Space Startups to Watch in 2026: Our Top 15 Picks

The commercial space industry has never been more dynamic. With $15+ billion in venture capital invested in space companies over the past three years, a new generation of startups is tackling everything from reusable rockets to in-orbit servicing, from satellite cybersecurity to space-based solar power. We've analyzed hundreds of companies to identify the 15 space startups we believe are best positioned to break out in 2026 and beyond.

Our selection criteria: strong technical differentiation, credible founding teams, adequate funding for their current stage, and positioning in markets with genuine near-term demand.

Launch and Transportation

1. Stoke Space

HQ: Kent, Washington | Founded: 2019 | Funding: $175M+

Stoke Space is building a fully and rapidly reusable rocket, both first and second stages. While SpaceX has mastered first-stage reuse, no one has cracked second-stage reuse at scale. Stoke's upper stage features a novel actively-cooled metallic heat shield for reentry, eliminating the need for thermal protection tiles. In 2025, Stoke successfully demonstrated their full-flow staged combustion engine. If they deliver on their vision, the economics of spaceflight change fundamentally: reuse of the entire vehicle could drive launch costs below $1,000/kg, compared to ~$2,700/kg for Falcon 9.

2. Phantom Space

HQ: Tucson, Arizona | Founded: 2019 | Funding: $30M+

Phantom Space is building the "Henry Ford of rockets": standardized, mass-produced small launch vehicles designed for high-volume manufacturing rather than bespoke engineering. Their Daytona rocket targets the small satellite market with a $4 million per launch price point, significantly undercutting Rocket Lab's Electron. Phantom is also developing satellite buses and a vertically integrated space logistics platform.

3. Gravitics

HQ: Seattle, Washington | Founded: 2021 | Funding: $20M+

Gravitics is developing large-volume space modules: expandable habitats and station segments that launch compactly and inflate in orbit. Their modules target the commercial space station market, providing low-cost habitable volume for companies like Vast and Axiom. Gravitics is positioning itself as the "module supplier" rather than a station operator, a smart wedge into the emerging orbital infrastructure market.

Earth Observation and Analytics

4. Albedo

HQ: Denver, Colorado | Founded: 2020 | Funding: $100M+

Albedo is building a constellation of very low Earth orbit (VLEO) satellites that fly at just 200-300 km altitude, much lower than typical EO satellites at 500-600 km. This enables 10-centimeter optical resolution from commercially available optics, matching what previously required billion-dollar government satellites. Albedo's first satellite is slated for 2026, and if it delivers the promised resolution, it will be the highest-resolution commercial optical imagery available.

5. Muon Space

HQ: Mountain View, California | Founded: 2021 | Funding: $60M+

Muon Space is building a vertically integrated Earth observation platform focused on climate data. Rather than selling raw imagery, Muon delivers turnkey climate intelligence products: greenhouse gas monitoring, wildfire risk assessment, and methane leak detection. Their constellation combines multiple sensor types (microwave radiometry, thermal infrared) for all-weather climate monitoring. The climate data market is enormous and growing, driven by carbon credit verification and ESG compliance requirements.

6. Tomorrow.io

HQ: Boston, Massachusetts | Founded: 2016 | Funding: $400M+

Tomorrow.io operates a proprietary weather radar constellation in orbit. Their satellites carry miniaturized radar instruments that can detect precipitation and atmospheric conditions from space, filling gaps in ground-based weather radar coverage (which covers less than 10% of the Earth's surface). Tomorrow.io combines its proprietary satellite data with third-party data and AI models to deliver hyperlocal weather forecasting for aviation, logistics, energy, and agriculture customers.

In-Orbit Services and Manufacturing

7. Astroscale

HQ: Tokyo, Japan | Founded: 2013 | Funding: $400M+

Astroscale is the global leader in orbital debris removal and in-orbit servicing. Their ADRAS-J mission successfully demonstrated close-proximity inspection of a defunct rocket body in 2024, and the company is developing ELSA-M, a multi-client satellite removal vehicle. With space debris regulations tightening worldwide and the orbital environment becoming increasingly congested, Astroscale is positioned in a market that is small today but likely to be mandated by regulators, creating guaranteed demand.

8. Varda Space Industries

HQ: El Segundo, California | Founded: 2020 | Funding: $150M+

Varda builds autonomous space factories: spacecraft that launch to orbit, manufacture high-value products in microgravity, and return them to Earth in reentry capsules. Their first mission in 2023 successfully manufactured pharmaceutical crystals in orbit and returned them to Earth. Varda is scaling toward regular production, initially focused on pharmaceuticals where microgravity enables superior crystal structures for drug formulations. If space manufacturing economics work at scale, Varda could be building the factories of the future.

