech unicorn founders as they take their first steps. Denis will also help ensure you’re ready to raise funding when the time comes by pressure-testing your idea with VCs before you even begin fundraising.

Join our pirate ship. Send an email to denis@spaceambition.org and start fulfilling your destiny!

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​One of Space Ambition‘s goals is to provide tools and support for people who can make a positive impact on the future of ​h​umanity. This is why our co-founder, Denis Kalyshkin, a US DeepTech VC with 12+ year experience, decided to explore the case of Bessemer Venture Partners’ investment in ​Velo3D in May 23, 2015.

​Whether you are a startup founder, VC, business angel, incubator, accelerator, or ecosystem builder, join our webinar on ​J​uly 20, 2026.

​We will use the ​original memo and our investment framework. You can also watch this video to better understand how VCs make their decisions.

​About the speaker

​Denis Kalyshkin is the co-founder of ​Space Ambition and a principal at a US DeepTech VC firm with over 12 years of experience. He also holds a master’s degree in aerospace engineering.

​Disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or other professional advice. Any investment decisions should be based on your own research and consultation with a qualified advisor.

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To stay updated on SpaceTech startups and investments, subscribe to our blog and LinkedIn, and join our WhatsApp community. We hope these monthly overviews help you better understand the investment landscape and inspire you to invest in or build a SpaceTech startup.

If you plan to raise funding or apply to Y Combinator or other accelerators and would like feedback from a professional US venture capitalist, our co-founder Denis Kalyshkin, who has over 12 years of VC experience and an aerospace background, is launching an initiative to help founders prepare their applications to accelerators and fundraising materials.

Please fill out the form here, and Denis will get in touch with you.

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Series A+ Deals

ICEYE (Finland) raised a €450M Series F round (total funding: $2.3B). The company owns the world’s largest synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) satellite constellation, delivering unmatched persistent monitoring capabilities for any location on Earth.

Impulse Space (USA) raised a $500M Series D round (total funding: $1B). The company develops in-space transportation technology for delivering payloads to various orbits.

Axiom Space (USA) raised a $175M Series D round (total funding: $1B). The company is building the world’s first commercial space station to facilitate microgravity research, in-space manufacturing, and global space exploration.

Isar Aerospace (Germany) raised a €270M Series D round (total funding: $927M). The company develops next-generation rockets that provide sustainable access to space for small and medium-sized satellites and satellite constellations.

Apex Space (USA) raised a $200M Private Equity round (total funding: $722M). The company aims to solve one of the major bottlenecks in the New Space economy: the slow, highly customized, and expensive process of satellite bus procurement.

Dawn Aerospace (New Zealand) raised a $25M Series B round (total funding: $44.5M). The company builds two product lines: the Aurora reusable spaceplane, an uncrewed rocket-powered aircraft for routine suborbital flights, and non-toxic, refuelable in-space propulsion systems for satellites, with the goal of making space access as frequent and reliable as aviation.

Unastella (South Korea) raised a $21M Series B round (total funding: $41.2M). The company develops launch vehicles and suborbital tourism systems focused on human spaceflight and future space missions globally.

Space BD (Japan) raised a $6.8M Series C round (total funding: $37.8M). The company specializes in launch brokerage, satellite procurement support, training, and in-orbit services.

Southern Launch (Australia) raised a$17.2M Series A round (total funding: $17.2M). The company provides bespoke launch and return services in the Southern Hemisphere, offering end-to-end launch support for space missions.

Katalyst Space Technologies (USA) raised a $12M Venture round (total funding: $14.4M). The company specializes in autonomous in-space robotics, satellite servicing, and space domain awareness (SDA).

Longshot Space Technologies (USA) raised a $5M Venture round (total funding: $11.5M). The company develops hypersonic launch technologies to reduce the cost of space launches.

GATE Space (USA) raised a €6.3M Venture round (total funding: $9.0M). The company delivers mobility solutions powered by innovative, patented rocket engine technology and green, regulation-compliant propellants.

FOSSA Systems (Spain) raised an undisclosed Series B round (total funding: €7.1M). The company specializes in sovereign space infrastructure, satellite IoT connectivity, and Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) for industrial and national defense sectors.

AADYAH Aerospace (India) raised a $3.3M Series A round (total funding: $4.3M). The company specializes in the end-to-end design, prototyping, and production of mission-critical components for satellites, launch vehicles, and advanced space missions.

Pre-Seed and Seed Deals

Orbital (USA) raised a $5M Pre-Seed round (total funding: $5M). The company focuses on moving AI computing infrastructure from Earth to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to bypass the terrestrial energy and thermal constraints that currently limit data center expansion.

Applied Atomics (UK) raised a $4M Pre-Seed round (total funding: $4M). The company is developing in-space mobility infrastructure aimed at shifting space operations from static positioning to dynamic, responsive maneuverability.

Specs (South Korea) raised a $2M Seed round (total funding: $3.0M). The company focuses on hyperspectral imaging (HSI) technology for Earth observation.

Dream Aerospace (India) raised a $1M Seed round (total funding: $1.4M). The company focuses on developing indigenous, sustainable, and high-performance propulsion systems for small satellites and space missions.

Aavuus (Finland) raised an undisclosed Pre-Seed round (total funding: undisclosed). The company is building a global network of ground-based laser stations to detect and track space debris with high precision.

Rocket Elements & Technologies (Oman) raised an undisclosed Seed round (total funding: undisclosed). The company designs, manufactures, and tests high-pressure turbopumps for rocket companies and related industries.

Check out our previous articles

· SpaceTech deals in May 2026

· SpaceTech deals in April 2026

· SpaceTech deals in March 2026

· SpaceTech deals in February 2026

· SpaceTech deals in January 2026

· SpaceTech deals in December 2025

· SpaceTech deals in November 2025

· SpaceTech deals in October 2025

· SpaceTech deals in September 2025

· SpaceTech deals in August 2025

· SpaceTech deals in July 2025

· SpaceTech deals in June 2025

· SpaceTech deals in May 2025

· SpaceTech deals in April 2025

· SpaceTech deals in March 2025

· SpaceTech deals in February 2025

· SpaceTech deals in January 2025

· Series A+ SpaceTech deals in 2024

· Series A+ SpaceTech deals in 2023

· Techstars SpaceTech portfolio

· Y Combinator SpaceTech portfolio

· Rocket Lab investment memorandum

· Lunar Outpost investment case

· 6 SpaceTech deals investment memorandums

· Top Earth Observation constellation companies

· Space Ambition content library

· SpaceTech investor interviews

At Space Ambition, we believe SpaceTech investment will present major opportunities over the next decade. If you share our vision and want to discuss promising niches, feel free to reach out at denis@spaceambition.org—we’d love to chat!

Disclosure: Beyond Earth Ventures actively monitors and may hold investments in companies founded by alumni of the organizations mentioned in this article.

​​​As the technology sector evaluates the trajectories of three of the most significant private companies of our era—SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic—a fundamental divergence in development strategy is emerging. While the rapid advancement of generative AI has dominated recent narratives, a structural shift is occurring across the broader tech ecosystem. We are witnessing a clear bifurcation in how organizations are approaching the development of digital “Bits” versus the physical “Atoms” of frontier infrastructure.

