Ten startups will compete at the 2025 Startup Space Entrepreneur Pitch Contest at SATELLITE on Tuesday, March 11. Since its inception in 2016, the competition has identified and promoted industry-changing innovations, with alumni including LeoLabs and TrustPoint.
Avionova (Columbus, OH — CEO Noor Haj-Tamim) — Vestibular technologies for motion sickness and vertigo targeting military aviators, space tourists, and healthcare providers. Haj-Tamim previously trained as a private scientist-astronaut candidate at the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences.
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Ensemble Space Labs (Hyattsville, MD — CEO Benjamin McCrossen) — Advanced space weather forecasting platform providing real-time thermospheric density and solar particle radiation data to protect satellites and ground-based infrastructure.
GITAI (Los Angeles, CA — CEO Sho Nakanose) — Space robotics startup developing systems for ISS equipment assembly, satellite servicing, orbital debris removal, and lunar exploration. Completed a tech demo inside the ISS in 2021.
Magma Space (Washington, DC — CEO Alessandro Stabile) — Satellite components and subsystems for optical communication, remote imaging, and directed energy using a low-power magnetic bearing design to eliminate satellite vibrations. Supported by NASA, NSF, and DoD.
Odysseus Space (Luxembourg — CEO Jordan Vannitsen) — Provides the ASTRAEUS system for autonomous GNC across the solar system, and Cyclops, a laser communication terminal via subscription model.
Paramium (Tucson, AZ — CEO Justin Hyatt) — Ground station as a service with advanced V-band and W-band technology; 2023 Arizona Technology Council Innovation Leader of the Year.
Phemotron Systems (US/Japan/Nigeria — CEO Femi Ishola) — Small satellite engineering including the AI-MotherBox-1, a multifunctional cubesat with a high-performance AI engine.
Planetary Systems AI (Washington, DC — CEO Cindy Chin) — AI and ML models for space infrastructure and software challenges; analytics provider to U.S. Space Systems Command.
Spacemap (Seoul, South Korea — CEO Douglas Deok-Soo Kim) — Satellite orbit optimization using Voronoi diagrams and AI; offers 42Talks, a virtual collaboration platform with 4D space-time satellite modeling.
ThinkOrbital (Lafayette, CO — VP Justin Chandler) — In-orbit large structure development; ThinkPlatform is a single-launch multi-mission space platform for satellite servicing, debris processing, and in-space manufacturing. First spacecraft launched May 2024 demonstrated welding in space. VS
