Robotics Companies

MDA Space

Brampton, Canada commercial

MDA Space (TSX: MDA) is a leading Canadian space technology company with over 50 years of heritage building systems that operate in some of the most demanding environments on Earth and in space. The company is best known for developing Canadarm (Space Shuttle) and Canadarm2 (International Space Station), iconic robotic systems that placed Canada among the world's space powers. MDA's three business lines are robotics and space operations (including Canadarm3, originally built for the Lunar Gateway and since August 2026 being redirected by the Canadian Space Agency toward lunar surface logistics for Artemis), geointelligence (processing and analyzing imagery from RADARSAT and other satellite constellations), and satellite systems (manufacturing communications and Earth observation satellites). MDA is the satellite manufacturer for Telesat Lightspeed's LEO constellation and builds satellite components for SatixFy, Globalstar, and others. The company went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2021, raising $400M in its IPO, and employs more than 4,000 people across Canada, the UK and the US.

Redwire

Jacksonville, United States commercial

Redwire Corporation is a leading space infrastructure company pioneering in-space manufacturing, 3D bioprinting, and advanced spacecraft systems. With over 20 facilities developed for the International Space Station and 10 currently operating on orbit, Redwire is advancing capabilities that will enable humanity to live and work sustainably in space. In May 2024, Redwire successfully 3D bioprinted the first live human heart tissue sample through its BioFabrication Facility (BFF) aboard the ISS. This breakthrough tissue returned to Earth in April 2024, opening doors to creating heart patches for damaged tissue treatment and more effective personalized medicine. The company plans to bioprint human blood vessels and knee meniscus tissue on future missions. The MSTIC (Manufacturing of Semiconductors and Thin-Film Integrated Coatings) facility completed its pathfinder mission in 2024, manufacturing 18 thin-film semiconductor samples to explore beneficial effects of microgravity on these structures. Launched on Northrop Grumman's NG-20 cargo mission in February 2024, MSTIC is an autonomous semiconductor manufacturing platform developed with the ISS National Laboratory and NASA. Redwire's Additive Manufacturing Facility produced 3D-printed radiation shielding on orbit, recycling polyethylene from packaging waste into filament for AstroRad radiation vest inserts, addressing a major hazard for deep space missions. The company broke ground on a new state-of-the-art microgravity payload development and space operations facility in Floyd County, Indiana. Redwire continues expanding in-space manufacturing capabilities to meet growing demand for space-based research and production.

ispace

Tokyo, Japan commercial

ispace is a Japanese lunar exploration company developing commercial lunar landers and transportation services. The company's Hakuto-R Mission 2, named Resilience, launched on SpaceX Falcon 9 on January 15, 2025, successfully reaching lunar orbit on May 6, 2025. On June 5, 2025, the lander attempted to touch down at the lunar south pole but experienced a hard landing after its Laser Range Finder encountered delays obtaining valid measurements. The technical analysis confirmed the lander likely impacted the lunar surface. Mission 2 carried TENACIOUS, the first European-built lunar rover (5 kg) designed and manufactured in Luxembourg with co-funding from the Luxembourg National Space Programme. After NASA and Draper ended the CLPS task order behind the ispace-U.S. APEX 1.0 lander in July 2026, ispace reset its roadmap: Mission 3 is now a Japan-built ULTRA lander targeting a 2028 launch on an H3 rocket, and Mission 4 a second ULTRA lander in 2029 carrying ESA's MAGPIE rover, while ispace-U.S. pursues NASA's CLPS 2.0 programme. The company continues working toward establishing lunar transportation infrastructure.

Canadian Space Agency

Longueuil, Canada government

The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) is Canada's federal space agency, established in 1989 and headquartered in Longueuil, Quebec, responsible for the peaceful use and development of space, advancing space science, developing space technologies, and promoting commercial exploitation of space for the benefit of Canadians. Canada's most celebrated contribution to human spaceflight is the Canadarm family of robotic manipulators. The original Canadarm flew on all 135 Space Shuttle missions from 1981 to 2011 as the Remote Manipulator System (RMS). Canadarm2, installed on the International Space Station in 2001, is a 17.6-meter robotic arm that assembles station modules, captures visiting cargo vehicles, and supports spacewalks. Dextre (Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator), installed in 2008, provides fine-dexterity maintenance capability for ISS exterior tasks. Together these systems gave Canada permanent relevance in human spaceflight through robotics expertise. CSA contributions to space science include the Fine Guidance Sensor and NIRISS (Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph) instrument package on the James Webb Space Telescope, and the RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM, launched 2019) — three C-band SAR satellites providing all-weather surveillance of Canadian maritime zones, Arctic regions, and agriculture. Canadian astronauts including Chris Hadfield, David Saint-Jacques, and Jeremy Hansen (Artemis II lunar flyby crew) have conducted ISS expeditions and NASA mission assignments. CSA's Lunar Gateway contribution includes the Canadarm3 robotic system for the proposed cislunar station.

Advanced Navigation

Sydney, Australia commercial

Advanced Navigation, founded in 2012 and based in Sydney, Australia, is a provider of AI-based inertial navigation systems and robotics technologies for a diverse range of applications. The company specializes in solutions for sea, land, air, and increasingly, space environments, offering products designed to operate reliably even when GNSS signals are denied, degraded, or disrupted. Their core offerings include the Boreas series utilizing Fiber Optic Gyro (FOG) technology, and the Certus line, which combines MEMS technology with dual-antenna RTK GNSS for high-accuracy positioning and heading. Advanced Navigation distinguishes itself through a focus on robust, ITAR-free navigation solutions, serving industries such as defense, mining, and subsea operations. Notably, the company’s LUNA sensor is being utilized by Intuitive Machines for the upcoming IM-4 lunar mission, carrying NASA payloads, demonstrating its capabilities in challenging space environments. Recent news highlights a multi-million dollar deal with Kongsberg to integrate Advanced Navigation’s strategic-grade FOG INS technology into their defense systems, and the development of new defense-ready inertial navigation systems with integrated electronic protection capabilities. With a growing global presence and over systems deployed worldwide, Advanced Navigation positions itself as a leader in providing performance-driven, reliable navigation solutions for critical applications.

