Top 8 Deorbiting startups

Updated: Apr 23, 2026
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These startups are delivering space debris, spacecraft or rocket parts, scientific experiment results or manufactured products from space to Earth.
1
Starfish Space
Country: USA | Funding: $174.6M
Starfish Space develops and manufactures autonomous spacecraft that perform satellite servicing missions in orbit. This small, affordable servicing vehicle is capable of extending the lifespan of satellites and disposing them. For example, it can dock with a satellite and use its own fuel to maintain its functionality, perform in-space inspections, relocate satellites into orbit and provide logistics services, repair and upgrade components, perform in-space assembly and manufacturing. The company has developed guidance and control software, binocular computer vision system for navigation, docking device that can be attached to virtually any flat surface.
2
Inversion Space
Country: USA | Funding: $54.1M
Inversion builds space capsules to return cargo back to Earth for the commercial, civil, and defense industries.
3
Space Forge
Country: UK | Funding: $51M
Space Forge allows to produce super materials in space that are impossible to create on Earth. In particular it'is using space-derived crystal seeds to grow ultra-high quality semiconductor substrates. It's operating own world-first reusable, returnable orbital manufacturing platform (ForgeStar) and provides microgravity-as-a-service for manufacturing on low Earth orbit. The space environment offers a unique set of environmental conditions that are hugely beneficial for certain processes: vacuum, lower ambient pressure, weightlessness, near-zero temperatures. Rapid, reliable and returnable vehicle to harness the space environment for your needs. The company has also developed return system thatl brings precious cargo back to Earth gently, with no shock on landing in an innovative vehicle with a precision engineered capture and recovery system.
4
Outpost
Country: USA | Funding: $32.5M
Outpost is a space company that provides earth return satellites and orbital payload missions.
5
Outpost Space
Country: USA | Funding: $32.5M
Outpost is a space company that provides earth return satellites and orbital payload missions.
6
Atmos Space Cargo
Country: Germany | Funding: €19.4M
ATMOS Space Cargo develops and manufactures space capsules to return cargo from space, microgravity experiments to entire rocket stages.
7
InspeCity
Country: India | Funding: $12M
Inspecity is a satellite servicing startup that offers satellite life-enhancing and deorbiting services, positioning itself as the ‘space mechanics’.
8
Vestigo Aerospace
Country: USA | Funding: $750K
Vestigo Aerospace provides deorbit capability for cubeSats, small satellites, and launch vehicle stages.
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Boris Maslennikov
Editor: Boris Maslennikov
Boris Maslennikov is a senior editor for Space-Startups. He has spent more than a decade covering the global space industry as a business journalist. He earned a Ph.D. in planetary sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree with honors in geophysics and planetary science from the California Institute of Technology. In his free time, Boris enjoys studying history and mathematics, with a particular interest in the history of mathematics. You can contact Boris at borismaslenikov(at)space-startups(dot)com