As a physicist by training and a venture capitalist focused on frontier infrastructure, I believe comparing the development strategies of these three organizations reveals critical differences in how foundational technologies are built and scaled in the modern era.

Software Iteration Vs. Physical Infrastructure

A central challenge for AI organizations like OpenAI and Anthropic is the escalating demand for computing power. These organizations are engaged in an intensive race to secure GPUs and energy resources—a dynamic highlighted by recent International Energy Agency (IEA) projections indicating that global electricity demand from data centers and AI could double by 2030. Their strategy fundamentally relies on the continuous iteration of software models, where the primary barrier to entry is the scale of computing infrastructure.

Conversely, SpaceX’s development strategy is rooted in hard physical infrastructure. By pioneering reusable rocket technology, SpaceX has systematically collapsed the cost of reaching orbit. Rather than scaling software, their approach focuses on overcoming physical bottlenecks—verified by the laws of physics—to build the foundational architecture for the broader space economy.

Talent Diasporas: Diverging Innovation Ecosystems

Beyond their direct products, the strategies of these companies are fundamentally shaping the broader innovation landscape through their talent diasporas. We are actively tracking both the SpaceX mafia and the OpenAI/Anthropic mafia. Historically, generation-defining companies trigger waves of new innovation as early employees leave to build new ecosystems.

There is a distinct divergence in the approaches of these networks. SpaceX alumni predominantly build “hard tech” solutions—such as robotics, advanced energy and orbital data centers—that address physical engineering bottlenecks. In contrast, OpenAI and Anthropic alumni frequently iterate on software applications and AI tooling layers. At Beyond Earth Ventures, our focus remains firmly on the former, recognizing that the ability to scale complex hardware represents a fundamentally different engineering paradigm than scaling software models.

The Role Of Fundamental Science

We cannot examine these technological giants without acknowledging the top-of-funnel driver: fundamental science. The physical innovations deployed by SpaceX, or the deep-space capabilities of the James Webb Space Telescope, are the result of decades of foundational research.

​We believe the next generation of transformative capabilities will not emerge solely from incremental software tweaks, but from translating world-class, fundamental science into tangible societal impact.

For companies and capital allocators alike, treating fundamental science as a speculative luxury rather than a core strategic imperative is a critical misstep. The true horizon of value creation requires a longer-term play—one that prioritizes physical AI and hardware-heavy infrastructure over the transient cycles of digital-only applications. Organizations that embed deep, scientific inquiry into their commercial DNA can not only disrupt existing markets but also engineer entirely new ones based on the irrefutable laws of physics.

The mandate for the next decade of enterprise is to look beyond quarterly earnings and aggressively pursue the translation of complex science into tangible solutions. This long-term commitment to fundamental truth lays the foundation for building a truly defensible structural monopoly and capturing the upside of the next trillion-dollar economic stack.​

The information provided here is not investment, tax or financial advice. You should consult with a licensed professional for advice concerning your specific situation.

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Y Combinator, the leading accelerator globally with over 5,000 investments, does not focus exclusively on SpaceTech but includes New Space among the top categories in their recent request for startups. We did their portfolio overview in August 2024 in our previous article. Today, we will talk about top funded YC companies, SpaceTech startups from the latest batches, as well as the interviews with SpaceTech founders. We hope it will inspire you to build SpaceTech companies or invest in ones.

If you plan to raise funding or apply to Y Combinator or other accelerators and would like feedback from a professional US venture capitalist, our co-founder Denis Kalyshkin, who has over 12 years of VC experience and an aerospace background, is launching an initiative to help founders prepare their applications to accelerators and fundraising materials.

Please fill out the form here, and Denis will get in touch with you.

You can find more details about Y Combinator and apply here. The deadline for the next batch is July 28, 2026.

Additionally, we recommend reading our articles on 50 accelerators, interviews with SpaceTech VCs, and the investment case of Rocket Lab. These resources will help investors understand SpaceTech investments and guide startup founders on how to appeal to investors and address potential issues.

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Top Funded Startups

To begin, it’s useful to examine the top-funded Y Combinator companies as of June 25, 2026. While some of these companies have experienced ups and downs, they remain the startups that investors believed most at some point.

Stoke Space (Winter 2024) is a US-based rocket company founded in 2019. The company develops fully reusable Nova rockets for orbital space mobility. Both founders, Andy Lapsa and Thomas Feldman, come from Blue Origin, and the company has been one of the most closely watched launch startups since its founding. In January 2025, Stoke closed a landmark $260M Series C, bringing total funding to $1.4B, backed by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Glade Brook Capital Partners, Point72 Ventures, and Y Combinator. Nova’s first orbital demonstration will be a defining moment for the reusable launch market.

Astranis (Winter 2016) is a U.S. company founded in 2015 that is working on a low-cost satellite internet constellation. The founder, John Gedmark, previously co-founded the Commercial Spaceflight Federation and served as the Director of Flight Operations at the X Prize Foundation. Astranis participated in Y Combinator’s Winter 2016 batch. The company raised a $300M Series E in May 2026, led by Andreessen Horowitz and BlackRock. The round brings total investment in the company to $1.2B.

Momentus (Summer 2018) is a U.S.-based company founded in 2017 that develops low-thrust propulsion systems. The company was founded by serial space-tech entrepreneur Mikhail Kokorich. Momentus participated in Y Combinator’s Summer 2018 batch. In November 2018, following Demo Day, the company raised an $8.3M round. Momentus went public in August 2021 with a market cap of $1.2B and raised $137M at its IPO. The total investment in Momentus has reached $237M. You can find their current market cap here.

Starcloud (Summer 2024) is a US-based startup founded in 2024. The company develops space-based data center infrastructure designed to support computing and data processing beyond Earth. It was co-founded by Ezra Feilden and Philip Johnston. Ezra brings experience in space systems engineering from Oxford Space Systems and Airbus, providing a strong foundation in satellite hardware and operations, while Philip is a former McKinsey consultant and the ex-founder of Opontia, a startup that raised $62M before being acquired. In March 2026, the company closed a $170M Series A at a $930M pre-money valuation, bringing total funding to $194M, backed by Benchmark, EQT, NFX, Seven Seven Six, Macquarie Capital, and Y Combinator — one of the largest early-stage space rounds in recent memory.

Relativity Space (Winter 2016) is a startup based in Los Angeles, founded in 2016. The company specializes in building 3D-printed rockets. Notably, Relativity Space was established after one of its competitors, Rocket Lab, secured a $20 million round from Bessemer Venture Partners in October 2014 (read our previous article about the deal here). Relativity Space participated in Y Combinator’s Winter 2016 batch. The founder, Tim Ellis, previously worked as an aerospace engineer at Blue Origin for nearly five years. The company raised $620k from Mark Cuban in March 2016 and $10.1M from Social Capital in July 2016, following Y Combinator’s Demo Day. To date, Relativity Space has raised a total of $1.4B.

Turion Space (Spring 2025) is a California-based company founded in 2021. The company builds spacecraft and software for space domain awareness, in-orbit servicing, and satellite-to-satellite transportation. It was co-founded by two SPACEX engineers Ryan Westerdahl (CEO) and Tyler Pierce. In April 2025, Turion closed a Series B, bringing total funding to $128M, backed by Forward Deployed Venture Capital, Washington Harbour Partners, and Y Combinator. Turion originally participated in YC’s Summer 2021 batch.

