Foundational turns satellite laser ranging into a commercial data service. The technique fixes a satellite's position by timing laser pulses bounced off a reflector it carries, and is among the most precise measurements available for objects in orbit. As low Earth orbit fills with satellites and debris, operators need that precision to spot collision risks and plan manoeuvres, but laser ranging has until now been run from a small number of costly, manually operated scientific stations.
The company sells the whole system as one product: retroreflectors mounted on satellites, automated and weatherproof ground stations that track them, and Origin, a software platform and API that processes and delivers the data. Foundational says its stations cost around a thirtieth of legacy facilities and are built to run as a network rather than as standalone sites. Customers and partners include low Earth orbit constellation operators, the European Space Agency, UK government departments, aerospace manufacturers and research institutes.
Hira Virdee and Dave Gooding founded Foundational in 2025, building on laser-ranging technology developed at Lumi Space, which Virdee started in 2018 with support from the European Space Agency and UK Space Agency. In October 2026 the company emerged from stealth with £8.2M in pre-seed funding from Inflection, BACKED, Final Frontier, Adjacent and Type One Ventures.