Beyond Reach Labs YC Application
Beyond Reach Labs went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2026 batch as a Industrials company. Below: what the company does, who founded it, and its application to YC, reconstructed question by question in the real YC form.
- YC batch
- Winter 2026
- Industry
- IndustrialsAviation and Space
- Team size
- 5
- Status
- Active
- Launched
- 2026
Founders
Mitchell FogelsonFounder | CEO
Pele CollinsFounder | CTO
What Beyond Reach Labs does
At Beyond Reach Labs we are building solar panels for Space that grow from the size of a dining table to a football field in orbit. Mitch and Pele met 13 years ago as freshmen at UPenn studying mechanical engineering. Mitch recently got his PhD at Carnegie Mellon working with NASA on kilometer-scale deployable structures, and Pele spent seven years at SpaceX leading Dragon parachute engineering, safely returning astronauts from space. The collective satellites today use around 20MW, roughly the output of a datacenter on earth, but by 2030 there is a demand for over 10GW, a 500x increase, largely driven by orbital datacenters, space stations, and lunar outposts. If you want more power, your only option is to launch larger solar panels, which quickly become fragile or impractically expensive. As a result, power constraints already determine whether missions or industries can exist at all. But at Beyond Reach Labs we have introduced a new class of deployable solar panels giving satellites 10x more usable power without increasing launch mass or volume. This works because our patented deployable design changes geometry in space, allowing for us to reach 10x longer while remaining rigid.
Beyond Reach Labs's YC application, reconstructed
Y Combinator application
Beyond Reach Labs, Winter 2026 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.
- Founders2
- Company7
- Progress7
- Idea4
- Equity3
- Curious2
- Batch Preference1
Company
Beyond Reach Labs
Space solar arrays that grow in orbit
We build solar panels designed specifically for space. Our panels launch about the size of a dining table but deploy in orbit to the size of a football field. The design lets us reach 10x longer solar arrays while keeping mass and launch volume low. This gives satellites much more power without the fragility and cost problems of today's large panels.
We live in New York, NY, and plan to keep the company based here after YC.
We chose New York because the team is here. Founders Mitch and Pele have strong personal and professional ties here, which makes recruiting and operations practical.
21 more answers in the full application
Founders, Progress, Idea, Equity, Curious, Batch Preference are in the full version. Create a free account to open it in YC Insights, next to every other YC batch.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this the real Beyond Reach Labs YC application?
No. Y Combinator keeps submitted applications private. This is a reconstruction: the real YC form questions, answered from Beyond Reach Labs's public data (launch notes, founder backgrounds, product description). It shows how a company like Beyond Reach Labs would present itself to YC, not the text they submitted.
What YC batch was Beyond Reach Labs in?
Beyond Reach Labs was part of the Y Combinator Winter 2026 batch.
Who founded Beyond Reach Labs?
Beyond Reach Labs was founded by Mitchell Fogelson, Pele Collins.
What does Beyond Reach Labs do?
Space solar arrays that grow to the size of a football field in orbit
How do I read the full reconstructed application?
Create a free Round Funded account. The full 26-answer version of Beyond Reach Labs's application, and every other YC batch, is in YC Insights.
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