Aviation and Space Startups funded by Y Combinator (YC) 2026

Dispatch is building refurbishable reentry vehicles that host and return payloads for companies making ultra-high-value materials (semiconductors, biotech, and pharma) that can only be manufactured in space. Right now, these companies have no practical way to manufacture and get their products back to Earth. We solve this bottleneck. We just returned from the Mojave Desert testing our first full-scale reentry heat shield designed to protect the satellite as it returns from space at Mach 20+, built in an apartment for 100x cheaper than competitors. To test, we held it behind a rocket engine to simulate the forces of atmospheric reentry. IT WORKED! Watch here - https://youtu.be/dhlQmnIoptg To scale, we anchor permanent infrastructure in orbit - building high power Autonomous Space Stations designed from day one for "lights-out" manufacturing serviced by the reentry vehicles.

At Beyond Reach Labs we are building solar panels for Space that grow from the size of a dining table to a football field in orbit. Mitch and Pele met 13 years ago as freshmen at UPenn studying mechanical engineering. Mitch recently got his PhD at Carnegie Mellon working with NASA on kilometer-scale deployable structures, and Pele spent seven years at SpaceX leading Dragon parachute engineering, safely returning astronauts from space. The collective satellites today use around 20MW, roughly the output of a datacenter on earth, but by 2030 there is a demand for over 10GW, a 500x increase, largely driven by orbital datacenters, space stations, and lunar outposts. If you want more power, your only option is to launch larger solar panels, which quickly become fragile or impractically expensive. As a result, power constraints already determine whether missions or industries can exist at all. But at Beyond Reach Labs we have introduced a new class of deployable solar panels giving satellites 10x more usable power without increasing launch mass or volume. This works because our patented deployable design changes geometry in space, allowing for us to reach 10x longer while remaining rigid.

GRU builds off-planet habitats using in-situ resource utilization technology, turning local material into building material. Our first habitat will be a hotel on the Moon for space tourists, aiming to open 2032. In 2029, our demo mission will turn lunar regolith into bricks and demonstrate our modular pressurized habitat system. A second mission will begin laying the hotel’s foundation in a lunar cave. A third mission will open the first lunar hotel. We don’t stop at Moon hotels. GRU’s long-term plan: 1. Build the first hotel on the Moon. GRU solves off‑world surface habitation. 2. Build America’s first Moon base: roads, mass drivers, warehouses, and physical infrastructure. 3. Repeat on Mars and build the first cities there. 4. Own property on the Moon and Mars as these economies grow. 5. Reinvest profits into resource utilization systems on the Moon, Mars, asteroids, and beyond—reaching our final form: Galactic Resource Utilization. GRU Space is backed by investors in SpaceX + Anduril, and is part of Nvidia’s Inception program.

AxionOrbital Space builds foundation models that enable continuous visibility through clouds and darkness. Legacy optical satellites are rendered useless 70% of the time by weather and night cycles, while Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) produces data that is unintelligible to humans and breaks standard vision pipelines. We solve this by translating raw radar backscatter into analysis-ready optical imagery in real-time. Our proprietary architecture uses deterministic one-step diffusion to transform complex radar signals into clear, photorealistic images. This enables persistent, 24/7 situational awareness for defense, commodities trading, and disaster response, guaranteeing visibility even when the sky is blocked.

Wardstone is a space defense-tech company developing next-generation capabilities to protect the United States and its allies from missiles and other space-based threats. We design, build, and deploy satellites equipped with space-based interceptors to kinetically counter hypersonic and ballistic missiles.

We develop drones and land based autonomous robots that are designed to be controlled as groups and execute autonomous missions instead of requiring skilled operators to pilot or control. Once a critical mass of intelligent devices are deployed on the battlefield, it will fundamentally reshape the command structure of the modern military into something resembling an RTS game (Like Starcraft, Civilization, Command & Conquer, etc), reducing response times from minutes to milliseconds.

Cascade Space is building a turn-key communications system for lunar and deep space missions. Our ground station network and integrated software tools work together to maximize uptime and availability, while reducing spacecraft iteration cycles from weeks to hours.

