Pulse Space recently received a $40 million award from the U.S. Space Force to develop optical intersatellite links (ISLs), orbital tracking systems, and space-based laser-power beaming technologies, funding that was shortly followed by Ravee Optics securing a $6 million seed round to develop similar solutions, developing ultra-compact laser ISLs in the hope of addressing the satellite data bottleneck.

“AI is driving a surge in data in space, and the systems to move that data haven’t kept up,” Emma Off, CEO of Ravee investor CincyTech, noted. “Ravee is focused on solving that bottleneck with an approach built for scale.”

The two investments are a small step in the wider orbital optical revolution. This includes the rising ubiquity of optical intersatellite links that are tempting experimental space-based laser technologies such as power beamforming, which wirelessly transmits electrical power over great distances, and space-to-ground optical communications, which aim to beam large volumes of data from orbit.

Both of these experimental applications possess less obvious use cases than optical intersatellite links due to the difficulties of sending power or data via laser through Earth’s atmosphere. These include the potential for transmissions to be disrupted or fully blocked due to weather and the need for specialized optical power receiver technology.

Ravee & the ODC bottleneck

Ravee emphasized the data transmission bottleneck surrounding the current orbital data center (ODC) trend. This includes the order of magnitude improvement in throughput of optical data transmission compared to radio frequency (RF) alternatives, though the firm made little mention of the space-to-earth challenge, which today hinges upon the all-weather reliability of RF transmission.

Ravee was founded by Shah and Augustine Urbas, with assistance from the Air Force Research Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio. Ravee emerged from the Seraphim Space Accelerator initiative in 2025, and has since generated early revenue through military testing programs to validate its core optical technologies.

The firm's seed funding round was led by BIG Capital, a joint stock company in Vietnam, and included participation of JobsOhio Ventures and Cincinnati-based CincyTech.

Pulse Space & Golden Dome

Bellecue, Washington-based Pulse Space was founded in 2022, with a focus on developing a system to collect solar energy in orbit and transmit it via laser to remote space-based nodes, and the additional capabilities of optically transmitting data or tracking objects in space.

“This historic $40 million award is a defining moment for Pulse Space, and I am exceptionally proud of our team for making it happen,” Pulse Space Founder and CEO Karl Stedman noted in a statement on the recent financial award.

Pulse Space had previously garnered a $1.9 million U.S. Air Force contract supporting its laser military communications technology, and before that completed a $5.72 million seed investment round with investors including Divergent Capital, GreyArch Partners, Shake and Bake Productions, and Techstars.

The company has made its way onto the Missile Defense Agency’s list of potential vendors for the Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) program. That program encompasses applications in support of the Pentagon’s Golden Dome project, which has presented a pattern for picking out space-based power beaming technologies.

Virtually all satellites use solar panels to collect the power they need to operate, making power beaming inside orbit superfluous for the majority of spacecraft. This, combined with the sustained American military interest in optical power beaming connected to Golden Dome, implies new applications are under advisement.

However, there are technical limitations.

General John Raymond (Ret.), the former first chief of space operations of the United States Space Force and now senior managing director at Cerberus Ventures, recently cited such challenges for orbital power beaming.

"Energy and infrastructure resilience are core national and economic priorities on Earth, as in orbit," Raymond explained in support of Cerberus’ co-leadership of optical power beaming company Star Catcher’s $65 million Series A funding round. "Persistent surveillance, resilient communications, and unhindered maneuverability are all constrained today by power. An on-demand power grid can change that, expanding critical capabilities across commercial and national security missions."

Maneuverability limitations are due to combustible propellant, not energy, though experimental technologies such as electrodynamic tether and solar sails aspire to move spacecraft with power alone. Another power-hungry application long considered impractical are directed energy weapons, which have been long dismissed as missile defense tools both for being hard to power and difficult to aim at effective distances.