These Aerospace Startups Are Out Of This World, But Made In Japan

Making shooting stars on demand sounds like quite the ambitious business pitch but if you’re in Japan, it’s an actual venture. Alongside it, businesses are building robots for space, satellite engines that use water and spacecraft designed to bring experiments home from orbit.

It’s such an interesting stage to watch because the progress is rarely balanced. A successful satellite demonstration can bring a company one step closer to commercial orders, yet one failed landing can result in months of investigations and another costly attempt down the line. And even after a successful flight, the burning question remains of whether or not the company can reliably repeat it – and at a justified price.

Japan’s Aerospace Industry Is Making Room For New Players

Startups innovating within Japan’s aerospace environment have a substantial engineering base to draw on, ranging from JAXA and established manufacturers to university research teams. Within the wider industry, there’s now more room for smaller companies to develop particular technologies or sell a specialised service.

The government’s ambitions are fairly sizeable too, aiming to double its space market from ¥4 trillion in 2020 to ¥8 trillion come the early 2030s. The JAXA-administered Space Strategy Fund, targeting roughly ¥1 trillion, supports projects for up to a decade. A timeline like that is especially necessary in an industry like this where a product often needs years of development before it’s ready for its first flight.

You’ve still got plenty of private investors and corporate investors involved as well, with several companies also turning to public markets.

8 Japanese Aerospace Startups To Watch

For anyone taking an interest in Japan’s aerospace startup scene, these eight companies are definitely a good place to start because they all have very different ideas about where the opportunities lie. Here’s a closer look at what they’re building, the money behind them and how far they’ve come.

1. Astroscale

Space tends to have a bit of a housekeeping problem with defunct satellites and discarded rockets remaining in orbit, creating hazards for equipment that people still depend on. Astroscale is developing ways to inspect and service spacecraft while removing debris.

Its ADRAS-J mission was able to safely approach an abandoned Japanese rocket upper stage and photograph it from 15 metres away which was an essential step towards a future removal attempt. In March of this year, ADRAS-J completed its operation and began to deorbit.

In February 2023, the company raised more than US $76 million in a Series G, with investors including Mitsubishi Electric and the Development Bank of Japan, before listing in Tokyo in June 2024.

2. ispace

ispace is a Tokyo-based startup aiming to male lunar deliveries a business that customers can book repeatedly. Universities or companies could purchase transport for its equipment while the journey is handled entirely by ispace, who is currently building lunar landers and rovers in Japan, the US and Luxembourg.

Two months ago, the company announced a ¥11.6 billion grant for technology to land near the Moon’s poles. While their first two landing attempts, in April 2023 and June 2025, were unsuccessful, their next landing mission is planned for 2028 after an investigation found a problem with the laser range finder used during descent.

3. Synspective

Synspective’s StriX satellites use synthetic aperture radar, or SAR, to observe Earth at night and through cloud cover – which is helpful when bad weather is the reason that infrastructure managers or disaster-response teams need information in the first place.

The company launched its thirteenth satellite last month and just a week ago, it announced an agreement with Rocket Lab for twenty more launches between 2028 and 2031, giving it room to expand its constellation. They also announced plans for a ¥20 billion syndicated loan to fund satellite manufacturing and launches as a larger fleet will allow for more frequent observations of the same areas.

4. GITAI

After equipment has arrived in space, it needs to be assembled, inspected and, most importantly, maintained. GITAI is developing robots to take on those jobs to reduce the amount of work requiring astronauts. While founded in Japan, the company moved its headquarters to California in 2023.

GITAI announced a US $15.5 million funding in November 2024, taking its Series B extension total to US $60.5 million. More recently, the company announced the completion of its S3 robotic satellite flight model in June. The launch has now been deferred until after 2028 in order to prioritise a US Space Force programme.

5. Pale Blue

Pale Blue builds small satellite engines that use water as a propellant. Water is more widely available and safer to handle than hazardous propellants which can make spacecraft preparation less troublesome. The company emerged from the University of Tokyo in 2020 with a focus on the movement that satellites need after launch.

Its August 2025 Series C raised roughly ¥1.5 billion to strengthen production, quality control and development. For the company, the next commercial challenge is producing dependable engines in quantity.

6. Axelspace

Axelspace has been building microsatellites for almost two decades and has launched AxelGlobe which supplies optical Earth observation imagery alongside AxelLiner which helps customers to develop and operate satellites of their own. That in itself handles a considerable amount of work, from assessing feasibility and designing spacecraft to arranging launch and operating in orbit.

In its December 2023 Series D, Axelspace Holdings raised ¥6.24 billion and listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s Growth Market in August of 2025.

7. ALE

If you had to try explain the easiest idea on this list at a party, it would probably be ALE’s and that is making shooting stars on demand. The proposed system releases specially developed metal spheres from a satellite and as they enter the atmosphere, they produce visible streaks. ALE expects them to move more slowly than natural meteors, giving people more time to watch them move across the sky.

It also serves a research purpose as observing these artificial meteors could provide information about winds and atmospheric composition in the mesosphere, which is typically tricky to study with balloons and aircraft. In a 2019 Series A round, the company raised US $11 million led by Horizons Ventures.

8. ElevationSpace

ElevationSpace is a Sendai-based startup developing spacecraft and recovery services to handle the return trip. Its ELS-R platform is designed to host research and manufacturing in space, then return payloads to Earth. Alongside that, the company is working on ELS-RS, a service that is intended to bring cargo back from space stations more frequently.

In June this year, ElevationSpace raised raised US $40 million in a Series B, bringing its reported funding to roughly US $63.5 million.