San Francisco-based Cascade Space has announced it has raised $5.9 million in seed funding from investors, including Y Combinator, to design, test, and operate space end-to-end communications systems.

With a three-person team possessing a history at SpaceX, Orion Labs, and Astranis, the startup was founded to expand the industry’s means of building new and bespoke communications, which it supports today through the release of its open-source spacelink Python library. The new funding will go toward the development of the Cascade Portal, a more comprehensive platform for planning communications systems in space.

Its founder and CEO, Jacob Portukalian, designed the communication system of the Crew Dragon reusable spacecraft at SpaceX.

“Our mission at Cascade Space is to provide tools and infrastructure for spacecraft communication system design, test, and operations that will allow our customers to ship faster with the highest levels of mission assurance,” Portukalian said in a statement. “Communication system design, test, and operation is a major bottleneck for space companies, especially those going to lunar and deep space. We have a team of veteran space engineers from SpaceX and Astra, and we are stoked to be building the end-to-end platform to accelerate space exploration.”

Formerly known as Heliosphere Network, the company aspires to use AI-powered tools to support humanity’s future beyond Earth, making human habitation and asteroid mining possible.

In a blog post published the Y-Combinator site in May, Portukalian explained that NASA’s deep space network was oversubscribed by 40 percent and in dire need of modernization, with too many devolved dish opertators across the ground network, and vowed to simplify the process of getting communications from concept to reality, offering a “ground station in a box."

The company intends to strategically build its own ground stations, which it expects to come online this year, with more to follow in 2026. Further details haven't been shared.

Investors included Y-Combinator, Nova Threshold, Undeterred Capital, Night Capital, Olive Capital, Valkyrie Ventures, Karman Ventures, Palm Drive Capital, Garage Capital, TRAC, Aurelia Foundry, Hawktail, MGV.VC, Pioneer Fund, Liquid 2 Ventures, and others, making for 15 investors total.

Cascade Space did not respond to DCD’s request for comment.