Albedo (Winter 2021) is a U.S. company founded in November 2020 that is building a high-resolution visible and thermal spectrum Earth observation constellation. The team includes professionals with experience at Lockheed Martin and Facebook. Albedo participated in Y Combinator’s Winter 2021 batch. The company raised a pre-seed round with an undisclosed amount in March 2021, following Demo Day. This was followed by a $10M seed round in April 2021, a $48M Series A in September 2022, and a $35M round in January 2024. The total investment in Albedo is $103M.

Hubble Networks (Winter 2022) is a Seattle-based startup founded in 2021. They are launching a constellation of satellites that provide IoT connectivity for devices using Bluetooth, targeting sectors such as manufacturing, energy, and agriculture. Co-founder Alex Haro previously founded Life360, a public company with a market cap exceeding $2B. After Demo Day, Hubble Networks raised a $500k seed round. The company recently raised a $70M Series B on September 2025 from Ryan Swagar, bringing total funding to $90.5M.

AstroForge (Summer 2024) is a US-based startup founded in 2021 and the world’s most well-funded commercial asteroid mining company. It was co-founded by Jose Acain, He began his career as a NASA intern before joining SpaceX as an avionics integration engineer — giving him hands-on experience with both mission design and spacecraft electronics. In August 2024, AstroForge raised a $42.5M Series A, bringing total funding to $55.8M, backed by Seven Seven Six, Soma Capital, Nova Threshold, Initialized Capital, and Y Combinator.

Inversion Space (Winter 2024) is a Los Angeles-based company founded in 2021. The company is building autonomous capsules to return cargo from orbit to Earth for commercial, civil, and defense customers. CEO Justin Fiaschetti previously worked across vehicle integration and mission operations at SpaceX and Relativity Space, while co-founder Austin Briggs contributed to launch vehicle development at ABL Space Systems. In November 2024, the company raised a $44M Series A, bringing total funding to $54.3M, backed by Adjacent, Infinite Capital, Lockheed Martin Ventures, Spark Capital, and Y Combinator.

2026 Cohorts

Constellation Space (Spring 2026) is a Seattle-based startup founded in 2025. The company builds AI-powered software that predicts satellite link failures before they happen and automatically reroutes network traffic in real time. CEO Kamran Majid brings hands-on spacecraft software experience from both SpaceX and NASA, while CTO Raaid Kabir contributed to launch vehicle development at Blue Origin. In March 2026, the company raised a $6.5M Seed round — its first external funding — led by SGH Capital alongside Y Combinator.

General Aviation (Spring 2026) is a San Francisco-based company founded in 2026. The company is developing satellite-connected air traffic control and airport surface management systems designed to connect every aircraft, drone, rocket, and ground vehicle to a unified global network. It was founded by Ben Frank, who previously founded two aviation software companies — Rotabull and Seer Aerospace (acquired by Aviation Week) — and worked at Boeing as an aerospace engineer. In June 2026, the company raised a $500K Pre-Seed from Y Combinator, its sole investor at this stage.

Dispatch (Spring 2026) is a San Francisco-based company founded in 2025. The company is building autonomous cargo return vehicles to make high-frequency orbital logistics routine. CEO Payton Case is a seasoned aerospace engineer with mission experience at both NASA and Astranis Space Technologies, and CTO Andrew Mello previously developed satellite systems at Astranis. In April 2026, the company closed a $500K Pre-Seed backed solely by Y Combinator.

Beyond Reach Labs (Winter 2026) is a US-based startup founded in 2023. The company is developing deployable solar arrays and space structures for orbital and lunar missions. It was co-founded by Mitchell Fogelson and Pele Collins (ex-SpaceX). The company raised a $500K Pre-Seed from Y Combinator — a classic early-stage bet on a deep enabling technology.

G.R.U. Space (Winter 2026) is a San Francisco-based startup founded in 2025. The company is developing automated construction technology to build the world’s first permanent lunar hotel using local Moon soil. It was co-founded by Skyler Chan and Britt Tucker (ex-Blue Origin, Zero Gravity), She also serves as a Strategic Advisor at Planet Ventures. In March 2026, the company raised a Seed round from Y Combinator, Karman Ventures, Planet Ventures, and Zachary Laberge — four investors willing to back a very long-term bet.

2025 Cohorts

Orbital Operations (Winter 2025) is a US-based startup founded in 2024. The company develops high-thrust space vehicles engineered specifically for satellite defense applications. Co-founder Ross Doherty has hands-on propulsion and vehicle development experience from Relativity Space and Blue Origin, while co-founder Ben Schleuniger brings a multi-program background spanning NASA, SpaceX, and Relativity Space. In March 2025, the company raised an $8.8M Seed round from Alumni Ventures, Karman Ventures, Rebel Fund, Unpopular Ventures, and Y Combinator.

Zephyr Fusion (Fall 2025) is a San Diego-based startup founded in 2025. The company develops fusion-powered satellite technologies capable of enabling megawatt-scale energy production in orbit. It was co-founded by Galen Burke and Edward Hinson. In December 2025, the company raised a $500K Pre-Seed from Y Combinator, Alumni Ventures, Nova Threshold, and Pioneer Fund.

Wardstone (Fall 2025) is a San Francisco-based space defense startup founded in 2025, developing a constellation of next-generation satellites for space-based missile defense. It was co-founded by Sebastian Fischer (CEO, MIT Aerospace Engineering, Harvard MBA) and Tobias Fischer (CTO). In December 2025, Wardstone raised a $500K Pre-Seed from Pioneer Fund, angel investor Taro Fukuyama, and Y Combinator — an early-stage bet on a very high-stakes problem.

Cascade Space (Spring 2025) is a San Francisco-based startup founded in 2025. The company provides deep space communications as a service and unified software tools for lunar and deep space mission design. It was co-founded by Jacob Portukalian (CEO) and Arlen Abraham (CTO). The company raised a $5.9M Seed round — a well-timed bet as the number of lunar missions from both government agencies and commercial operators is set to increase sharply through the end of the decade.

General Astronautics (Winter 2026) is a San Francisco-based startup founded in 2025. The company builds autonomous robotic systems for research and manufacturing tasks in microgravity environments, positioning itself as the operating system for in-space laboratories. It was founded by Bram Schork (CEO) who also served at SpaceX as Starlink laser engineer. The company raised a $100K Pre-Seed from Y Combinator — an early, conviction-stage bet as it builds toward its first demonstration missions.

Instinct (Winter 2025) is a San Francisco-based aerospace company founded in 2024. The company is developing a high-efficiency lunar lander to lower the barrier to entry for lunar exploration. Co-founders Joaquim Dickson and Joe Papworth are early-career engineers applying fresh academic training to one of the hardest problems in space. Instinct raised a Seed round in March 2025 from Rebel Fund and Y Combinator.

