The moon. Photo: Shutterstock

A new startup Cascade Space raised $5.9 million in funding to develop a platform for satellite communication system design.

The company, formerly known as Heliosphere Network, is looking to solve what it sees as a bottleneck in communication system design, test, and operation, especially for lunar and deep space missions. 

Cascade Space recently released an open-source library for link budget and communication system design called Spacelink. It is building an online design tool for designing spacecraft communication systems, and has plans for a ground station network to support lunar missions. 

The company was co-founded by Jacob Portukalian, a SpaceX alum who architected the Crew Dragon communication system, and Arlen Abraham, who worked on launch systems development at Astra.

Nova Threshold, Undeterred Capital, Y Combinator, Night Capital, Olive Capital, Valkyrie Ventures, Karman Ventures, Palm Drive Capital, Garage Capital, TRAC, Aurelia Foundry, Hawktail, MGV.VC, Pioneer Fund, Liquid 2 Ventures, and others invested in Cascade’s seed round, announced July 24. 

“Our mission at Cascade Space is to provide tools and infrastructure for spacecraft communication system design, test, and operations that will allow our customers to ship faster with the highest levels of mission assurance,” CEO Portukalian said in a release.