9. True Anomaly

HQ: Denver, Colorado | Founded: 2022 | Funding: $100M+

True Anomaly is building space domain awareness and proximity operations capabilities for the US Space Force and commercial customers. Their Jackal autonomous spacecraft is designed for close-proximity inspection and characterization of objects in orbit. As space becomes more congested and contested, the ability to understand what other objects in orbit are doing, and to operate safely near them, is becoming a critical national security and commercial capability.

Communications and Connectivity

10. Astranis

HQ: San Francisco, California | Founded: 2015 | Funding: $350M+

Astranis builds small geostationary broadband satellites: a novel approach that combines the coverage advantages of GEO (always visible from a fixed point on Earth) with the cost advantages of small satellites. Each MicroGEO satellite provides dedicated broadband capacity for a specific country or region, serving markets too small to justify a traditional $300M+ GEO satellite. Astranis launched its first operational satellite in 2023 and has a backlog of orders from customers across four continents.

11. Lynk Global

HQ: Falls Church, Virginia | Founded: 2017 | Funding: $100M+

Lynk Global connects standard, unmodified cell phones directly to satellites, no special hardware required. While AST SpaceMobile and SpaceX/T-Mobile are pursuing similar direct-to-device strategies, Lynk has been first to achieve commercial service, launching connectivity in multiple countries. Their technology provides text messaging, emergency alerts, and basic data service to existing phones, addressing the 90% of the Earth's surface without cellular coverage.

Infrastructure and Propulsion

12. Impulse Space

HQ: Redondo Beach, California | Founded: 2021 | Funding: $75M+

Founded by SpaceX's former VP of propulsion, Tom Mueller, Impulse Space is building in-space transportation vehicles: orbital transfer vehicles (OTVs) that pick up satellites from the rideshare drop-off orbit and deliver them precisely where they need to go. Their Mira OTV provides the "last mile delivery" service for satellites, and the larger Helios vehicle will serve cislunar transportation needs. As launch becomes commoditized, in-space logistics becomes the next bottleneck, and the next opportunity.

13. Atomos Space

HQ: Denver, Colorado | Founded: 2020 | Funding: $20M+

Atomos is developing orbital transfer vehicles using high-efficiency electric propulsion. Their vehicles dock with client satellites after launch and transport them to their operational orbit, extending satellite life by saving on-board propellant, or repositioning assets as mission requirements change. Atomos is also developing technology for satellite refueling and life extension: services that become more valuable as satellite constellations scale.

Sustainability and Cybersecurity

14. Slingshot Aerospace

HQ: Austin, Texas | Founded: 2017 | Funding: $80M+

Slingshot Aerospace provides space domain awareness and situational intelligence through its Seradata and Beacon platforms. Their digital twin of the space environment enables satellite operators, insurers, and regulators to understand collision risk, conjunction events, and orbital traffic patterns. As the number of active satellites passes 10,000 and heads toward 100,000, the demand for space traffic management intelligence grows exponentially. Slingshot is building the "air traffic control" data layer for space.

15. SpiderOak

HQ: Kansas City, Missouri | Founded: 2007 (space pivot 2020) | Funding: $50M+

SpiderOak provides zero-trust cybersecurity for space systems. Their OrbitSecure platform enables secure data sharing and communication between satellites, ground stations, and mission operations without relying on centralized key management, critical when satellites can be targeted by nation-state cyber actors. As satellite constellations become critical infrastructure for communications, navigation, and defense, cybersecurity for space systems is transitioning from "nice to have" to essential.

Themes Across the List

Several patterns emerge from our top 15:

• Vertical integration is winning: The most compelling startups own their full stack across hardware, software, and analytics. Muon Space builds their own satellites AND delivers analytics. Varda builds factories AND operates the reentry vehicles
• Infrastructure over applications: Many of our picks are building picks-and-shovels infrastructure (OTVs, modules, cybersecurity) rather than end-user applications. In a gold rush, sell the tools
• Regulation as tailwind: Companies like Astroscale and Slingshot benefit from tightening regulations around debris mitigation and space traffic management. Regulatory compliance creates demand that doesn't depend on market cycles
• Climate and defense spending: The two largest growth drivers in space are climate monitoring (ESG, carbon markets, weather) and defense (space domain awareness, secure communications). Startups aligned with these trends have the clearest path to revenue
• Hardware is back: After years of "software is eating the world," space rewards companies that can build and operate hardware. The barriers to entry are higher, but so are the moats

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