SpaceX's early mission operations exposed a fundamental problem: mission-critical teams were executing complex procedures across Excel spreadsheets, PDFs, and fragmented communication channels, creating dangerous gaps where hardware gets destroyed and critical data falls through the cracks. Laura Crabtree, Co-founder & CEO of Epsilon3, built Epsilon 3 to solve this after watching teams flip through paper documentation at T-minus countdowns instead of focusing on root cause analysis. 

Her platform now digitizes operational decision-making across aerospace, defense, and robotics, enabling real-time visibility across distributed teams without voice loop confirmations, automated conditional branching that redirects operators to the right procedures when failures occur, and full lifecycle traceability from parts inventory through testing to flight operations. The shift from "try it indefinitely" to paid adoption came down to proving 10x value over internal development costs calculated across 5-year customer lifecycles. 

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