Space infrastructure · Denver, Colorado
Most things in space tumble. Almost nothing can catch them.
Delta Infinite is developing a two-part reactive foam designed to slow a tumbling object and leave a surface capture systems can grip — so they can service or remove objects they cannot safely capture today.
The problem
Real targets can spin faster than rigid capture can handle.
Rigid capture systems need a target that’s nearly still — they top out around three to five degrees per second. Recently failed satellites can tumble at three to eight degrees per second. Some long-derelict objects reach tens of degrees per second, and a target’s rate is neither knowable in advance nor stable.
Tumble rate · degrees per second
Indicative ranges. The shaded band marks where rigid capture tops out.
It isn’t just the grapple.
The ceiling isn’t set by the capture mechanism alone. At contact, a tumbling target’s angular momentum transfers into the capturing spacecraft, and its attitude determination and control system (ADCS) — the reaction wheels and thrusters that keep it pointed — has to absorb it. Reaction wheels hold a finite amount of momentum. Against a heavy, fast-tumbling target they saturate, and the spacecraft either burns propellant to recover or loses control of its own orientation.
Our system doesn’t match the spin. It’s designed to slow it.
01 · DEPLOY
Foam on target
A two-part reactive foam is deployed onto the target.
02 · EXPAND & CURE
Designed to slow the tumble
It expands and cures in vacuum, designed to slow the tumble by adding mass far from the spin axis and dissipating rotational energy.
03 · GRIP
A surface to grip
What’s left is a slower, steadier object with a surface designed for capture systems to grip.
The capturing spacecraft still takes on the object’s momentum. The foam is designed to make it arrive slower and gentler.
Why it matters
Capture comes first.
Servicing, debris removal, and relocation all start the same way: taking hold of an object that was never designed to be caught. Most of what’s in orbit has no grapple fixture and no docking interface. Until an object can be caught, nothing else can happen to it.
The same step sits at the center of asteroid resources.
A 2012 feasibility study by the Keck Institute for Space Studies at Caltech estimated that returning a small near-Earth asteroid could deliver mass to high lunar orbit at roughly one-eighth the per-kilogram cost of launching it from Earth, and about one-twentieth on repeat missions. That architecture depends on capturing and de-spinning a tumbling, non-cooperative body, autonomously, in deep space.
NASA carried the concept forward as the Asteroid Redirect Mission and cancelled it in 2017, after its cost estimates grew. We’re doing this to get to that: prove the capture layer in Earth orbit, where the need is immediate and the market already exists, then carry it outward. Asteroid resources are the long-horizon destination.
Source: Brophy et al., Asteroid Retrieval Feasibility Study, Keck Institute for Space Studies, 2012.
Where we are
TRL 3, working toward TRL 4.
On record
WarpWare — executed services agreement. Coupled physics modeling, simulation, and capture dynamics characterization.
KMI Space — conditional, non-binding letter of intent, contingent on TRL 4 validation.
Confirmed technical point of contact at AFRL with Phase I proposal support offered.
Timeline
Milestones
- 2017
The gap
NASA cancels its Asteroid Redirect Mission after cost estimates grow. Affordable capture of a tumbling, uncooperative object remains an open problem.
- 2018
Foam
A space-rated foam as the interface between a capture system and a tumbling, uncooperative target. The company gets its name: Delta Infinite — infinite change.
- 2019–21
Theory
Foam behavior under vacuum, and the framework for a deployable foam capture interface.
- 2022
Founded
Company formation with support from the Santa Cruz SBDC and the Entrepreneurs’ Law Clinic at Santa Clara University.
- 2023
The team forms
Jim Cochran-Miller joins as Engineering Lead. Dr. Michael Browne joins as Science Lead.
- 2024
First vacuum test
The team builds a vacuum chamber, holds stable vacuum over 24 hours, and completes the first successful vacuum foam-deployment test. Delta Infinite LLC is formed and the company relocates to Colorado.
- 2025
Federal readiness
Government-compliant indirect rate structure in place. NASA SBIR Phase I and Colorado OEDIT applications prepared. Invited to pitch to space-resources investors at Colorado School of Mines.
- 2026
On record
- AprKMI Space — conditional, non-binding letter of intent, contingent on TRL 4 validation.
- MayWarpWare — executed services agreement.
- MayFormal thermal-vacuum test plan written against ASTM, ECSS and GEVS methods.
- JunConfirmed technical point of contact at AFRL with Phase I proposal support offered.
- Now
Working toward TRL 4
The validation campaign is scoped, documented, and gated on funding. Bootstrapped to this point without external capital. We’re looking for investors, capture and servicing partners, and program offices to take it through TRL 4.
Team
Who’s building it
Jim and Michael contribute to Delta Infinite at no cost to the company at this stage, converting to funded full-time roles at seed.
Working toward asteroid resource capture since 2012; founded Delta Infinite in 2022. Leads strategy, partnerships, and funding, and set up the company’s federal contracting foundation.
Full bio →
Builds the test environment: the vacuum chamber the foam is tested in, now in its third revision.
Full bio →
Leads foam chemistry, cure characterization, and materials testing.
Full bio →
As a Mammillaria spinosissima, Thornelia champions patient, resilient growth, thriving under harsh conditions and reminding the team that even the most ambitious missions begin with strong roots.
Meet Thornelia →Get in touch
Start a conversation.
Investors, capture and servicing operators, program offices, and researchers working on non-cooperative capture: we’d like to hear from you.
kai@delta-infinite.com · Denver, Colorado