Everything big humanity builds in space over the next two decades gets assembled in orbit, not launched whole. Shipwright builds the machines that will do it.
The binding constraint in space is shifting from mass to structure size — and every operation that is limited by structural size (servicing, debris capture, module swap, assembly) ends with a close approach to an object that is unprepared, and silent.
Cooperative docking sensors have been off the shelf for twenty years. The autonomous, uncooperative version has never existed — piloted operations take months and ground crews, and autonomous attempts keep failing.
Shipwright is closing that gap is where the orbital economy starts. That is the work.
Helm is a perception head and embedded autonomy stack for rendezvous and proximity operations against uncooperative targets. Perception is the capability everything else stands on — nothing can be captured, serviced, or built by a machine that cannot see. So that is where we begin.
Range, pose, and motion of uncooperative targets — no beacons, no markers, no cross-links, no GPS. Built for the environments where all four are missing.
Geometry, tumble state, and berthing-feature identification — so you know what you're approaching before you commit the vehicle to it.
Uncertainty bounds on every estimate, safety envelopes around every maneuver, and abort as a verifiable behavior.
Every decision logged and signed. Evidence for your review board, your insurer, and the compliance rules the draft EU Space Act is bringing.
Integrates on any host vehicle, inside any GNC loop. The assurance case transfers with it — no per-mission re-qualification, no bespoke re-engineering. Autonomy as a product, not a one-off.
Helm rides partner missions as a hosted payload or redundant relative-nav sensor — earning flight heritage alongside proven chains, one flight at a time.
The destination is orbital assembly — machines that build and maintain infrastructure in space. Nobody gets there in one leap. Each phase is proven in flight before the next depends on it: the eyes make the hands possible, the hands make the worker possible, and fleets of workers make the shipyard.
Relative navigation and target characterization for GPS-denied, uncooperative environments — with assurance engineered in. Flying as a component on partner missions across servicing, debris removal, and inspection: every flight compounds the operational experience the next phase is built on.
Capture and module-swap manipulation for debris removal and orbital hardware refresh — the hands, guided by flight-proven eyes. Grapple is built on Keel, the common spacecraft platform every Shipwright machine shares from here on.
Helm's eyes, Grapple's hands, and the Keel platform integrated into a single autonomous unit. A Rigger approaches, captures, and works on structures unsupervised — the complete orbital worker, every part of it already proven in flight.
Robotic assembly of everything too big to launch whole: orbital data-center radiators and solar arrays beyond deployable limits, persistent manufacturing platforms, kilometre-scale apertures — built by fleets of Riggers working in concert.
A proximity operation puts our autonomy within metres of an asset worth hundreds of millions. Before any operator allows that, they need proof the machine will behave — so assurance is engineered in, not bolted on: every estimate ships with uncertainty bounds, every maneuver stays inside a safety envelope, and abort is a verifiable behavior, demonstrated under injected faults.
And every decision is logged and signed. When a review board, an insurer, or a regulator asks how the system behaved at closest approach, the evidence already exists.
ESA's Zero Debris 2030 targets are converting into funded capture and inspection missions today — every one a proximity operation against an uncooperative target, every one needing the eyes.
No one has ever completed an autonomous docking with an unprepared satellite. Piloted operations work but take months and ground crews. The delta between those two rows is where the next two decades of orbital work get unlocked.
The draft EU Space Act brings orbital traffic rules that require compliance evidence — autonomous behavior that can be audited, bounded, and trusted. That standard is exactly what we build to.
Falling launch costs multiply mission cadence — and every additional mission needs the perception-and-autonomy layer that rides along. The economics of the vision improve with every launch-price drop.
Founders with autonomous-systems, agent-trust, and quantitative-risk backgrounds — the disciplines this problem is made of. Switzerland is at the heart of space and robotics.
Europe is funding orbital servicing, debris removal, and sovereign space infrastructure at a scale it never has before — and it needs its own supplier for the autonomy those missions run on. That is the company we are building.
We're working with servicers, ESA programs, and platform builders on first flights — and building toward Europe's first low-cost uncooperative capture demonstration. If your mission has to see, approach, or touch something in orbit, we should be talking.
Shipwright · Zürich · Switzerland