Space DOTS

Making on-orbit qualification of advanced materials and small components, faster, cheaper, and simpler.

Created: 2023-02-23

Updated: 2025-09-06

Company - Space DOTS

Founded
Country: 2021; UK

Funding: $5.1M

Website: https://space-dots.com/

Social

Product/Service - BARNACLE DOT, INDY DOT

Classification: Miscellaneous

Category: Microgravity Flight Service (LEO)
Microgravity Research Payloads

Fields: Automated Microgravity Laboratory

Status: Demonstrated, Launched, Pivot, Cancelled

First launch: 2025

Currently the development of new materials, electronics, or coatings suffers high development costs and expensive failures late in the development.

And once a development is complete there is still a barrier to successful commercialization, as customers are not keen to fly first a new unproven product.

Using our Pico-sat active testing labs and independent platforms, Space DOTS® offers a route to first-flight heritage and product confidence at low TRL levels.

BARNACLE DOT

A Pico-sat with active testing labs for samples in a 0.1U volume, hosted on existing commercial Smallsats and ridesharing services to LEO, GEO and Cislunar orbits. The product line consists of a first generation of 4x active test labs: Pull test lab, Torsion test lab, Thermo-optical properties test lab, Thermal conductivity test lab.

Space DOTS solution is the Barnacle DOT, a materials testing payload the size of a phone that can test the tensile strength and other properties of materials in space. The company is aiming to sell a full materials testing service from ground to results for under $500K, an order of magnitude less than what Cefalo says it costs today.

Space DOTS plans to have a working product by the end of 2024 and its first flight in 2025.

INDY DOT

The modular components used by the Barnacle DOTS can be reconfigured with a Pico-sat structure, modular add-ons and shared launch adaptor to provide a new class of flat-sat with either 0.07U or 0.15U payload volume, and moderate power capability. This satellite will be able to be launched in groups of either 4x in 0.5U or 8x in a 1U Cubesat volume, enabling miniaturized payloads to access space at a greatly reduced cost.

“What we do is a smartphone-sized version of a testing lab that anyone would use on ground to test materials’ properties before actually going into space. We have shrunk everything down so that it can be launched very quickly and easily at a lower cost, directly into orbit,” explains co-founder and CEO Bianca Cefalo.

SKY-I

Understanding the environment of space, for the benefit of Earth and beyond. We help our customers:

Reduce overdesign margins by up to 20%
Increase mission success rates
. Cut mission planning cycles from months to hours
Slash overdesign costs by millions
De-risk high-stakes defence and commercial missions
Accelerate qualification of advanced materials and components
Remove adoption barriers and boost supplier sales into the space industry.

SkyLens

2D and 3D Visualisation of Space Environments in real-time using our extensive datasets, mapping previously uncharted orbits.

SkyBlueprint

AI-Powered Mission Planning and Risk Mitigation, allowing operators to maximise resources and reduce costs, including suggestions for applicable standards.

SpaceCrafter

Automated Spacecraft Design Optimisation, using material and component recommendations to let designers focus on innovation whilst still giving them the ultimate control.

Space DOTS closed an undisclosed seed round to accelerate its transition from material-testing hardware to orbital environmental intelligence. Previous backers include Boost VC, Sie Ventures, 7percent Ventures, Blue Wire Capital & several angel investors. The funding will help Space DOTS develop systems that detect & interpret invisible natural & anthropogenic threats — enabling safer spacecraft design, threat attribution, risk mitigation, & resilient decision‑making across contested orbits from very‑low Earth orbit (VLEO) to deep space. Its existing Data DOT 1 module remains a cornerstone, providing on‑orbit sensing & data capture across multiple orbital regimes. CEO Bianca Cefalo says the company aims to pioneer orbital environmental intelligence & become the trusted partner for space‑faring organisations seeking to safeguard critical national security & defence assets.

Lunar Hardware

This launch also marks the beginning of another exciting chapter: developing our lunar mission hardware, a key step toward extending our reach and addressing the growing data gaps in off-planet environments, laying the groundwork for commercial operations across orbits, from GEO to the Moon and eventually deep space.

Status Comment

Seems to be out-of scope for this database as of early 2025. Website is more about in-situ sensing unit (environmental data and predictive platform), rather than in-orbit testing of materials as originally. Thus, marking as Cancelled, because the original materials testing business model was cancelled and pivoted.
As of August 2025, seems to be pivoting from materials testing to orbital environmental data.
Connecting the Dots | New tools for space qualification, SpaceNews, 2024-02-23.
SpaceDOTS is a passenger of ION SCV Eminent Emmanuel with its Data DOT, the Company's 1st space environmental data-gathering unit designed to collect critical data on environmental events, 2025-02-06.

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