GroundControl builds mission-critical software for manufacturers in highly-regulated industries (aerospace, defense, medical) Our core product automates lengthy, complex, and regulated quality documentation in aerospace manufacturing. As an example, the Boeing 777 is made up of over 3 million parts sourced from manufacturers around the world. These manufacturers must complete quality documentation for every part on this aircraft (machined parts, printed circuit boards, wire harnesses, assemblies, and more). GroundControl helps manufacturers complete this required documentation accurately, in minutes instead of days.

Enhanced Radar is building better, safer air traffic control systems.

Instinct is making the Moon the new LEO. Our small lunar lander is designed to be launched as a regular LEO rideshare, enabling higher mission cadence at a lower cost.

We are making reusable satellites for zero-g manufacturing. Our first full orbital recovery mission is set to launch in April 2026.

Orbital Operations is developing a high thrust, reusable space vehicle for satellite defense. We protect critical satellites, like GPS and Military communication satellites, from adversarial threats, like China and Russia. Our vehicle will use the exact same propulsion systems that launch vehicles have used for decades by implementing a cryogenic management system. This will give us over 100x the thrust or current in-space propulsion. Ross and I have over 15 years of combined aerospace experience across NASA, Aerojet Rocketdyne, SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Relativity Space. We’ve worked side by side for more than 3.5 years developing propulsion systems, turbomachinery, and building our own respective engineering teams. We are currently working on the first demo of our unique cryo management system and intend to launch an operational vehicle by 2027.

Consus is your single source of truth for government specifications, standards, or handbooks. We verify the active revision of documents, notify you when documents are updated, and make it easy to extract the relevant information. Win new business or execute existing contracts faster with Consus.

Forerunner is an AI-powered platform for aircraft maintenance, repair, and overhaul.

Apolink is building the world’s most interoperable satellite relay network in low Earth orbit. Our hybrid communication architecture combines RF and optical inter-satellite links to enable real-time, continuous connectivity for satellite operators across industries.

Starcloud is building data centers in space, initially to provide GPU compute to other satellites, and later to address the rapidly growing demand for energy caused by the deployment of AI. Falling launch costs give Starcloud access to abundant energy, radiative cooling, and the ability to rapidly scale in space. In November 2025, just 21 months after founding, Starcloud launched its first satellite, Starcloud-1 to space. This has an Nvidia H100, which is 100x more powerful GPU than has ever been operated in space before. With this, they became the first entity to train an LLM in space and the first to run a version of Gemini in space. Starcloud will soon also run high-powered inference on Capella SAR data on orbit for the first time. Starcloud is launching its second satellite in October 2026, which will have 100x the power generation of the first and generate more cash than it costs to build and launch. Starcloud expects that within 10 years, most new data centers will be being built in space for the energy.

Spaceium builds fully automated space stations to refuel and repair spacecraft. We have secured $86.1 million in binding commercial contracts and have an additional $230 million in the pipeline. Additionally, we have 1 billion dollars in letters of intent. We have successfully tested our hardware, which will launch to space next year. Our fully automated space stations will efficiently store and transfer both cryogenic (extremely cold) and non-cryogenic fuels with zero loss during storage and transfer. And they can transfer fuel seamlessly to any spacecraft design using our proprietary modular robotic arm. Our customers include launch vehicles, orbital transfer vehicles, moon landers, and spacecraft that benefit from increased payload capacity and extended travel capabilities. Our long-term vision is to build service hubs along the space superhighway to connect Earth to Moon and Mars and help humanity to become multi multi-planetary species

Astro Mechanica is reinventing supersonic aircraft by innovating on engine, airframe, and systems that industry hasn’t in over 50 years. Our electric combined cycle engine, Duality, is the world’s first jet engine that's engineered for efficiency from takeoff to Mach 3+. This new propulsion technology enables the delivery of people and payloads anywhere on Earth in just hours, laying the foundation for a new operational paradigm: an affordable point-to-point global travel network that will make on-demand, high-speed air transport the new standard of travel.

Navier AI is building the first Agent-Driven Engineering platform. We believe engineers should focus on designing great products, not wrestling with simulation software. Navier AI makes it simple to run CFD simulations at scale through our web-based platform built on OpenFOAM, the industry-standard solver for CFD. Our AI agents autonomously handle the complex, time-consuming steps of simulation—from geometry cleanup and meshing to solver configuration and cloud resource management. By automating the tedious parts of the workflow, we enable engineering teams to move faster, explore more design possibilities, and spend their time on high-value engineering decisions.

