Orbital Logistics Infrastructure
INTERMODAL SPACE
The intermodal container system for Earth orbit.
Smart endpoints, lean containers. We're building permanent orbital infrastructure that moves cargo at commodity cost — not the price of a throwaway vehicle per shipment.
The Problem
Every kilogram moved in orbit rides a throwaway vehicle.
The launch industry solved reusability on the ground. But once a payload reaches orbit, the logistics model reverts to 1960s economics.
$45,000/kg
Dragon cargo cost. Every box pays for the vehicle that moves it.
Single-use
Each tug flies once, for one customer, on one mission. Bespoke and disposable.
Monthly
Best-case cadence. No FedEx in orbit. Every delivery is a custom mission.
As commercial stations from Vast, Axiom, and Orbital Reef come online, this bottleneck becomes the binding constraint on the orbital economy.
The Thesis
Smart endpoints, lean containers.
Concentrate intelligence in permanent platforms. Keep the cargo container cheap, standardized, and dumb.
Permanent platforms
A Hub computes and ejects. A Catcher maneuvers and captures. Both are reusable capital assets, amortized over thousands of cycles.
Lean containers
Only a beacon, a small solar array, and minimal trim propulsion. Cheap, standardized, rides rideshare launches to LEO.
Commodity cost
Per-shipment cost collapses to amortized capital. Customers pay commodity launch price once. Everything after is shared infrastructure.
The analog:Malcolm McLean's shipping container revolution. He didn't build a better ship — he built a better box and redesigned the port to match.
The System
Three elements. One architecture.
Two smart platforms handle all guidance, computation, and capture. The container between them is lean by design.
HUB-1 MERIDIAN
~300 kg · Release Platform
CARRIER-1 PALLET
~50 kg dry · Lean Container
CATCHER-1 APEX
~400 kg dry · Capture Platform
Operations
How it works.
Six steps from launch to cargo transfer. No dedicated vehicle. No throwaway propulsion.
By the Numbers
Validated by simulation.
Every claim is backed by a reproducible Monte Carlo trajectory simulation.
5.87 m/s
Prograde Δv for transfer
100 km co-orbital at 500 km
94.6 min
Transit time
One Hub orbital period
36 m
3σ miss distance
Inside 40 m capture aperture
99.9%
Capture rate
10,000 Monte Carlo trials
< $5K/kg
Target shipment cost
vs. $45K/kg Dragon
$50K
Pre-seed SAFE
$6M cap, 20% discount
Competitive Landscape
Different architectural quadrant.
Competitors fly one customer per flight with active propulsion. We build permanent infrastructure plus cheap, standardized containers.
| Approach | Cost / kg | Reusability |
|---|---|---|
| Dragon cargo | ~$45,000 | Low / None |
| In-space tug | $10K–30K | Single-flight |
| Intermodal Space | $2K–5K | Full — permanent |
The analog isn't another space company— it's Malcolm McLean, who didn't build a better ship. He built a better box and redesigned the port to match.
The Founder
Building from first principles.
Michael E. Onofre
Founder & CEO
Arizona State University. Applied AI operator background with self-taught orbital mechanics. Author of the white paper, Monte Carlo trajectory simulation, and full subsystem architecture.
Every technical claim is reproducible — the trajectory notebook runs end-to-end in Jupyter and regenerates every figure.
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