Solstar Space

Solstar Space Co. was founded in Santa Fe, New Mexico in March 2017 by Brian Barnett to bring commercial wireless internet connectivity to space. The company develops communications hardware and managed network services purpose-built for the rigours of the space environment — from low Earth orbit and suborbital vehicles to lunar orbit, lunar surface habitats, and beyond Earth-Moon space. Products integrate into spacecraft, space stations, rovers, and spacesuits, enabling crew communications, IoT telemetry, payload command-and-control, and broadband data downlink.

Solstar achieved a landmark milestone in 2018, demonstrating the first commercial WiFi hotspot aboard a spacecraft during a Blue Origin New Shepard flight — including the first commercial tweet sent from above the Kármán line. This was followed by the first demonstrated internet connection between a commercial satellite constellation and a spacecraft at rocket velocity aboard an UP Aerospace vehicle. The Schmitt Space Communicator was subsequently accessioned into the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

The company's current product lineup covers narrowband IoT (Deke Space Communicator), broadband data and video (Slayton Space Communicator), and radiation-hardened WiFi access points for lunar and station environments (Solstar LWIFI-X). In 2025 Solstar received a NASA SBIR contract for Lunar Wi-Fi system development, and in 2026 its Deke communicator will fly aboard Momentus' Vigoride-7 OTV on SpaceX Transporter-16.