Altius Space Machines

Broomfield, United States commercial

Altius Space Machines, founded in 2010 and based in Broomfield, Colorado, is a company focused on the emerging in-space services market. The company specializes in the development of technologies for satellite capture and manipulation in orbit. Specifically, Altius designs and builds mechanisms intended to enable on-orbit servicing, repair, and potentially, relocation or de-orbiting of existing spacecraft. While detailed information regarding specific technologies is limited in publicly available sources, Altius’ core competency lies in robotic capture systems. These systems are critical for enabling complex in-space operations that extend the lifespan and utility of satellites, and address the growing need for sustainable space operations and orbital debris mitigation. Currently, publicly available information does not detail specific missions, achievements, or customer lists for Altius Space Machines. However, the company’s focus on satellite capture positions it within a rapidly growing sector driven by both government and commercial demand for on-orbit servicing, life extension, and active debris removal. Altius Space Machines’ unique value proposition centers on providing the essential robotic “hands” needed to execute a variety of in-space servicing missions. As the demand for extending the life of valuable satellite assets and addressing the challenges of space debris increases, Altius is positioned to become a key enabler of a more sustainable and economically viable space ecosystem.

Basalt

San Francisco, United States commercial

Basalt is a Y Combinator W24 graduate developing Dispatch, a spacecraft operating system and fleet coordination platform that provides autonomous tasking, scheduling, and conflict resolution for satellite constellations spanning hardware from multiple manufacturers — addressing the growing fragmentation of the commercial satellite industry where operators increasingly field mixed fleets of satellites from different vendors with incompatible ground software interfaces. The Dispatch OS abstracts over satellite-specific command interfaces to present a unified API for mission operators, enabling a single software platform to schedule imaging requests, manage propellant budgets, coordinate collision avoidance maneuvers, and optimize coverage across satellites from different manufacturers — eliminating the need to maintain separate mission operations software stacks for each vendor's hardware. This multi-manufacturer compatibility is the company's core differentiator: as commercial operators increasingly procure satellites from multiple suppliers to reduce concentration risk and access the best-in-class subsystems from a competitive market, the mission software complexity multiplies rapidly without an abstraction layer. Basalt raised a $3.5M seed round to develop the platform, targeting mid-size constellation operators (10-100 satellites) who lack the engineering resources to build custom orchestration software but need more flexibility than standard turnkey mission operations center solutions. The company competes in the adjacent space with Cognitive Space (AI mission planning, Austin TX), Orbit Logic (professional mission planning tools for civil agencies), and the growing internal software teams at Planet Labs, Spire, and other large commercial constellation operators who have built proprietary orchestration platforms that smaller competitors cannot afford to replicate.

ETH Zurich Space

Zurich, Switzerland academic

ETH Zurich (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule) is Switzerland's leading technical university and one of Europe's top space research institutions. ETH's space activities span robotics (the renowned Autonomous Systems Lab has produced Mars rover and space manipulator technology), satellite systems (ETH has built small satellites including the Flying Laptop), planetary science, and autonomous spacecraft navigation. The Robotic Systems Lab's ANYmal legged robot has been adapted for planetary surface exploration concepts. ETH Zurich hosts the ESA/EPFL/ETH Space Center and collaborates with ESA on multiple science and engineering programs. The university has produced numerous space startup founders and scientists working at ESA, NASA, and commercial space companies, and its proximity to EPFL (Lausanne) creates a strong Swiss academic space cluster that feeds the European space industry.

Georgia Institute of Technology

Atlanta, United States academic

The Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) is consistently ranked among the top two U.S. aerospace engineering programs, alongside MIT, producing graduates who populate NASA, SpaceX, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and the NewSpace startup ecosystem. Located in Atlanta, Georgia, the school was founded in 1930 with a focus that has expanded from aviation to encompass space systems design, hypersonics, astrodynamics, satellite technology, electric propulsion, and autonomous aerospace vehicles. Georgia Tech's Space Systems Design Lab (SSDL), led for decades by Dr. David Spencer (now PI on the LightSail program at The Planetary Society), is one of the premier university satellite development programs in the world. SSDL has built and flown multiple CubeSats and small satellites, developing the full mission lifecycle from concept through operations, producing spacecraft engineers with hands-on flight experience. SSDL's Prox-1 mission flew as a secondary payload on SpaceX's Falcon Heavy STP-2 flight in 2019, demonstrating autonomous proximity operations — a key technology for on-orbit servicing, debris removal, and formation flying. In hypersonics, Georgia Tech's research program encompasses aerothermodynamics, scramjet propulsion, and hypersonic vehicle design, funded by DARPA, the Air Force Research Laboratory, and NASA. This connects directly to space launch vehicle reentry aerodynamics and next-generation hypersonic strike and surveillance vehicles. The school's Advanced Concepts Laboratory (ACL) conducts systems architecture studies for NASA mission concepts, particularly in planetary science and human exploration. Georgia Tech operates the Space Policy and International Security program and participates in NASA's University Leadership Initiative (ULI) and Space Technology Research Grants (STRG) programs. The school's entrepreneurial pipeline — through Georgia Tech's Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) and CREATE-X startup program — has produced space venture alumni including executives at companies across the NewSpace ecosystem. The school enrolls approximately 600 undergraduate and 500 graduate aerospace students.