SAN FRANCISCO — It was party time at the Planet Labs satellite factory, in an unkempt office in the trendy South of Market neighborhood here.

A man in a blue tuxedo shared pancakes with about two dozen young engineers at the space start-up. The air was filled with the smell of bacon and the voices of Russian and Japanese astronauts. The astronauts communicated over a video hookup to the International Space Station, 230 miles above the kitchen, one morning last month.

“Now we’re going to push the boundaries,” said Chester Gillmore, the company’s director of manufacturing. He was referring to his cooking skills, but he could just as well have been talking about his 40-employee company, which has already put dozens of small satellites in space. Once they are connected, they will be able to provide near-constant images of what is going on back on Earth.

And that, Mr. Gillmore believes, could be the basis of a very good business.

Silicon Valley, not content with changing how retailers, taxi companies and hotels do business, is taking its disruptive ways into outer space. Several young companies with roots in Silicon Valley are trying to elbow their way into a business long dominated by national governments and aeronautics giants like Boeing.