Star Catcher Industries raised $65 million on May 12 to move its orbital power-beaming system from ground tests into space. The Jacksonville startup wants to build something satellite operators have never had before: a shared power grid in orbit. The near-term market is low Earth orbit, but the cislunar implication is bigger. If spacecraft can buy energy as a service instead of carrying every watt themselves, power becomes infrastructure, not just a subsystem. That changes how operators think about maneuvering, communications, surveillance, and future traffic between Earth and the Moon. Concept image of orbital power beaming between spacecraft. Credit: AI-generated image. The Deal: $65 Million to Prove Power Beaming in Orbit Star Catcher said its Series A round was led by B Capital, with Shield Capital and Cerberus Ventures also participating. The financing brings total capital raised by the company to $88 million , according to the company and SpaceNews reporting. The money is aimed at orbital demonstrations, not just more lab work. The company has already completed ground tests that pointed concentrated solar energy at satellite solar arrays. In March, Star Catcher demonstrated the approach over 100 meters at EverBank Stadium in Florida. Its next larger ground campaign has been tied to Space Florida support at the former Space Shuttle landing site at Kennedy Space Center, where the test plan calls for beaming hundreds of watts over more than a kilometer to multiple simulated satellites. $65M Series A raised $88M Total funding 2026 First in-space demo target 200 Planned LEO power satellites 10x Claimed potential power boost $60M Signed contracts reported Andrew Rush, Star Catcher's chief executive, described the strategy to SpaceNews as a hardware-rich crawl, walk, run campaign. The sequence matters because power beaming has to solve several hard problems at once: target acquisition, beam control, orbital geometry, safety, power conversion, and customer trust. A press release can call it a grid. An orbital demo has to prove that two moving spacecraft can close the link repeatedly and usefully. Why This Is a Cislunar Story Star Catcher is starting in LEO, but cislunar systems face the same constraint at a higher price: power limits drive antenna size, payload duty cycles, propulsion choices, thermal design, and battery mass. A working orbital energy service would become part of the infrastructure stack future lunar logistics networks need. AI-generated image Ground tests are being used to validate acquisition, tracking, and beam delivery before orbital demonstrations. Credit: AI-generated image. How the System Is Supposed to Work The basic concept is direct and ambitious. Star Catcher satellites collect solar energy, shape it into an optical beam, then point that energy at the solar panels of customer spacecraft. The company says clients do not need a custom receiver. In its public materials, Star Catcher says the network can deliver concentrated energy to existing solar arrays and scale available power by up to 10 times . That no-retrofit claim is the business hook. Spacecraft designers hate adding new hardware late in a program. If an operator can buy extra power without changing the satellite bus, the service becomes easier to adopt. It also makes the first addressable market broader, including imaging satellites, direct-to-device communications systems, orbital computing platforms, and national security spacecraft that need more time on task. Constraint Normal Satellite Design Response What External Power Could Change Payload demand Limit duty cycles or enlarge arrays Operate sensors and processors for longer windows Maneuvering Trade propulsion use against battery and array capacity Support more responsive repositioning if propulsion is power-limited Eclipse periods Carry batteries sized for worst-case operations Reduce energy margin pressure during high-demand mission phases Mission life Accept solar array degradation over time Recover useful capacity late in the mission The phrase used inside the industry is SWaP, short for size, weight, and power. Reusable launch has already changed the size and weight side of that trade by making more mass to orbit economically tolerable. Star Catcher's argument is that an orbital power grid could open the power side. If that happens, satellites can be designed around missions instead of around the worst energy day they might encounter. Why Investors Are Paying Attention Now The timing is not random. Low Earth orbit is filling with spacecraft that need more energy than traditional small satellite designs were built to provide. Direct-to-device communications wants bigger beams and more uptime. Synthetic aperture radar wants high-power imaging passes. Orbital data centers, still early and controversial, would make power the central economic input. National security operators want persistence, resilience, and maneuverability. Star Catcher says it has $60 million in signed contracts for in-space power delivery and a $3 billion pipeline of prospective customers. Those numbers should be treated as commercial signals, not proof of an operational market. Still, they explain why the round drew strategic defense and infrastructure investors. AI-generated image Early customers could include radar, direct-to-device communications, orbital computing, and national security spacecraft. Credit: AI-generated image. The board additions also say something about the target market. Retired Space Force Gen. Jay Raymond, the first chief of space operations, is joining Star Catcher's board through Cerberus. In Star Catcher's announcement and SpaceNews coverage, Raymond pointed to persistent surveillance, resilient communications, and unhindered maneuverability as capabilities constrained by power today. That defense connection is important for cislunar readers. The U.S. Space Force has spent the last year talking more openly about activity beyond geosynchronous orbit, space domain awareness, and the need to operate across a wider volume. A spacecraft that can maneuver more often, image more frequently, or keep communications payloads powered for longer becomes more valuable in that setting. Energy is not glamorous, but it is often the thing that decides whether a mission can stay useful. What Has to Be Proven • Pointing accuracy: The beam has to remain aligned with a moving client spacecraft and its solar arrays. • Useful delivered power: Demonstrations need to show enough usable energy to matter operationally, not only a successful link. • Safety and coordination: Operators and regulators will need confidence that beams do not create avoidable risks for other spacecraft. • Business cadence: A grid only becomes infrastructure if service is available often enough for customers to build plans around it. The Hard Part Is Not the Slogan Calling it a power grid is useful shorthand, but grids are not only power sources. They are scheduling systems, reliability systems, billing systems, safety regimes, interconnection standards, insurance assumptions, and customer habits. Star Catcher has to build at least part of that stack while also proving the optical hardware works in orbit. Orbital geometry makes the problem different from terrestrial power. A client satellite will not sit still under a beam. It will pass through windows of useful service. The power satellite has its own orbit, its own sunlight constraints, its own thermal limits, and its own attitude-control limits. The service becomes valuable when the network is dense enough to make those windows predictable. Regulation is another open question. Space-to-space beaming avoids some of the complications attached to sending energy through airspace to the ground. That does not make it free of oversight. Operators will still need to coordinate with other spacecraft, manage conjunction risk, and satisfy customers that the service will not damage solar arrays or interfere with sensors