Basalt is building self-flying satellite constellations for enterprise customers, no prior aerospace experience or expertise needed! Powered by our spacecraft OS, Basalt provides a seamless experience, enabling users to fly and stream data from their own tailored satellite constellation from an app on their phones or laptops. The company is founded by Max Bhatti and Alex Choi, lead engineers at the MIT CubeSat program. Previously, the duo worked as systems engineers at SpaceX, and the UK Ministry of Defense. Basalt Tech recently received its seed investment as part of the Y Combinator W24 batch, and is currently in technical development.

Elodin creates flight software, simulations, and hardware for drones, satellites, and defense.

Care Weather collects the highest-accuracy global weather data to help governments and shipping companies adapt to extreme weather. The data is collected by Care Weather’s unique flat-panel radar satellite, which is 1000X more cost effective because it’s vertically integrated, gets more solar power, and sails on top of the atmosphere for a closer view of the surface. Our team includes CEO Patrick Walton (NASA Earth science fellow) and CTO Alex Laraway (mach 4 rockets). In the last 4 months, we built and launched the smallest radar satellite ever. We have $35M worth of LOIs, including one from the Air Force and others from cargo shippers. Care Weather is backed by Boost VC, Kickstart Seed Fund, Y Combinator, and more.

Hubble is building a global satellite network that any Bluetooth-enabled device can connect to, even without cellular reception. Our mission in life is to get a billion devices connected to the network and unlock a new era of human-machine collaboration.

Our planes fly 10 times further than battery electric alternatives, with a lower operating cost than fossil fuel powered aircraft. Our first product is a 15 seat aircraft with a range of 800 km that enters service in 2026 with launch customer Skytrans. Our team has over 85 years of aerospace experience and have developed, flight tested and certified aircraft at Google X, magniX, Heart Aerospace, Ampaire, Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier and Gulfstream. We have $145M in aircraft LOIs from 7 airlines in the US, Europe and Australia.

Radical’s StratoSats are autonomous platforms that provide satellite-like services on demand. They fly within Earth’s atmosphere to provide persistent, high performance infrastructure across applications in earth observation, connectivity, and more. Unlike satellites, StratoSats navigate freely without the need for rocket launches or orbits - reducing costs, increasing flexibility, and ensuring customers get the targeted coverage they need.

We're designing swarms of tiny satellites which will work together to create the first real-time, high-resolution 3D model of the earth. By using clusters of satellites to image the same place on the earth at the exact same time, we can improve image quality by more than 60x over conventional techniques. This technology will massively increase the amount of affordable, high-quality 3D data, enabling a host of new applications across an array of industries, including AR/XR/Autonomy, Defense, Climate/ESG, and Insurance Analytics.

Seaflight Technologies has developed a new form of Aerodynamic Flow Control for electrified aircraft that increases range and payload by 30%. That's the same performance improvement you'd get from hopping in a DeLorean to 2035 and coming back with batteries from the future. But it's available today - our tech has been derisked by testing supported by the National Science Foundation, the US Air Force, and the Australian Government. Our first product is a simple fixed-wing large cargo drone that is efficient enough to remove the "green penalty" currently associated with electric aviation. That's a step change from today's conventional platforms. First generation electric aircraft are heavy, expensive, complicated, and limited in terms of range and payload. In the entire history of aviation, that's never been a winning formula. When everyone already has access to the same batteries, materials, and motors, what really makes the difference? The answer is revolutionary aerodynamics, but in a form factor that suits today's operations and manufacturing. Beyond our own drone product line, we have partners across Aerospace helping incorporate our tech into their products. In the future, if you want to have the most efficient and cost-effective flying machine of any description, you'll need Seaflight's Flow Control inside.

Airhart is making airplanes anyone can fly. Our semi-autonomous tech will enable 10x more people to fly their own planes and make flying to Tahoe as easy as driving to the grocery store

Velontra is building a hypersonic space plane that can takeoff from anywhere in any weather. This horizontal takeoff increases launch reliability and enables customers to directly access any orbit. Our air-breathing propulsion system is up to 6 times more fuel efficient than any rocket, and uses oxygen from the air which creates thousands of pounds of additional payload capacity. We have millions in current government/commercial contracts and LOI’s. We have assembled a team of industry experts, government senior executives, and a NASA astronaut. The hypersonic space plane will work by taking off from any runway with a jet propulsion system. Next, it will climb to over 100,000’ and Mach 5. At this point, it will launch a 2nd stage rocket directly into the desired Low Earth Orbit. Velontra is “boldly going where no one has gone before.”

