Spaceium opens OpenPort refueling interface under a $1 license

Spaceium opened its OpenPort refueling interface to any company for a license fee of $1 on Nov. 12, 2026.

Chief Executive Ashi Dissanayake told Payload that Spaceium does not plan to sell the refueling interface for profit, saying, “We are not here to sell a refueling interface and make money.” He said the goal is to develop the whole space economy, so any spacecraft can get filled. Cofounder and Chief Technology Officer Reza Fetanat said the interface emerged from customer requirements that the company collected.

OpenPort is fuel-agnostic and takes the place of the ground-fueling port rather than adding hardware to the spacecraft. The interface’s androgynous design lets fuel move in both directions, with either side able to serve as the pump or the port. The company says its traveling depots can take on propellant and then fill other spacecraft, creating a network of refuelers central to its vision of in-orbit gas stations.

Orbit Fab has offered its RAFTI port under an open license dating to October 2021, and Payload describes the company as a competitor also hoping to become the orbital gas station of choice. Spaceium plans to send OpenPort to the International Space Station in the first half of 2027 to demonstrate xenon transfer on a spacecraft docked outside the station.

The company’s first flight hardware was a precision robotic actuator made for the refueling arm. It launched on SpaceX’s Transporter-15 rideshare in November 2025, hosted on a D-Orbit ION spacecraft. Separately, the company put its refueling actuator on a test satellite in low Earth orbit in February 2026, marking the first in-space vacuum actuation of such a mechanism. A rideshare mission earlier in 2026 carried the test as a 12-unit CubeSat secondary payload.

Engineers loaded the rig with an actuator, a mock refueling port, a small tank of inert fluid, and sensors that tracked forces, temperatures, and seal integrity. Controllers on the ground directed the actuator through extension, optical alignment, and latch engagement, then moved to seal verification, fluid transfer, and retraction. Telemetry showed every step remained within nominal limits, the seal held without leaking, and the mechanism could re-engage after pulling back.

The actuator relies on a three-pronged latch to grab a standardized refueling port, create a sealed path for fluid, and maintain the connection through vibration and temperature swings. Engineers saw more thermal expansion of the housing than predicted when the spacecraft passed through orbital day, while the optical alignment system exceeded expectations, targeting the port with sub-millimeter accuracy even though the CubeSat had limited computing power. Spaceium said the actuator operated in orbit while facing vacuum, radiation, and thermal cycling.

Spaceium’s actuator reached verified rotation accuracy of 0.003 degrees while flying on SpaceX’s Transporter-15, meaning the tip of a five-meter arm moves less than one millimeter. The company says its accuracy is 70 times greater than that of today’s space robotic arms. Its founders took the actuator from design through verification in just five months.

Spaceium plans a late-2026 demonstration with two spacecraft performing an actual fluid transfer to test the actuator and autonomous rendezvous algorithms, funded through government contracts and private investment. The company also plans in-space fuel-transfer demonstrations followed by a full-scale refueling system. It develops automated in-space refueling and repair stations it calls service stations along the space superhighway, with stations intended to serve vehicles from orbital tugs to lunar landers and later planned for GEO and cislunar space.

The stations store propellant in orbit and move it to client spacecraft with a robotic arm. The company builds its own propellant tanks and robotic arms for refueling, with tanks meant to hold fuel for years. A 2024 account described a cryogenic storage setup intended for several metric tons of propellant, with no boil-off, while plans for 2027 stations remain without a flight demonstration.

The company has partnered with Australia’s Space Machines Company on cryogenic refueling, Aphelia on in-space recharging, and The Exploration Company on in-space servicing. Beyond refueling, the actuator could support component replacement, debris removal, and orbital assembly as part of a broader in-space operations toolkit.

Orbit Fab has put a small tanker into orbit as it develops fuel depot architecture and standardized interfaces. Northrop Grumman’s Mission Extension Vehicle showed how geostationary satellites could have their lives extended by docking and providing station-keeping using the vehicle’s own thrusters, a different approach from Spaceium’s actuator-focused model. Spaceium takes part in working groups for the Consortium for Execution of Rendezvous and Servicing Operations and says its actuator works with emerging interface specifications.

The United States Space Force and DARPA want national security satellites of the future to use interfaces that are compatible with refueling. Such requirements could create a guaranteed market for servicing hardware.

For decades, satellites have launched, operated until propellant ran out, then deorbited or drifted into a graveyard orbit. A geostationary communications satellite can cost upward of $300 million to build and launch, yet its useful life is often capped by fuel exhaustion. Industry analysts estimate the satellite life extension market could be worth over $10 billion annually by the early 2030s, and more than 30,000 tracked objects are in orbit.

Refueling requires rendezvous, orientation matching, mechanical connection, and pressurized or cryogenic propellant transfer, often autonomously.