2024 Cohorts

Starcloud (Summer 2024) is a US-based startup founded in 2024. The company develops space-based data center infrastructure designed to support computing and data processing beyond Earth. It was co-founded by Ezra Feilden and Philip Johnston. Ezra brings experience in space systems engineering from Oxford Space Systems and Airbus, providing a strong foundation in satellite hardware and operations, while Philip is a former McKinsey consultant and the ex-founder of Opontia, a startup that raised $62M before being acquired. In March 2026, the company closed a $170M Series A at a $930M pre-money valuation, bringing total funding to $194M, backed by Benchmark, EQT, NFX, Seven Seven Six, Macquarie Capital, and Y Combinator — one of the largest early-stage space rounds in recent memory.

Spaceium (Summer 2024) is a Canada-based startup founded in 2023. The company develops spacecraft docking systems to support interplanetary missions — essentially the “gas station and workshop” layer of the emerging space economy. CEO Ashi Dissanayake and CTO Reza Fetanat are both engineering graduates who have focused their technical training on in-space infrastructure. In January 2025, the company closed a $6.3M Seed from a16z Scout Fund, Alumni Ventures, Initialized Capital, and Y Combinator, following a $500K Pre-Seed in September 2024 from Mergus Ventures and Y Combinator.

Reditus Space (Winter 2024) is a US-based startup founded in 2024. The company focuses on reusable satellite platforms designed to return payloads and manufactured products from LEO to Earth. It was co-founded by Stef Crum (CEO) and Will Sherman (CTO). Reditus raised a $7.1M Seed round in December 2025, backed by Antler and Y Combinator.

Apolink (Fall 2024) is a Palo Alto-based startup founded in 2025. The company is building an interoperable LEO satellite relay network combining RF and optical links to provide real-time, continuous connectivity for global satellite operators. It was founded by Onkar Singh Batra (CEO), who was recognized on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2026. The company raised a $4.3M Seed round from Y Combinator.

Interviews with Y Combinator SpaceTech Founders

• Matt Gialich, AstroForge

• Chris Robson, Wyvern

• Rob Keane, Velontra

• Nate Hamet, Quindar

• Andy Lapsa, Stoke Space

• Topher Haddad, Albedo

• Tom Walkinshaw, Alba Orbital

• Laura Crabtree, Epsilon3

• Will Crowe, HEO Robotics

• Justin Fiaschetti, Inversion

• Ryan Westerdahl, Turion Space

• Joel Sercel, TransAstra

• Erik Franks, Tesseract

• John Gedmark, Astranis

• Tim Ellis, Relativity Space

We hope this overview of Y Combinator’s portfolio companies inspires you to launch a SpaceTech startup or invest in one. If you plan to seek investment or apply to top accelerators, we’d be happy to assist. Please fill out the form here or denis@spaceambition.org.

Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) is one of the leading startup programs globally. It is a nonprofit organization that delivers an objectives-based program for massively scalable, early-stage, science- and technology-based companies.

The program’s objective-setting process enhances the performance of technical founders who learn from the insights of experienced entrepreneurs, increasing their probability of success. CDL operates 17 sites globally with 28 innovation streams.

Since 2012, over 5,000 companies have participated in the CDL program, of which only a subsect successfully graduate the 9-month program and are listed on the website. The successful commercialization of cutting-edge science achieved through the program has led to creation of over CAD $69.4 billion in equity value.

Since 2018 they have operated their dedicated Space Stream, which has four locations, CDL-Toronto, CDL-Paris, CDL-Texas, and CDL-Milan, working to support one global cohort of SpaceTech startups each year.

Creative Destruction Lab has just announced the graduating companies from its 8th cohort.

Other notable spacetech graduates of the CDL program include:

• Kepler Communications (CDL 2015/16) - Offering on-orbit data at lightspeed via a constellation of satellites designed to act as Internet exchange points for space-to-space data relay.

• SkyWatch (CDL 2015/16) - Democratizing remote-sensing data through a simple user experience.

• Wyvern (CDL 2018/19) - Offering high-resolution hyperspectral imaging solutions from space.

• Pixxel (CDL 2019/20) - Building the world’s highest-resolution hyperspectral Earth imaging satellites and analytics tools to monitor and predict global phenomena.

• Benchmark Space Systems (CDL 2019/20) - Delivering green propulsion and in-space mobility solutions from mission planning through decommission for satellites and spacecraft.

• Starfish Space (CDL 2020/21) - Providing autonomous satellite servicing, including life extension and deorbiting, with advanced robotics and navigation technology.

• Xona Space Systems (CDL 2020/21) - Developing a low-Earth orbit satellite constellation for secure, resilient, and high-precision navigation and timing services.

• Lunar Outpost (CDL 2021/22) - Leading in space robotics and lunar surface mobility to enable extended human presence and resource utilization in space.

• NewOrbit (CDL 2021/22) - Enabling long-term access to ultra-low orbits with satellites that harvest atmospheric particles for propulsion.

• Atomic-6 (CDL 2022/23) - Revolutionizing advanced composite manufacturing for aerospace and space applications with proprietary materials and processes.

• Dhruva (CDL 2022/23) - Providing full-stack space engineering solutions, including satellite platforms, ground stations, and launch services.

• ION-X (CDL 2022/23) - Developing breakthrough ionic liquid thrusters for small satellites, offering high performance and low fuel consumption.

• TrustPoint (CDL 2022/23) - Building a commercial C-Band LEO satellite navigation system for improved accuracy, security, and reliability in positioning and timing.

• Argo Space (CDL 2023/24) - Provides in-space logistics by operating water-powered, refuelable orbital transport vehicles that move payloads from LEO to GEO or lunar orbit.

• Tilebox (CDL 2023/24) - Providing an integrated midstream platform for space data management, streamlining data pipelines and analytics for satellite operators.

• TRL11 (2023/24) - Delivering advanced AI-powered full-motion video solutions for spacecraft.

The CDL applications for the 2026/27 cohort are still open- reach out to the CDL team (space@creativedestructionlab.com). You can find more details and apply here (application deadline for most streams is July 24th, 2026).

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Space Ambition provides consultancy services for stakeholders in the SpaceTech and DeepTech sectors. Whether you’re an investor, corporation, aerospace agency, accelerator, incubator, ecosystem builder, startup founder, or planning to launch a SpaceTech or DeepTech business, we can help.

Contact us at denis@spaceambition.org—we’d be happy to assist. Good luck with your future endeavors!

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Series A+ Deals

Anduril Industries (US) raised a $5B Series H round (total funding: $11B). The company is a defense technology company that specializes in developing advanced autonomous systems to enhance national security in space, air, and maritime domains.

Impulse Space (US) raised a $500M Series D round (total funding: $1B). The company develops in-space transportation technology for delivering payloads to various orbits.

Astranis (US) raised a $300M Series E round (total funding: $1.2B). The company develops small communications satellites designed for geostationary and other high Earth orbits.

Cowboy Space (US) raised a $275M Series B round (total funding: $325M). The company is building a space-based power grid for AI using solar-powered satellites in Low Earth Orbit as GPU data centers, connected to Earth through high-performance compute and optical data links.

Gilmour Space Technologies (Australia) raised a $10M Series E round (total funding: $333M). The company develops low-cost hybrid launch vehicles.