Wyvern is a space data company that will capture the highest resolution hyperspectral images from satellites that cost 100X less than satellites using traditional telescopes.

Beyond Aero was founded to meet the challenges of climate change and is developing the first hydrogen-powered electric business aircraft. The company is on a mission to make aviation electric, starting with business aviation since private jet are the most emissions-intensive segment per passenger, producing ten times more CO2 per person than commercial flights. Beyond Aero has hit significant technical milestones, achieving France's first manned fully hydrogen-electric flight earlier this year and appointing Luiz Oliveira, former advisor on Embraer’s hybrid hydrogen program, as Chief Engineer. Beyond Aero has secured $914 million in Letters of Intent (LOIs) for 108 aircraft and earned multiple awards, including Brilliant Minds and the Sustainable Aviation Challenge by the World Economic Forum, joining the First Movers Coalition.

Odys Aviation (formerly Craft Aero) builds vertical take-off and landing aircraft for major airlines. We cut travel time in half on the world’s busiest routes by using city helipads and local airports. The company founders are electric propulsion and automotive manufacturing experts who have spent their careers electrifying transportation systems at Virgin Hyperloop, GoogleX, Volvo, and Fisker Automotive. We’ve won two USAF Agility Prime contracts, have pre-orders and options for more than 1,000 aircraft.

HEO Robotics visually monitors satellites for governments and defence. We do this by transforming existing Earth observation satellites with software to image other satellites as they fly close by.

Nova: Radically improving access to and from orbit. We’re unlocking the space economy by harnessing the power of full and rapid reusability with Nova, our 100% reusable rocket. Nova offers affordable access to, through, and from space with a 20x reduced cost to orbit. Our reusable upper-stage vehicle delivers on-demand access to any orbit at any time. Its unmatched capabilities enable dynamic space operations, including capture, reposition, long-dwell operations, and return of assets, as well as space cargo and logistics missions.

Turion Space is building spacecraft to move things around in space and image space objects when they’re not, and focused on developing the dual-use technology required to ensure a sustainable future in space. They aim to build a strong foundation selling space domain awareness imagery data while advancing their technology towards an affordable solution for orbital debris removal and eventually asteroid mining. The founding team originates from SpaceX, and after going through the Y-combinator accelerator in summer 2021 went on to raise a $6.2M seed round and is launching their first DROID satellite in early 2023.

With five issued patents covering our core business lines, and more than a dozen additional patents pending this year and more than $5M in revenue, TransAstra is developing the technologies that will drive the rapidly expanding space economy. Our breakthrough Omnivore propulsion system can propel spacecraft, including our Worker Bee commercial OTV with water or virtually any other fluid as a propellant using only concentrated sunlight as a power source. Omnivore is faster, cheaper, and more practical than electric propulsion while being substantially less expensive, safer, and more operationally flexible than legacy chemical propulsion systems. Our Sutter Telescope System can identify and locate resource-rich asteroids and orbital debris that existing technologies can’t find and works synergistically with our Worker Bee OTV for orbital logistics. For government customers, Sutter can identify dark fast-moving objects between Earth and the Moon which currently evade detection, a critical issue for national defense and a key need of the Space Force. We are already using Sutter in ground-based observatories and will begin commercial sales of Sutter SDA data next month having tracked dozens of faint moving objects in space already. Once launched into space, Sutter will be 300,000 times more cost effective than any other known telescope design and will revolutionize sense making in space.

