Startups
Stories about the new players changing the space game.
Urban Sky Nabs $30M for Stratospheric Balloons
Urban Sky raised a $30M Series B led by Altos Ventures to advance its balloon technology, the company announced this morning.
ATMOS Space Cargo is Go for Reentry
The Phoenix reentry vehicle will complete two Earth orbits before blasting through the atmosphere and landing in the Indian ocean—without any parachute.
DoD’s Former Top Space Buyer Joins True Anomaly Board
“I really like the speed the company is going at,” he told Payload. “And I really like their approach.”
AscendArc Raises $4M for its Small GEO Sats
AscendArc emerged from stealth this morning with $4M in funding to develop small GEO communication satellites.
AstroForge Names Target Asteroid, Signs Deal With Stoke
AstroForge announced which asteroid it’s targeting on its maiden fly-by mission—and the ride it’ll take for future prospecting flights to deep space.
Kall Morris Inc. Shares Details of ISS Demo
Kall Morris Inc., a Michigan-based debris removal startup, became the first US entity to capture an uncontrolled object in space during a demo mission to the ISS.
Hadrian’s Plan to Fix Space Manufacturing
The new tool combines a vetted supplier network with supply chain management and DFM (design for manufacturing) software, providing startups with a single point of contact for their entire supply chain.
FUSE Launches Space-Focused VC Program
The new FUSE Space Program will invest $1M in early space companies. The CEOs of Quindar and Lumen Orbit will serve as scouts, helping to find founders and ideas that would make good investments.
Transporter-12 Launches a New Wave of Space Tech
SpaceX launched Transporter-12 on Tuesday afternoon, sending 131 payloads with dozens of microsatellites and nanosats into sun-synchronous orbit.
Slingshot Wins Contract to Detect GPS Jamming and Spoofing
PNT-SENTINEL will take advantage of a mesh network of thousands of satellites to identify locations of GPS interference on the ground.
Pale Blue is Bringing Water-Based Propulsion to Space
At less than 2kg, the system boasts a total impulse of 7,000 Ns, giving satellites enough thrust to perform multiple maneuvers on orbit without sacrificing much bus space.
Esper Satellites Signs Bus Contract With Loft Orbital
The partnership will send next-generation hyperspectral imagers to orbit as hosted payloads aboard Loft’s Yet Another Mission (YAM) satellites beginning in early 2026.
Accelerator Announces First European Space Resources Cohort
Interestingly, for an accelerator shooting for the Moon, one-third of this first cohort operates largely outside the space industry.