Starlab Space (US) raised an undisclosed Venture round (total funding: $233M). It is a US-led global joint venture focused on developing a commercial space station for Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

Skyroot Aerospace (India) raised a $60M Venture round (total funding: $166M). It is an aerospace manufacturer and launch service provider developing launch vehicles to enable cost-effective access to space.

Venus Aerospace (US) raised a $63M Venture round (total funding: $106M). The company is developing a high-thrust rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE).

EOS-X Space (Spain) raised a $140M Series D round (total funding: $140M). The company is a commercial space tourism provider specializing in high-altitude stratospheric balloon flights.

Star Catcher (US) raised a $65M Series A round (total funding: $77.2M). The company is building the first power grid in space, delivering scalable, on-demand energy to satellites.

Lunar Outpost (US) raised a $32M Series B round (total funding: $53.7M). The company develops space robotics and mobility systems focused on enabling sustained exploration and infrastructure on the Moon. You can also review the investment memo from its previous funding round here.

Unastella (South Korea) raised a $24M Series B round (total funding: $43M). The company focuses on developing and providing human spaceflight platforms and services through its own launch vehicles.

Scout Space (US) raised an $18M Series A round (total funding: $19.5M). The company provides orbital intelligence and space domain awareness solutions.

Mjolnir Spaceworks (Japan) raised a $7.5M Series B round (total funding: $15.3M). The company focuses on the high-volume, cost-effective production of rockets , with the goal of making access to space as commonplace as access to the automotive industry.

Pre-Seed and Seed Deals

Stellar Alpina (Switzerland) raised a $4.5M Pre-Seed round (total funding: $4.5M). The company specializes in the development of pulsed detonation engines for spacecraft.

TakeMe2Space (India) raised an undisclosed Seed round (total funding: $5.6M). The company focuses on building orbital data centers and on-orbit edge-computing infrastructure.

Eneas Space (Spain) raised an undisclosed Seed round (total funding: undisclosed). The company is an open-source rocket developer building suborbital sounding rockets and a reusable vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) launch vehicle for small-satellite deployment.

Check out our previous articles

· SpaceTech deals in April 2026

· SpaceTech deals in March 2026

· SpaceTech deals in February 2026

· SpaceTech deals in January 2026

· SpaceTech deals in December 2025

· SpaceTech deals in November 2025

· SpaceTech deals in October 2025

· SpaceTech deals in September 2025

· SpaceTech deals in August 2025

· SpaceTech deals in July 2025

· SpaceTech deals in June 2025

· SpaceTech deals in May 2025

· SpaceTech deals in April 2025

· SpaceTech deals in March 2025

· SpaceTech deals in February 2025

· SpaceTech deals in January 2025

· Series A+ SpaceTech deals in 2024

· Series A+ SpaceTech deals in 2023

· Techstars SpaceTech portfolio

· Y Combinator SpaceTech portfolio

· Rocket Lab investment memorandum

· Lunar Outpost investment case

· 6 SpaceTech deals investment memorandums

· Top Earth Observation constellation companies

· Space Ambition content library

· SpaceTech investor interviews

At Space Ambition, we believe SpaceTech investment will present major opportunities over the next decade. If you share our vision and want to discuss promising niches, feel free to reach out at denis@spaceambition.org—we’d love to chat!

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​During the event, we’ll break down:

• ​5 systemic thinking mistakes that kill projects faster than a cash-flow crisis,

• ​The real reasons startups fail,​

• ​How investors pick startups,

• ​Your startup cases and questions.

​We hope this event will help you build your startup more successfully!

​About the speaker:

Denis Kalyshkin is the co-founder of Space Ambition and a US VC with 12+ years of experience investing in DeepTech. Denis holds two master’s degrees in aerospace engineering and finances.

​Save your spot here:

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Issue 173. Subscribers: 89 058

We are witnessing a unique moment in history: for the first time, several teams are simultaneously building superheavy rockets. On May 22, SpaceX conducted the 12th test flight of Starship — the debut of the upgraded V3 version. The vehicle reached space, but the booster failed: the FAA suspended flights and ordered an investigation. Six days later, on May 28, Blue Origin’s New Glenn exploded on the launch pad during a static fire test. The launch complex was destroyed, and a return to flight has been pushed back by several months at minimum.

Against this backdrop, the SLS stands apart. The rocket is expendable, and costs roughly $4 billion per launch — yet it has already flown successfully twice: first on the uncrewed Artemis 1, and in April of this year, for the first time in half a century, it carried a crew around the Moon.

SLS is often dismissed as overpriced, outdated, and unambitious. And on paper, that’s fair. But there’s a more interesting story underneath: how NASA made a deliberate bet on proven, battle-tested technology — and why that bet, despite all its costs and compromises, is the reason the rocket flew twice while its more modern competitors are still working through failures on the pad. That’s what this article is about.

The SLS: NASA’s Engineering Frankenstein

The Space Launch System is a superheavy rocket built for crewed missions beyond low Earth orbit. In its baseline Block 1 configuration, it can deliver roughly 95 tons to low Earth orbit and 27 tons on a trajectory to the Moon — life support systems, heat shield, fuel tanks, engines, and everything else the mission requires.

Strip away the marketing, and the SLS turns out to be a rather unusual vehicle. The SLS is a case study in how modern spaceflight programs are built: from whatever already exists, balancing reliability, schedule, and politics.

Why? To understand that, you have to go back a bit.

After Apollo ended in 1972, NASA shifted its focus to the Space Shuttle — a reusable vehicle, replacing the model where every mission required a brand new rocket. The Shuttle era contributed enormously to spaceflight, but reusability never delivered on its economic promise: launches remained expensive. And after the Challenger and Columbia disasters, it became clear the system was also unsafe. The program was shut down in 2011, as soon as the Shuttle’s role in completing the ISS was finished.

That left NASA without its own crewed launch capability — and forced to buy seats from Roscosmos to get astronauts to the station. But the ambition never went away. Astronauts were living on the ISS for six months at a time, technology was advancing, and the goals were growing. The Moon was back on the agenda, Mars was on the horizon — yet there was no rocket capable of getting there, and building one from scratch kept running into budget and political constraints.

So when NASA decided to build the SLS in 2011, the logical move was to reuse as much of the Shuttle program as possible. The infrastructure was already there, so were the components.

Sometimes it’s easier to start from scratch than to figure out systems that are already in use. But zoom out, and the compromise actually makes sense: proven technology reduces risk, existing factories accelerate the program, and contractors get a steady flow of government work.

What the SLS Inherited from the Space Shuttle

To simplify, there are key inherited solutions:

• RS-25 engines —the same engines that powered the Shuttle orbiter itself, firing from the moment of liftoff

• Solid rocket boosters — upgraded versions of the Shuttle’s side boosters (SRBs).

This is more literal than it sounds. When the Shuttle program ended in 2011, NASA removed the RS-25 engines from the retired orbiters and put them in storage. Three of the four engines on Artemis 2 are those same engines — physically — refurbished with modern computers and new insulation, but the same hardware. One of them, E2047, had flown 15 previous missions, including the final Shuttle flight in July 2011. Congress effectively mandated this approach in 2010, instructing NASA to build the new rocket using “existing United States propulsion systems.”

I’ll go through each in turn. Starting with the engines, because they are the foundation of any rocket — everything else in the design flows from them.

