Space DOTS has secured a $1.5 million seed round to accelerate a platform that helps satellite builders and operators identify the real causes of anomalies in orbit. The London- and U.S.-based startup, founded by aerospace veteran Bianca Cefalo, is building what it calls SKY-I—software that fuses in-orbit sensor data with external intelligence to attribute natural and human-made threats across multiple orbital regimes.
The round was led by Female Founders Fund, with participation from Feel Ventures and General Electric Company, bringing Space DOTS’ total funding to $3.2 million. The company says it will use the capital to expand its engineering and data science teams and deploy additional space-based payloads that feed the SKY-I engine.
Why orbital threat attribution matters
Keeping spacecraft alive has never been harder. The U.S. Space Surveillance Network tracks tens of thousands of objects in orbit, while the European Space Agency estimates more than 36,000 pieces of debris larger than 10 centimeters, about a million between 1 and 10 centimeters, and well over a hundred million smaller fragments. Even millimeter-scale particles can puncture thermal blankets or chip sensors, creating cascading risks that are difficult to diagnose from the ground.
Environmental hazards are only part of the equation. Space weather can heat the upper atmosphere and increase drag, disrupt radio links, and degrade electronics. A widely cited example: a moderate geomagnetic storm caused dozens of newly launched internet satellites to fail reentry maneuvers and burn up, underscoring how quickly conditions can change. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center regularly issues alerts for solar storms that can spike the Kp index, but translating those alerts into spacecraft-specific risk remains a gap for many operators.
There are also human-originated threats—radio frequency interference, spoofing, directed energy, and debris-generating events—that often masquerade as “random glitches.” Cefalo argues that a meaningful share of on-orbit anomalies stem from misunderstood or misattributed environmental and operational factors, a claim echoed by post-mission reviews conducted across the industry. Without reliable attribution, operators over-engineer hardware, underwrite bad assumptions, or simply get blindsided.
Inside the SKY-I approach
Space DOTS is building a data fabric that blends proprietary in-orbit measurements—such as radiation dose, particle flux, thermal and structural responses, magnetic field variations, and RF environment snapshots—with external sources like conjunction data, solar wind parameters, geomagnetic indices, and ground radar assessments. The aim is to deliver real-time “nowcasts” of local risk, explain what likely caused an anomaly, and forecast near-term exposure for the next orbit or the next day.
Rather than ship all data to a single ground node, the company is designing a decentralized software architecture. Processing is distributed across spacecraft, hosted payloads, and ground clusters to reduce latency and maintain resilience if links degrade—a useful property for cislunar operations or contested environments. For manufacturers, that means the ability to validate designs against actual orbital conditions; for operators, it means actionable alerts tied to their specific orbit, attitude, and subsystem configuration.
Space DOTS says it is already collecting data from an on-orbit payload and plans multiple follow-on deployments to broaden coverage across low Earth orbit and other regimes. The company’s roadmap includes feature extraction for faster root-cause analysis and shared taxonomies that let operators label events consistently across fleets.
A crowded market, but a distinct focus
The space safety and intelligence market is expanding rapidly. Companies like LeoLabs provide precision tracking and conjunction warnings; Slingshot Aerospace and others deliver space domain awareness; players such as Mission Space and Ensemble Space Labs focus on space-weather monitoring and environment sensing. Space DOTS positions itself at the intersection of these domains with a priority on threat attribution: not just flagging that “something happened,” but explaining what and why in the context of a specific vehicle.
Cefalo contends the company’s advantage lies in owning both the sensing layer and the analytics stack, enabling faster loops between raw measurements and operator guidance. Rather than treating other providers as rivals, Space DOTS frames its tools as complementary—data and models that can plug into broader traffic management, insurance underwriting, and mission assurance workflows used by commercial and government customers.
Founder pedigree and early customers
Cefalo’s background spans thermofluid analysis on a NASA Mars mission and product management at a major European satellite prime, where she worked on large telecom platforms. That mix of deep engineering and operational exposure informs SKY-I’s emphasis on subsystem-level signatures—how radiation manifests in memory errors, how charging shows up in attitude control behavior, or how drag spikes translate into orbit determination residuals.
While the company has not disclosed specific contracts, the target buyers are clear: satellite manufacturers seeking to harden designs with real environment data, operators managing constellations where minutes matter, and defense users who need to distinguish space weather from hostile interference. Insurers are another logical audience, as attribution can tighten actuarial models and claims processing.
Funding use and what comes next
The new capital will fuel hiring across radiation effects, RF analytics, and data engineering, and support additional payload integrations to increase geographic and orbital diversity. Space DOTS also plans to expand its presence in London and the United States, aligning with customers and launch opportunities.
If it delivers, SKY-I could help shift the industry from generic “space weather” excuses to evidence-based operations—turning scattered signals into cause-and-effect insight. In a domain where a single unexplained reset can ripple into lost missions or costly redesigns, attribution isn’t a luxury; it’s the difference between guessing and governing.