Max Space: The infrastructure behind the next space economy

There is a question that does not get asked enough in the space industry: once you get there, where do you work?

For decades, the conversation around space has been dominated by launch. How to get there faster, cheaper, more reliably. SpaceX answered that question and changed the economics of the entire sector. But every frontier eventually faces the same challenge: once access becomes possible, what infrastructure makes permanence possible? The International Space Station, humanity's only large-scale orbital workspace, is being decommissioned by 2030. And nothing close to its scale exists to replace it.

Pressurized volume in low Earth orbit is the next infrastructure bottleneck. Demand is growing from every direction: civil space agencies, defense logistics, in-orbit manufacturing, pharmaceutical research, data centers, tourism. But the supply of usable, affordable space remains critically constrained. Hard-shell modules cost hundreds of millions per unit. Build times stretch across years. And the few inflatable concepts that exist on paper have yet to prove themselves in orbit.

Max Space was built to solve exactly that.

The technology behind the idea

The core insight at Max Space is structural, not conceptual. Inflatable habitats are not new. What has been missing is an architecture that makes them safe, predictable, and cheap enough to deploy at scale.

That architecture exists. It was developed over twenty years ago by Maxim de Jong, co-founder and CTO of Max Space. Maxim is widely recognized as the world leader in expandable space structures. He designed Genesis I and Genesis II, the first two expandable habitats ever sent to orbit, where they remained operational for nearly two decades. He also designed BEAM, the expandable module still attached to the ISS today. Those are the only three inflatable structures ever flown in space. All three came from the same engineer now leading Max Space's technical development.

His proprietary tendon-reinforced architecture is the competitive moat. It combines a load-bearing Vectran bladder, a lattice of unidirectional Kevlar tendons, and an exterior micrometeoroid shield arranged as a Whipple barrier. Unlike earlier inflatable concepts that ballooned unpredictably under pressure, de Jong's design locks the tendons to the bladder during manufacturing. The structure assumes its final shape on the ground and expands in orbit with only a five percent radial growth factor. That predictability allows hard bulkheads, docking rings, and payload systems to be pre-integrated before launch, eliminating the complex post-deployment outfitting that drives cost for competitors.

The result is a 1,000 m³ station for approximately $200M. The ISS cost roughly $100B per cubic meter of usable volume. Hard-shell competitors price their modules at ten to twenty times more per cubic meter than Max Space. That gap does not close easily, and it is not an accident. It is the product of two decades of materials science, manufacturing discipline, and flight-proven engineering.

The team that can execute it

Technology without execution is a thesis. What makes Max Space credible at this stage is the combination of people around that technology.

Aaron Kemmer, co-founder and executive chairman, built Made In Space into the first in-space manufacturing company, securing over $250M in NASA contracts before its acquisition by Redwire Space in 2020. He went on to founder companies backed by Sequoia and Y Combinator, served on the board of Redwire, and was named to Forbes' 30 Under 30. He is not a first-time founder navigating the space industry. He is someone who has already built and exited within it.

Saleem Miyan, co-founder and CEO, brings a different but equally relevant kind of experience. He led Philips Semiconductors' global IoT unit, managed strategic acquisitions at Checkpoint Systems, and founded a GPS and satellite tracking startup that was acquired by Lockheed Martin's Savi. He drove international expansion for Digicore International until its acquisition by Novatel Wireless, raised $350M across high-growth ventures, and has spoken at international forums including the White House. His background is not space by default. It is operational scale, government contracts, and capital formation across complex, hardware-heavy businesses. That is precisely what Max Space needs as it moves from prototype to commercial deployment.

The three founders cover the full stack: flight heritage, product vision, and operational scale. That combination is not common at seed stage.

Why we invested

Draper Cygnus Fund III participated in Max Space's seed round alongside Tim Draper and other institutional investors.

The thesis is consistent with how we approach deep tech: capital-efficient platforms addressing markets that are structurally large and technically hard to replicate. Orbital infrastructure fits both criteria. The IP is defensible, built on twenty years of development and sixteen issued patents. The team has done this before. And the timing is driven by real external forces, not narrative. The timing is policy-driven.

Jared Isaacman, the newly appointed NASA Administrator, has made the agency’s direction explicit: return to the Moon, establish a permanent lunar presence, unlock water ice, and expand human reach beyond Earth. Exploration is being framed not as aspiration, but as execution. At the same time, NASA has reinforced a mandate around efficiency and capital discipline. Every dollar must translate into measurable progress.

Permanent infrastructure in orbit and beyond is therefore not speculative ambition. It is aligned with national strategy.

There is something worth saying about what Max Space represents beyond the investment itself. The space economy is often discussed in terms of rockets and satellites. But the next phase of that economy requires somewhere to operate: laboratories, manufacturing facilities, logistics depots, research stations. The infrastructure layer for human activity in orbit does not yet exist at the scale the market will require. Max Space is building it, with technology that has already flown, a team that has already built and exited in the sector, and a cost structure that makes the economics viable for the first time.

If launch opened the door to orbit, infrastructure determines who stays, who builds, and who captures value. Space is not a metaphor here. It is a market with measurable demand, a clear supply gap, and a platform designed to close it. The next era of space will not be defined only by reaching orbit, but by what humanity is able to build once it gets there.