Massive Tanks and Cryogenic Cold: Why the SLS Runs on Hydrogen

The SLS runs on a combination of liquid hydrogen (LH₂) as fuel and liquid oxygen (LOX) as oxidizer. This pairing delivers the highest specific impulse (Isp) of any propellant combination in use in modern rocketry.

Hydrogen, however, comes with serious engineering challenges. It is a cryogenic propellant that must be stored at an extremely low temperature — around −253°C. Even the smallest slit in a tank can cause a leak: hydrogen molecules are so small they will pass through any micro-crack. Its low density also demands enormous tanks, which add mass and complexity to the overall design. At these temperatures, metals become brittle, and the risk of fractures and deformation increases.

These challenges have already shown up in practice: in February 2026, during Artemis 2 launch preparations, engineers discovered hydrogen leaks that forced a delay. Liquid hydrogen caused problems during Apollo too — but safety requirements were less strict back then, and launch delays were more tolerated. Standards tightened significantly after the Shuttle disasters.

Today, engineers take a more pragmatic view of hydrogen than they did in the Shuttle era. When you factor in the cost of production and storage, the complexity of cryogenic infrastructure, and the weight penalty of oversized tanks, the specific impulse advantage starts to look less compelling. In the real-world tradeoff between efficiency, complexity, and mass, hydrogen often loses out to kerosene and methane — which is why it is used so rarely today.

So why does the SLS still run on hydrogen? Because the technology was already proven on the Space Shuttle. Switching to a different propellant would have meant building the rocket from scratch.

Massive Thrust and Uncompromising Reliability: The Case for Solid Rocket Boosters

The solid rocket boosters follow the same logic — another piece of Shuttle heritage. Back in the 1970s, liquid-fueled boosters simply couldn’t match the required thrust: achieving the same performance would have meant a dramatic increase in mass and cost.

So NASA went with the familiar approach: took the Shuttle’s solid boosters and scaled them up by roughly a quarter to deliver the velocity needed for a lunar trajectory.

The tradeoff is real, though. Solid propellant has hard limitations: once ignited, the engine cannot be shut down. Thrust is fixed and cannot be throttled, which makes the vehicle harder to control. Think of a car that’s always running at full throttle with no way to ease off the accelerator — that’s roughly what it looks like. But for both the Shuttle and the SLS, that compromise was worth it: the enormous liftoff thrust and proven reliability matter more than fine control in the first minutes of flight.

You might be wondering: if the SLS and the Space Shuttle have so much in common, why not just take the Shuttle stack and bolt Orion on top? Why reinvent the wheel?

If only it were that simple. The Shuttle’s architecture was designed around a winged, returnable orbiter with aerodynamic surfaces — Orion is a sealed capsule with much stricter life support requirements. On top of that, a lunar trajectory demands a different acceleration profile and significantly higher velocities than the Shuttle was ever designed for.

The Third Piece: The Upper Stage That Actually Goes to the Moon

The RS-25 engines and the solid rocket boosters get the SLS off the ground and into low Earth orbit. But reaching the Moon requires one more burn — and that’s the job of the ICPS, the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage.

The ICPS is a single-engine upper stage powered by one RL-10 engine, running on the same liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen combination as the core stage. After the core stage separates, the ICPS ignites and performs the trans-lunar injection burn — the maneuver that puts Orion on a trajectory toward the Moon. Without it, the rocket is just an expensive ride to orbit.

Interestingly, the ICPS is the one component that does not come from the Space Shuttle. It is a modified version of the upper stage from the Delta IV rocket, built by United Launch Alliance. This is also why it’s called “Interim” — it was always meant as a temporary solution, borrowed from an existing vehicle rather than purpose-built for the Moon.

The more powerful Exploration Upper Stage, originally planned to replace ICPS starting with Artemis 4, was cancelled in early 2026. NASA has since selected the Centaur V as its replacement. The long-term future of SLS beyond Artemis 4 remains politically uncertain — but that’s a story for another article.

The SLS in Action: What Artemis Revealed

As we’ve seen, the SLS is something of a Frankenstein — assembled piece by piece from whatever NASA had on hand. Each component had been tested individually, but together they could behave unpredictably. That’s exactly why flying the rocket and verifying the architecture in real conditions was so important.

That was the purpose of Artemis 1 in November 2022 — an uncrewed lunar flyby that gave engineers an enormous amount of data on how the SLS actually performs:

RS-25 engine behavior during an extended flight

Temperature, pressure, thrust stability, and the synchronization of all four core stage engines firing together with the solid rocket boosters — none of this could be fully verified on a test stand. Only a real flight could show how closely the actual parameters matched the models.

Solid rocket booster reliability

The boosters burn for just over two minutes — but in that time they generate intense structural vibrations and affect the behavior of the core stage throughout the ascent. Engineers used the data to reinforce the airframe and improve the rocket’s vibration tolerance before Artemis 2.

ICPS upper stage readiness for the trans-lunar trajectory

During Artemis 1, the RL10 engine — which accelerates the spacecraft toward the Moon — was fired in flight for the first time in this configuration. Engineers needed to verify that propellant flowed correctly, that the stage maintained proper orientation, and that it could handle the thermal extremes of deep space. The data confirmed the system was ready for a crewed mission.

That performance comes at a steep price. According to NASA, each SLS launch with the Orion spacecraft costs $4–4.1 billion — not counting development. That cost is a direct consequence of the architecture. The SLS was built on proven technology and Shuttle-era infrastructure to reduce risk and accelerate development.

The result is a system with outdated supply chains, a low launch cadence, and heavy dependence on a sprawling contractor network. Compared to Falcon 9 and Starship, the SLS is routinely criticized for being more expensive, less flexible, and fully expendable. That last point is key: every SLS is built from scratch, including the RS-25 engines — which were reused across dozens of Shuttle flights but now burn up on every mission.

All of these engineering choices — from the hydrogen engines to the solid boosters — were validated on Artemis 1. Artemis 2 put them through a second check, this time with a crew on board: confirming that the SLS architecture can safely deliver Orion onto a trans-lunar trajectory and is ready for the missions ahead.

The rocket, however, is only the beginning. In the next article, we’ll cover the two remaining pieces of the Artemis architecture: the Orion spacecraft — the capsule that keeps the crew alive across 10 days and nearly half a million kilometers — and the trajectory that brings them home, including the skip reentry technique.

Stay turned!

Instead, we decided to compile a list of 10 Space Ambition articles in which we take a deeper look at the technologies and market segments where SpaceX operates. We also plan to publish several articles this summer about space-based data centers and the technologies required to make them a reality. Stay tuned!

And if you are interested in SpaceTech or DeepTech, or are building a business in these sectors, we run a DeepTech advisory and research company. We would be happy to help. Feel free to reach out at: denis@spaceambition.org.

