Space weather could cost the satellite industry $40 billion in a single storm. A 15-person startup is building the forecast.

Mission Space Advances Space Weather Forecasting with Fourth ZOHAR Payload on HEX20’s Maya-V1

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Space weather could cost the satellite industry $40 billion in a single storm. A 15-person startup is building the forecast.

May 4, 2026 – 6:33 pm

There are over 8,000 active satellites in orbit, with projections of exceeding 25,000 by 2030. A single geomagnetic storm could cost the satellite industry $40 billion. In February 2022, a moderate storm knocked 40 freshly launched Starlink satellites out of orbit, costing SpaceX $50 million.

Mission Space, a 15-person startup with offices in Miami, Israel, Luxembourg, and New York, is addressing this challenge.

The payload

Mission Space announced its fourth space weather payload will fly on HEX20’s Maya-V1 mission, a rideshare satellite built by Indian SmallSat company HEX20. HEX20 launched India’s first private payload hosting satellite, Nila, in March 2025 and has since expanded its platform for international customers.

The Maya-V1 mission will carry Mission Space’s ZOHAR sensors alongside other payloads, expanding the company’s network.

The ZOHAR sensor platform, winner of the 2025 Global Tech Award in space technology, samples data 1,000 times per second across 15 parameters using spectrometers and Cherenkov detectors for real-time high-energy particle capture. The first ZOHAR payload launched in March 2025 on an EnduroSat platform. Subsequent payloads added neutral-density tracking capabilities.

Low Earth orbit has become a launchpad for space tech startups, and Mission Space’s constellation is unique for its operational focus: each new sensor expands measurement coverage towards the company’s goal of multi-point, high-temporal-resolution data across radiation, neutral density, and surface charging intelligence.

The market

Space weather forecasting is a $1.4 billion industry in 2026, projected to reach $2 billion by 2030 at 10% annual growth. The larger space weather monitoring satellite market values at $2.2 billion, also projected to grow to $3.2 billion during the same period.

These figures reflect the growing need for forecasting driven by the increasing number of commercial satellites in low Earth orbit, making them more susceptible to radiation, atmospheric drag variability, and surface charging from geomagnetic storms.