SpaceTech & Satellite Economy Startups

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SpaceX

United States

SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft, and operates the Starlink satellite broadband network. Founded by Elon Musk in 2002, it is a leading commercial space-launch and satellite-internet provider.

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FOSSA Systems

Spain

FOSSA Systems is a Spanish aerospace company, founded in 2020 and headquartered in Madrid with offices in Lisbon and Tokyo, that designs and manufactures small satellites for IoT connectivity, secure communications and signals intelligence (SIGINT). It operates its own low Earth orbit constellation serving industrial, institutional and government customers in sectors such as energy, logistics, agriculture, critical infrastructure and national security. The company positions itself as a verticalized European satellite provider with growing defense and dual-use focus, including selection for NATO's DIANA program.

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Longshot

United States

Longshot Space Technologies is an Alameda, California defense and space startup building a ground-based kinetic launch system, a multi-injection accelerator that propels payloads to hypersonic velocities as a low-cost alternative to rockets. Its prototype accelerators, including the "minigun," are among the largest ballistic launch devices built, and the company is backed by venture investors and U.S. government programs including the Air Force. Founded in 2020 by Mike Grace, it targets accelerating 100-kilogram payloads beyond Mach 5.

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Wheere

France

Wheere is a French deeptech startup developing a patented indoor geolocation system, branded as the GPS that goes through walls. Its low-frequency VHF signals penetrate up to fifty meters of concrete to locate people and assets with metric precision where GPS, Bluetooth and ultra-wideband fail, serving industrial, logistics and critical-site customers such as TotalEnergies, EDF and LOreal. Founded in 2020 and based in Castelnau-le-Lez near Montpellier, the company is extending the technology into space via a planned satellite constellation.

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Ubotica Technologies

Ireland

Ubotica Technologies is a Dublin-based space-AI company that builds onboard artificial-intelligence software letting Earth-observation satellites analyse imagery and act autonomously in orbit, removing the bottleneck of sending raw data back to ground stations. Its applications run on more than 30 satellites, and its Live Maritime Intelligence platform tasks optical, SAR and RF sensors to detect maritime threats and protect offshore infrastructure in near real time. Founded in 2016 by edge-AI pioneers behind Movidius, the company is hardware-agnostic and works with partners including NASA JPL and Open Cosmos.

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Hop Aero

United States

Hop Aero is a Los Angeles-based aerospace startup building point-to-point hypersonic rocket cargo vehicles designed to deliver supplies hundreds of miles to remote or contested environments within minutes. The company targets dual-use defense logistics, aiming to give the US and allies a strategic resupply advantage, and is led by a founding team with backgrounds at SpaceX, Virgin Orbit, SpinLaunch, Masten Space Systems and Destinus.

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Applied Physics

United States

Applied Physics is a New York-based independent research collective of scientists, engineers, and inventors working on breakthrough space and gravitational-physics technologies, including theoretical warp-drive propulsion and its Warp Factory analysis toolkit. Founded in 2019 and led by CEO Gianni Martire, it positions itself as a public-benefit research institute advising companies and governments, with affiliated researchers from institutions such as Harvard and CERN. The group gained prominence for its 2021 peer-reviewed work proposing physically constructable warp-drive models.

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Astroscale

Japan

Astroscale is a Tokyo-based satellite-servicing company building technologies for orbital debris removal, satellite life-extension and in-orbit refueling. Founded in 2013, it is an early mover in on-orbit servicing with demonstration and commercial missions in development across Japan, the UK and the US, and serves both defense and commercial customers. The company is publicly listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

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First Resonance

United States

First Resonance is a Los Angeles-based software company that builds ION, a Factory Operating System for hardware manufacturers. The platform connects design, production, supply chain, and quality workflows with granular parts and process tracking, and is used by complex-hardware makers in aerospace, eVTOL, and satellite manufacturing such as Joby Aviation, Astra, and Reliable Robotics. It was founded by former SpaceX, JPL, Zoox, and Toyota engineers.