Recommended Articles

1. Optical Satellite Communication: Who Builds the Terminals?

2. Why Optical Communication Wins (and Where It Doesn’t)

3. The Internet Is Leaving Earth

4. Satellite Internet: The Next $100B Market Investors Have Been Waiting For?

5. Revolutionizing IoT Beyond Earth: Challenges & Innovations in Satellite-Enabled IoT

6. Space Data Centers: Promise, Physics, and the Parts That Still Aren’t Penciled In (Yet)

7. The Methane Revolution in Spaceflight: Why So Late?

8. It’s Rocket Science: Understanding the Basics of Rocket Technologies

9. Starship: Can One Rocket Change the Entire Space Industry?

10. Jet Propulsion: The Evolution of Technology and the Future of Interplanetary Travel

And remember: the sky is not the limit—it is just the beginning!

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We at Space Ambition provide DeepTech advisory services. Whether you represent a VC, family office, corporation, ecosystem builder, government agency, or startup, we’d be happy to assist you with your needs. Please contact our co-founder Denis Kalyshkin via denis@spaceambition.org.

P.S.: If you want to get an extended version of this article, please contact Dr. Ivan Khrapach via ivan@spaceambition.org.

In our previous articles, we’ve discussed why the domain of optical (laser) communication is essential for space exploration and the space economy. Today, we’ll discuss the companies that make terminals for such communications. Terminals, along with ground infrastructure, relays, and specialised software, are an important part of this domain. Therefore, they are essential, for example, for space-based data centers, which are of interest to many in light of the upcoming giant IPO of SpaceX.

The market for gigabit-class space optical terminals has matured rapidly. Within a decade of commercial development, roughly 30,000+ terminals are already in orbit (most are on Starlink satellites), a dedicated public company, Mynaric, has formed around the technology, and M&A activity signals active vertical integration. This is a multifaceted market with real capital, competition, and real infrastructure in space.

In April 2026, Mynaric — the most-watched European laser-communications company — was absorbed by Rocket Lab after a German restructuring that wiped its shareholders to zero. This is the first public failure in the optical-terminal industry, and it changes how every other company in this layer should be evaluated. This piece explains what an optical terminal actually is, who builds them in mid-2026, why Mynaric’s collapse is multi-causal, and what readers should take from the story.

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Why the Mynaric case matters

Through August 2024, Mynaric was the European challenger that European space policy needed: a publicly listed terminal OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) with a backlog from the US Space Development Agency (SDA — the US Department of Defence agency procuring the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, effectively setting the standard for the US optical-comms market). SDA’s constellation cohorts are called Tranches; by June 2025, Mynaric had delivered more than 100 CONDOR Mk3 terminals for Tranche 1. At the same time, Mynaric was undergoing restructuring: by April 2026, Rocket Lab (Nasdaq: RKLB) had closed the acquisition for a total consideration of ~$160 million in cash plus 2.27 million Rocket Lab shares. Prior shareholders received nothing.

The scalability part is what actually went wrong. By June 2025, Mynaric was delivering terminals for the Tranche 1 set, the photonics worked. The unit economics did not: each terminal took longer and cost more to align than bids assumed; the publicly listed structure left no patience for a multi-year yield ramp; and revenue concentration above 90% on a single customer (SDA) frightened off acquirers — Rheinmetall withdrew its bid in March 2026, citing not the price but the regulatory paperwork and customer-mix risk. This was a confluence — public-market pressure, capital intensity, single-customer concentration — that publicly listed European OEMs have struggled to survive without state backing. Each factor is survivable alone; the combination creates substantial structural risk.

Anatomy of an optical terminal

If the photonics worked and the production did not, it would help to know what is actually inside the box. An optical communications terminal (OCT) is the in-orbit hardware that takes data from a spacecraft’s onboard computer and emits it as a beam of infrared light aimed at another terminal — on another satellite, on the ground, or, in the future, on the Moon.

The light source is a narrow-linewidth laser, almost always at 1550 nm (the wavelength used in submarine fiber-optic cables) or, for some deep-space systems, at 1064 nm. The 1550 nm choice sits in an atmospheric transmission window, is eye-safe, and lets the industry borrow components from the terrestrial fiber market. The outgoing beam has a divergence of ~20 microrad, that is, a beam from 1,000 km away covers a spot about 20 metres across on the ground. This is what gives optical the ability to transmit an immense amount of data, enables security advantages (beam delivery exclusively to the recipient makes them difficult to intercept), and at the same time, makes the engineering hard.

To keep that narrow beam pointed at a moving target, the terminal uses a two-stage pointing system. A coarse-pointing gimbal — a motorised cradle that rotates the whole optical head — handles slow movement. A fast-steering mirror (or its analogue) inside the optics handles small, rapid corrections to compensate for spacecraft vibration or atmospheric distortions. A beacon-tracking subsystem often locks onto a wider-divergence pilot signal from the other end of the link and feeds the pointing system a reference.

On the receive side, a similar telescope collects incoming light, focuses it into a single-mode fiber, and feeds it to a detector — an avalanche photodiode (APD) for near-Earth links, or a superconducting nanowire single-photon detector (SNSPD) for deep space, where each photon counts. A coherent modem carries information in the optical phase (BPSK, QPSK) for very high bit rates; a non-coherent modem uses simple intensity modulation and is slower but more robust.

It is common for terminals to use a single shared optical telescope to transmit and receive laser beams simultaneously. The system then uses a beamsplitter or optical circulators to separate the outgoing high-power transmission beam from the incoming low-power signal. This setup is called Full Duplex.

To extend communication range, increase available bandwidth, and improve overall link reliability in free-space optical networks, adaptive optics systems are often used. By continuously sensing and correcting atmospheric turbulence effects, they minimise signal degradation in optical links.

The economically hard parts of this stack is not the laser, modem, or detector — those are catalogue items from the fiber-optic industry. The expensive, low-yield steps are the precision optomechanics: the beam-steering MEMS (micro-electromechanical systems), the fast-steering mirror, and the alignment that keeps the transmit and receive optical axes parallel to within a few microradians under launch loads, thermal gradients, and years of vibration. This is where serial production often fails.

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The primes that ship

In mid-2026, a dozen Western companies deliver OCTs at industrial cadence.

Tesat-Spacecom (an Airbus subsidiary in Backnang, Germany) provides the SCOT product family, which covers three orbit regimes: SCOT20 for CubeSats (100 Mbps, 1.7 kg), SCOT80 for LEO meshes (10 Gbps, ~12 kg), and SCOT135 for MEO/GEO (2.5–100 Gbps, 28 kg). The Backnang series-production facility opened in August 2024 with a capacity for ~100 units a month — up from one per year a few years earlier. Tesat was selected by MDA Space in May 2024 to supply 792 OCTs, seemingly the largest single OCT order to date.

CACI International ships CrossBeam — 1.25 or 2.5 Gbps, on orbit since June 2021, the longest-flown American-made terminal. CACI, together with SpaceX, was first to successfully demonstrate a cross-vendor laser communications link in 2025, later advancing into Phase 2 of the US Space Force Enterprise Space Terminal programme alongside GA-EMS (General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems) and Viasat.

GA-EMS builds a multi-mission terminal enabling up to 5 Gbps. On 2 September 2025, GA-EMS performed a cross-vendor air-to-space link between its aircraft terminal and a Tesat terminal on a Kepler Communications satellite.

The fourth prime is Mynaric under Rocket Lab; CONDOR Mk3 production continues, and Mk3.1 (targeting 100 Gbps) is on the development path.