REGENT is building a new mode of transportation that will redefine regional mobility by 2026. Their first product, the seaglider, is an all-electric, hydrofoiling flying-boat that operates within a wingspan of the water's surface. By flying low on a cushion of air, seagliders unlock the ability to fly twice as far as an electric aircraft, while being regulated by maritime authorities enabling market entry for a fraction of the cost. REGENT has de-risked seaglider technology with a ¼-scale flying demonstration vehicle. By this summer, REGENT will fly humans on the 15,000 lb (7000kg) first full-scale prototype seaglider, which will be the largest electric-flying machine in history. By late 2026, REGENT’s customers - airlines and ferry companies – will begin commercial seaglider service on the 12-seat initial product. A 100 passenger version, already with firm orders, will follow several years later. In just four years, REGENT has accumulated >$10B in pre-orders (including firm deposits) from airlines and ferry companies around the world. Currently a team of 100, REGENT is led by MIT-trained, ex-Boeing engineers Billy Thalheimer and Mike Klinker. REGENT has raised over $100M to date from the likes of Founders Fund, Japan Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines and Lockheed Martin, and is on contract with the US Marine Corps.

Alba Orbital is building the world's largest earth observation constellation, imaging everywhere on earth, every 15 minutes. We can see events within minutes such as wildfires in real time and have signed >$85m of LOIs, with both government and commercial customers paying pre-orders for imagery. To date we have launched 57 satellites into orbit (more than any other seed stage company in history), with more launching in 2026 onwards. We have launched a number of technology demonstration imaging satellites called Unicorns, which are the world's most advanced satellite under 1kg ever flown in orbit.

At H3X, we are making the lightest, high-power electric propulsion systems in the world to enable a large-scale revolution in aircraft electrification. Our first product is a 250-kW (335 HP) integrated motor drive in an 18 kg package. It combines the electric motor, inverter, and gearbox into a single powerful unit and is the culmination of patent pending innovation in multiple areas.

Albedo builds and operates satellites in Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) — a new orbital layer much closer to Earth than traditional satellites in LEO. Flying lower unlocks sharper imagery, faster communications, and real-time maneuverability with smaller, more efficient hardware. VLEO is naturally self-cleaning and resilient, offering a sustainable alternative to crowded low Earth orbit - providing diversification and redundancy for critical systems that we rely on in higher orbits. With the only flight proven VLEO system on the market, Albedo is creating a new orbital infrastructure designed for speed, precision, and resilience.

Heart makes electric airplanes.

Our focus is on developing the smallest, fastest heavy lift optionally piloted VTOL aircraft. Our aircraft can be operated in urban environments with no risk of rotor strikes - we don't use rotor systems! Ship anything from downtown LA to downtown San Diego in 20 mins!

Momentus is a space infrastructure services company. As a first mover, Momentus will offer the most basic, foundational services that enable businesses to flourish in space. With their experienced team of aerospace, propulsion, and robotics engineers, Momentus makes and operates cost-effective and energy-efficient in-space transport and service vehicles that utilize water plasma propulsion technology. Momentus has service agreements in place with numerous private satellite companies, government agencies, and research organizations.

Tesseract is a provider of cost effective propulsion components and systems for in-space applications spanning commercial Earth-orbiting satellites, robotic exploration missions, and human spaceflight.

Pyka’s goal is to provide society with a new form of safe, clean, and cost-effective transportation enabled by autonomous electric aviation. To get there, we’re taking a different approach than most. We're applying our technologies to every industry where autonomous electric aircraft can be useful, starting with the highest value and most dangerous jobs. In doing so, we're building game-changing products manufactured at scale, while perfecting the safety, reliability, and capabilities of our autonomy engine and electric propulsion systems. We design, develop and manufacture an ecosystem of technologies including proprietary flight control software, avionics, high power density motors, motor controllers, batteries, and custom carbon-fiber composite airframes. Today, we supply autonomous electric aircraft for cargo transport and crop protection to real-world customers across four separate continents and have secured industry-first regulatory approvals from the FAA. Our cargo aircraft enables remote connectivity, enhances express delivery networks, and ensures fast and reliable shipping of critical supplies to areas in need. Our crop protection aircraft offers agricultural services providers and farmers an autonomous tool to make aerial application safer, more precise, and less harmful to surrounding environments. Both vehicles are highly economical to operate, easy to deploy, and significantly reduce C02 emissions in their respective industries. What you work on at Pyka makes people’s lives better now and brings the future of electric aviation one step closer each day.

Wright Electric is building commercial electric airplanes for lower prices, higher safety, and zero emissions. The Wright 1 is a 186 passenger electric plane designed for routes like LA-SF and London-Paris. We work with airlines like easyJet and VivaAerobus.