Creating A New Universal Standard For Refueling Spacecraft

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

November 12, 2026

Duration

24m

Channel

YC Root Access

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Spaceium (S24) is building fully automated refueling stations in orbit so spacecraft can keep working instead of being discarded when they run out of fuel. Today, the company is announcing OpenPort, an open-standard refueling interface for spacecraft. For just $1, companies can license Spaceium's tech to build their own ports. In this episode of Founder Firesides, co-founders Ashi Dissanayake and Reza Fetanat discuss why their business is selling fuel, not ports, and how they use AI, in-house manufacturing, and repeated testing to build space hardware faster and more cheaply. They also share their journey from a laundry room to their first mission in orbit, plus plans for a xenon fuel-transfer test outside the International Space Station in 2027 and their first refueling station launch in 2028. https://spaceium.com Chapters: 00:00 — Why Spacecraft Need In-Space Refueling 03:36 — How OpenPort Works 07:07 — Why They’re Licensing OpenPort for $1 10:17 — From First Flight to a Refueling Station 13:52 — Building Space Hardware Like a Software Startup 17:11 — From a Laundry Room to Orbit 20:50 — First-Mission Lessons and the Future of Refueling Apply to Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply Work at a startup: https://www.ycombinator.com/jobs

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Ashi Dissanayake

  guest

  Co-founder of Spaceium (YC S24), working on an open standard refueling interface for spacecraft (OpenPort).

• Reza Fetanat

  guest

  Co-founder of Spaceium (YC S24), focusing on spacecraft refueling hardware and mission execution for OpenPort.

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of YC Root Access, featuring Ashi Dissanayake and Reza Fetanat, Creating A New Universal Standard For Refueling Spacecraft explores Spaceium unveils OpenPort: a $1-licensed standard for in-space refueling Spaceium’s founders describe building fully automated orbital refueling stations where spacecraft dock, refuel, and depart without humans in the loop.

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