Silicon Valley’s most successful incubator is doubling down on space tugs

TransAstra was founded in 2015 with the goal of mining asteroids. Yet harvesting resources out in the solar system, for all its appeal, is still far from feasible. Moving orbiting spacecraft around Earth? That is a service companies are willing to pay for, right now.

The trick of space business might be developing a lucrative path to a far-off vision. Elon Musk may want to retire on Mars and SpaceX may enable him to do so, but what’s significant about the firm is that it earns money providing space services in demand right now.

TransAstra founder and CEO Joel Sercel will, in theory, perform a similar sleight of hand: When its first spacecraft, dubbed Worker Bee, reaches orbit in 2023, it will show off a novel thruster technology called solar thermal propulsion, and earn money by precisely positioning satellites launched on larger rockets. And if that succeeds, it will launch a fleet of solar-powered spacecraft into orbit—and perhaps realize a larger vision of harvesting commodities from asteroids.

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