Orca Aerospace, a five-person San Francisco startup in Y Combinator's Fall 2026 batch, is building an AI spacecraft operator that runs on the satellite itself rather than in a ground control room, according to its YC directory entry. The company has not disclosed a funding round, and as of Oct. 28, 2026, the YC listing and a single job posting are the only public signals of its progress.
The timing is notable. The industry is arguing over how much decision-making to hand to software in orbit, and Via Satellite reported on Sept. 17, 2026 that space leaders see AI shifting from tool to autonomous decision-maker. "Now it is about trust," the publication wrote.
What Orca says it does
The YC entry describes "AI spacecraft operators that lives onboard the vehicle," in which "AI models control the satellite using deterministic tooling." The company's website tagline reads: "Mission Control, Onboard."
The architecture splits the mission "what" from the flight-safety "how," per the listing. AI models decide what the spacecraft should do, and deterministic tooling, meaning software that behaves identically every time it is given the same inputs, governs how it gets done. "At Orca, we are focused on creating the future of spacecraft operations by moving control onto the vehicle," the company said.
Orca's site also says it is registered for U.S. government and defense contracts under CAGE code 1YYL8. A CAGE code is the identifier the federal government assigns to suppliers.
The founders, and a grant that may or may not be theirs
CEO Jacob Ososke is a former Lockheed Martin Space guidance, navigation and control leader who, according to his YC profile, founded that unit's first AI-GNC team. He holds a master's in robotics from Santa Clara and a master's in computer science from Georgia Tech.
CTO Hakan Chunton earned a bachelor's degree in 2025 and a master of engineering in 2026 at MIT, in aerospace, computer science and data science, according to the page for MIT's Aerospace Controls Lab. His research covers reinforcement learning, optimal control and trajectory optimization.
Federal records add a wrinkle. USAspending shows a NASA Small Business Innovation Research Phase I award of $224,941, running from Sept. 30, 2026 to March 30, 2027, for "Resilient Onboard AI for Fault Detection, Diagnosis, and Recovery in Small Spacecraft Swarms." The recipient is listed as Otter Aerospace Inc. of Novato, California, under the same CAGE code Orca uses. A connection between the two seems likely, but no public filing confirms it, so the link should be treated as unverified.
