ThinkOrbital

ThinkOrbital builds around one tool, an electron beam gun. In vacuum an electron beam welds, cuts, X-rays and 3D prints, and orbit supplies the vacuum for free. The long-term design is ThinkPlatform, a spherical station hull launched as flat plates and welded together in space, enclosing more pressurised volume than the ISS from a single launch. The near-term product is more modest: the same gun used as an X-ray source, inspecting other spacecraft for the Space Force.

Sebastian Asprella and Vojtech Holub founded the company in Colorado in 2021, and Lee Rosen, who ran launch operations at SpaceX for years, joined as a third cofounder. The bet is that large structures will eventually be built in place rather than folded out of fairings, and that welding is the missing trade.

Two demonstrations have flown, both small. Flight-1, in May 2024, performed the first autonomous electron beam weld in space, though on a suborbital ride: the welder was mounted to a Falcon 9 booster, got minutes of vacuum, and the samples came back down with the booster for NASA and ESA to examine. Flight-2, in December 2024, was the orbital test, a 39-kilogram free flyer carrying welding, cutting and X-ray experiments on a battery life of hours, and its results have never been published. The station remains a design. The revenue so far is study contracts, and the first proper seed round arrived in January 2026.