Investor & grant summary · Population Mars
Infrastructure for a population on Mars, proven on problems we can measure today
We build the operations software and surface construction methods a settlement needs first, and we test them now on Earth: satellite fleet operations, space-debris mitigation, and paving made from local rock.
The problem
In orbit: low Earth orbit is getting crowded and contested. Operators must decide quickly whether to maneuver, reroute or wait, often with uncertain data. Tools that show what an action actually changed, and that keep a human accountable, are scarce, and debris mitigation is still mostly studied rather than practiced.
On the surface: every landing on the Moon or Mars blasts regolith outward. Apollo 12's plume pitted Surveyor 3 from 155 m away, and Phoenix eroded 5–18 cm of Martian soil. Repeated landings at one base need hard pads, and shipping binder or pavers from Earth is not viable.
What exists today
- 3 live OrbitFleet consoles: Earth fleet, Mars relay, space debris
- 27 candidate Mars sites in the 3D settlement atlas
- 133 organizations mapped in the space economy directory
- V1 solar paving test head: design, experiment plan and kill criteria published
Plus published analysis of real conjunctions and laser-ablation debris removal on the blog.
Two programs, one approach
Orbital operations software
OrbitFleet is a fleet-operations control plane that closes the loop from telemetry to a human-approved, validated response and a measured outcome. The same engine runs an Earth constellation, a proposed Mars relay network with light-time delay, and debris-mitigation scenarios such as laser ablation and collision buffers.
Next: Physically consistent maneuvers and service models, evidence-quality exports, and three-body (Earth–Moon) trajectory scenarios.
Open the simulators →Solar regolith paving
Landing plumes sandblast hardware at hundreds of meters per second. We are developing a solar concentrator that melts local rock into crystalline pavement for landing pads and roads, aiming for 5 cm per pass with no imported binder, and testing it first with basalt and Mars simulant on Earth.
Next: V1 bench campaign: melt depth, foaming, filler loading and cooling-rate experiments, each with a published kill criterion.
Read the technical plan →Why now
- The satellite industry earned about $303 billion in 2025, yet servicing, life extension, space situational awareness and debris removal were only about $0.5 billion of it (SIA/BryceTech). That gap is where operations and debris tools fit.
- Close approaches between military and commercial satellites are now public news, which raises demand for transparent, inspectable decision tools (our analysis).
- NASA and ESA programs are funding regolith construction for landing pads and roads, the problem our paving work targets.
Milestones and funding
| Stage | What it proves | Estimated funding |
|---|---|---|
| Now: research sprint | Three-body trajectory and debris-mitigation simulations; first paving bench coupons. | $2,500 (reader-funded) |
| Paving V1: Earth control head + solar concentrator | The process window: melt depth in coarse vs fine beds, filler limit with preheat, foaming with and without degassing, and whether a hood turns glass into ceramic. | $15k–40k |
| Paving V2: Paving payload on someone else’s rover | Continuous ribbon, not coupons: steady depth, joint spacing and cooling rate while moving; mass, power and dust behaviour of a flyable payload. | $0.3M–1.5M |
| Paving V3: The full paving train | Landing pads and haul roads built from local rock with no binder, at a rate a surface base can use. | $5M+ |
| Debris remediation system | Begin building a debris-remediation payload on an open satellite bus, specified and tested against OrbitFleet's debris and laser-ablation scenarios. | $250k |
Funding figures are estimates. Each paving stage depends on the previous one passing its published exit criteria.
Grant and program fit
Programs whose published topics match our work. Listing a program here does not imply it has funded or endorsed us.
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NASA SBIR/STTR
2026 BAA Appendix B includes LIVEI.1.S26B (surface dust mitigation) and LAND.1.S26B (regolith stability during landing). Phase I up to $225k.
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NASA MMPACT (Marshall)
Moon-to-Mars Planetary Autonomous Construction Technology: landing pads, roadways, berms, blast shields from regolith.
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LSIC (Johns Hopkins APL)
Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium, Excavation & Construction focus area: monthly meetings where NASA construction stakeholders meet.
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ESA Open Space Innovation Platform
Open calls for ideas; PAVER itself was ESA-funded.
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Space safety and debris programs
Space situational awareness, debris mitigation and education calls, where OrbitFleet's open, inspectable scenarios serve as a research and teaching platform.
Founder
Benjamin Cox · Founder & editor, Bainbridge Island, Washington
Benjamin Cox is a software engineer and field operations project manager who works where physical operations meet the data systems that run them. He founded Population Mars in 2025 and built OrbitFleet, its fleet-operations simulator with delayed commands, anomaly scenarios and human approval gates, using Orekit, Basilisk, Three.js, Python and TypeScript.
He has shipped production iOS and web software on AWS and PostgreSQL, and is building HAIDAA, a provenance-backed memory service for autonomous agents. Alongside the software, he manages property development and commercial landscaping projects up to $500,000: crews, civil drawings, grading and earthwork from survey data, heavy equipment and materials logistics. That ground-level construction experience feeds directly into the regolith paving work.
What we're looking for
- InvestorsPre-seed capital for the paving V1–V2 path and OrbitFleet product development. Deck and model on request.
- Grant partnersSmall-business or university partners for SBIR/STTR, and program sponsors for V2 flight-like testing.
- Technical partnersOptics and ceramics reviewers, vacuum or solar-furnace time, and a rover platform for a paving payload.