Y Combinator is putting hard tech in the spotlight. On Wednesday, the accelerator released an updated list of ideas it would like to see in applications — with categories like space, manufacturing and defense featured prominently. YC has backed plenty of hard tech startups before. Launch companies Stoke Space and Relativity Space and satellite broadband […]
Varda Space Industries finally gets approval to bring its drug manufacturing spacecraft back to Earth
Varda Space Industries has received long-awaited approval from regulators to return its first spacecraft to Earth — and with it, a batch of pharmaceutical crystals manufactured on orbit. Varda’s Winnebago capsule has been stuck in limbo for months. The company launched the spacecraft on a SpaceX Transporter mission eight months ago, with the plan to […]
LeoLabs lands new capital to help the U.S. keep track of space junk and adversarial satellite launches
The number of objects in space has risen dramatically over the past thirty years, and much of that is due to commercial companies unlocking new business cases and discovering cheaper ways to get to space. But that doesn’t mean there haven’t been growing pains — like increased congestion in orbit. For commercial satellite operators, the […]
Happy Valentine’s Day, space fans: Intuitive Machines, SpaceX target moon mission lift off on Feb 14
Intuitive Machines is ready to go to the moon. The company announced Monday that its first lunar lander has completed all final integration milestones and is now encapsulated in SpaceX’s Falcon 9 payload fairing, where it will stay until launch on February 14. The mission launch window opens at 12:57 a.m. EST; should weather or […]
True Anomaly raises $100M to scale space security tech
True Anomaly has closed $ 100 million in new funding, a strong signal that the appetite for startups operating at the intersection of space and defense is far from abating. The new round was led by Riot Ventures, with participation from Eclipse, ACME Capital, Menlo Ventures, Narya, 645 Ventures, Rocketship.vc, Champion Hill Ventures and FiveNine […]