Santa Cruz Works is excited to share some of the applicants who have applied to our Santa Cruz Accelerates Program. We will be featuring a handful of startups each week!

Name of your startup: Space.Org

Names of people on your team: Thomas Leavitt, John McEntee, Christopher Yeh

A snapshot of the problem your startup will solve to make the world a better place:

The current design and build paradigm for satellites exploring deep space (hand-built one-offs) is enormously expensive, limiting space exploration to the exclusive realm of “Big Science,” accessible only by the most well funded public sector entities (NASA, ESA, JAXA). As a result, the exploration of space has been relegated to sporadic, measured, and rare projects, incapable of meeting the burgeoning needs of the larger scientific community.
We can change this! By applying modular design in conjunction with modern production techniques and processes, we can dramatically reduce the cost of manufacturing satellites and satellite components, thus empowering a much broader variety of public sector, commercial and academic entities worldwide to participate in the exploration of our solar system. In combination with anticipated near to mid-term decreases in the “cost to launch” beyond Earth orbit, our Ultra Low Cost Satellite Bus (ULCSB) will make deep space research a routine and ongoing process resulting in a continuous stream of scientifically relevant exploration from every part of the solar system.

“Our team is excited by the opportunity Santa Cruz Accelerate provides to found and grow a startup in beautiful Santa Cruz County, where key members have lived much of their lives. The community-based, fee and equity free model it uses gives us access to a bevy of resources, human and otherwise, that we’d otherwise struggle to obtain on our own. Working with Santa Cruz Accelerate will enable us to focus our time and energy on the most crucial parts of establishing our business: product development, targeted outreach to potential partners, and recruiting additional team members.”

To learn more about our Accelerates Program or apply, click the link below.