Make it so (eventually): Startups are still eyeing Mars

"Space: the final frontier," one of the most famous lines in television history, has never felt more real. Every year, it seems like a new, ambitious startup wants to boldly go where no one has gone before and build the first city on Mars.

Which raises the question: has anyone actually gotten anywhere? No, not even close, but the work happening on Earth is starting to feel more real.

Getting equipment to Mars has proven much harder than expected. Even SpaceX postponed its trip to the Red Planet in late 2026 to focus on a more attainable goal of a 2027 uncrewed mission to the Moon.

Some of the startups leading the way are focusing their efforts on building up to it — kind of like generation after generation of USS Enterprises, each one better than the last.

Startups in the space race

Cosmic Robotics

• The company was founded in 2024, is based in San Francisco, and was part of YC's Summer 2026 batch.
• Its first machine, Cosmic-1, is a 10k-pound autonomous robot built for heavy lifting.
  
• It places 90-pound solar panels with millimeter precision, through heat, freezing rain, snow, and dust.
  
• It has more than doubled labor productivity across tens of thousands of installs on some of the largest US solar projects.
  
• The company is expanding into data centers and building lunar construction robotics under a NASA contract.

TerraFirma

• Was founded by former SpaceX engineers and is based in Austin.
  
• Raised ~$115m, including a $100m Series A.
  
• Uses retrofitted heavy machinery that small crews can run remotely.
  
• Past projects include site excavation for a Starbucks in North Austin and a sports arena and power substation elsewhere in Texas.
  
• Its long-term goal is to build the heavy civil infrastructure for an industrial society on Mars.

ICON

• The company has a NASA contract to develop technology for building landing pads, habitats, and roads on the Moon.
  
• Olympus system is designed to use local resources on the Moon and Mars as building materials.
  
• It works with NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center on its Moon-to-Mars autonomous construction project.

Spacer Robotics

• Its first product, GRID, is an autonomous rebar-tying robot,
  
• Was founded by Lesya Hendrix, who previously worked at Tesla, Scania, and Nuro.

Failure to launch

No company has broken ground on Mars or the Moon yet. What is working is a shared strategy: build up revenue on Earth with solar farms, data centers, and construction projects, while keeping Mars as the guiding star.

The real test for these companies isn’t just reaching Mars in the 2030s; it’s whether their Earthbound ventures can keep the cash and excitement flowing long enough to make that dream a reality.

If SpaceX is second-guessing the timeline, what hope do these starry-eyed startups have?