The vertically integrated outliers

SpaceX builds Starlink’s optical inter-satellite-link terminals in-house, and about 9,000 satellites, each having 3 to 4 optical terminals, are in orbit by mid-2026, moving on the order of hundreds of petabytes of subscriber data a day. They were not available externally until recently, when Muon announced an agreement with SpaceX to integrate its mini laser terminals (up to 25Gbps over up to 4,000 km) into Muon’s high-performance Halo satellite platform. Now SpaceX markets its terminals under the “Plug and Plaser” brand, often with access to a broader service via the Starlink satellite and ground station network.

Amazon’s Project Kuiper builds its own terminals in-house and demonstrated 100 Gbps over 1,000 km in late-2023 testing. OneWeb also has an in-house terminal under consideration. These hyperscale-funded operators keep their terminals captive; everyone else buys from the merchant market.

Europe, Japan, and the multi-bloc map

Outside Tesat, the European picture is narrow but active. Thales Alenia Space leads IRIS² (optical inter-satellite links needed) and the CNES-funded SOLiS GEO 1 Tbps demonstrator, and is prime on ESA’s HydRON optical network.

Japan is more present than English-language coverage suggests. Sony Space Communications has a deal with Astro Digital to fly two demonstration satellites carrying its terminals; ArkEdge Space is to develop its own terminal. Japan already operates an EDRS-class GEO relay — JAXA’s JDRS with the NEC/JAXA LUCAS payload delivers 1.8 Gbps to ground since 2020; NICT’s HICALI on ETS-9 is set to extend that to 10 Gbps in 2026.

The UK has a pipeline: Spire OCT was the first UK-sourced terminal developed. The ALIGN mission with the FOCUS payload (Northumbria, Durham, e2E/Telespazio-UK, SMS Electronics, funded by UKSA) will demonstrate autonomous LEO-to-LEO links up to 1,000 km in two 6U CubeSats, representing the second terminal to be developed in the UK.

China, Russia, and India belong on the map and demonstrate that optical communications by 2026 is one of the few space technologies that is genuinely multi-bloc rather than US-dominated.

One operational Chinese builder ships terminals into its own constellation: Chang Guang Satellite Technology (CGST), operator of the Jilin-1 fleet, flew a 100 Gbps space-to-ground link from Jilin-1 02A02 in December 2024 — the highest publicly disclosed space-to-ground bit rate of any operator.

Standards have effectively become the moat — within one market

For vendors selling into the US defence market, the SDA Optical Communications Terminal Standard has effectively become the gatekeeper. Version 3.0.1 was the first hard interoperability mandate; v3.2.0 (March 2025) is the Tranche 3 standard of record; v4.0.0 introduces a burst-mode variant for a later cohort. The versions are not deprecations of one another — each is a profile targeted at a specific Tranche, and they are backward-compatible. Outside the US defence market, customer-specific procurement remains the binding instrument: China’s national constellations operate under their own framework; ESA-led programmes such as IRIS² lean on CCSDS standards (international civil/scientific baseline used by NASA, ESA and JAXA).

The market for gigabit-class optical communication terminals has evolved from an emerging technology into a large-scale commercial industry. In less than a decade, it is an industry with four primes, SpaceX as a vertically integrated outlier, acquisitions, public failures, and cross-vendor in-orbit links.

However, the industry’s first major commercial failure highlighted a critical challenge: manufacturing scalability. The underlying photonics technology performed as intended, but production costs and assembly complexity exceeded expectations. Terminal alignment proved more expensive than anticipated, undermining unit economics and preventing the company from achieving the production scale required for profitability. The lesson here is softer than “do not be public, capex-heavy, and single-customer”. Each feature is survivable on its own, the combination is harder.

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In the global push to build the next generation of breakthrough technologies—from orbital infrastructure to advanced physics—investors face a structural bottleneck. The greatest hurdles in frontier science are no longer strictly technological; they are financial and structural. Traditional venture capital, driven by standard fund life cycles, is often too impatient to fund fundamental science during its most nascent stages. Conversely, pure philanthropy, while patient, lacks the commercial engine and aggressive scaling mechanisms required to build global, market-dominating enterprises.

The result is the infamous “valley of death,” where promising deep tech innovations stall in the laboratory before they can reach the commercial market. For family offices, institutional allocators and wealth managers looking to enter the space economy and other frontier sectors, there is a powerful yet underutilized potential solution: blended capital.

The Dual-Engine Approach To Frontier Tech

Blended capital is the strategic sequencing of philanthropic grants and venture capital. In my dual roles leading a venture firm dedicated to deep tech infrastructure and advising global philanthropic initiatives, I have seen firsthand how this dual-engine approach functions. High-impact philanthropy can be deployed to intentionally de-risk fundamental research, acting as catalytic capital. It absorbs the initial, unquantifiable risks associated with translating world-class research into a minimum viable product.

Once the primary technological risk is mitigated, traditional venture capital can step in. This handoff allows venture capital to do what it does best: aggressively scale the technology, build the operational team and capture the equity upside of a highly lucrative, global enterprise.

Actionable Strategies For Wealth Managers And LPs

For single-family offices (SFOs) and institutional allocators looking to capture alpha at the ground floor of the next trillion-dollar economy, blended capital offers a unique arbitrage opportunity. Here are three tactical ways to implement this strategy effectively:

1. Strategically sequence your capital vehicles.

Many family offices operate philanthropic foundations and venture portfolios in entirely separate silos. To unlock the power of blended capital, these silos must communicate. Use your philanthropic grants to fund academic spin-offs and tier-one deep tech founders during their earliest, highest-risk phases. This non-dilutive funding buys the founder time to prove the core physics or engineering. Once the technology demonstrates commercial viability, transition the funding mechanism to your venture arm to fuel growth. This better ensures your capital is driving both immense societal impact and capturing significant financial returns.

2. Evaluate defensibility over immediate revenue.

Traditional LPs often view space and deep tech as too complex or too risky. However, evaluating these sectors does not require a Ph.D. in astrophysics. Instead of looking for the immediate recurring revenue metrics typical of enterprise software, allocators should evaluate deep regulatory moats and infrastructure-level scalability. Philanthropic capital is uniquely suited to buy the time necessary to build these complex moats, while VC capital is later deployed to monetize them. Focus your due diligence on the team’s execution capabilities and the fundamental defensibility of the intellectual property.

3. Leverage co-investment and mentorship networks.

Frontier technology requires more than just capital; it requires robust ecosystem support. Founders scaling globally impactful companies face immense regulatory, engineering and market hurdles. Align your capital with established accelerators, national space agencies and deep tech venture networks. A blended capital approach can be exponentially more effective when investors actively support the translation of research into real-world economic impact through strategic mentorship and network access.

Conclusion

Deep tech’s growth is a generational opportunity for global capital. By bridging the gap between scientific breakthrough and commercial viability with blended capital, visionary wealth managers can accelerate systemic societal impact while fundamentally mitigating the binary risks traditionally associated with frontier venture capital. The next trillion-dollar economy is being built beyond Earth and in the lab; the investors who master the strategic sequencing of philanthropy and venture capital may well be the ones who define its future.

The information provided here is not investment, tax or financial advice. You should consult with a licensed professional for advice concerning your specific situation.

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