There are only two companies in the United States that send cargo to and from the International Space Station right now. This is what the Exploration Company, which has offices in Germany, France, and Italy, wants to change: To help it reach its goal of making Europe’s first reusable space ship, it just closed a big funding round.
With the $160 million Series B round, the Nyx spacecraft will continue to be built. It will be able to take 3,000 kilograms of cargo to and from Earth. Three years ago, aerospace engineers Hélène Huby, Sebastien Reichstat, and Pierre Vine started the business. They want Nyx to make its first flight to and from the ISS in 2028.
An chat with Huby not long ago revealed that they are the first company in the world to have most of their money coming from private investors. On the other hand, she said that SpaceX’s Dragon capsule was “mainly funded by NASA.”
It took Balderton Capital and Plural to lead the new funding round. With this, the company has now raised over $208 million. As part of Series B, Bessemer Venture Partners, NGP Capital, and two national European funds—French Tech Souveraineté and DeepTech & Climate Fonds—also put money in.
Huby said, “We’ve been able to keep our promises for the past three years.” “Every quarter, we’ve been able to meet our cash goal…” Investors could see that we could pretty much meet their needs in terms of time, cost, and quality.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has shown interest in the startup. The ESA knows that it is important to improve the country’s launch and transportation skills in space. Earlier this year, the Exploration Company was given a study contract worth about €25 million ($27 million) to come up with ideas for ship return services. That deal will last until 2026, and more chances to win competitive contracts are likely to come after that. In 2028, ESA wants at least one ship to be sent to the ISS.
The deal, called the LEO Cargo Return Service deal, is set up in a way that is similar to NASA’s Commercial Orbital Return Transportation Services program, which began in 2006. SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corporation (now Northrop Grumman) got delivery contracts worth billions of dollars because of that program.
The Exploration Company is also seeing a lot of success in the business world, which is another good sign. Recent news stories say that about 90% of the startup’s $770 million contract backlog comes from private station builders Vast, Axiom Space, and Starlab.
This summer, the Exploration Company’s first test vehicle took off on the first flight of Ariane 6, but it was not used because of a problem with the rocket’s upper stage. Mission Possible is the name of the second sub-scale test mission that will be launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 next year.
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Huby said, “I have a lot of respect for what SpaceX has done.” “We want to learn as much as we can from that because what they have done inspires us.” We also think the world needs more competition, though, and we want to build an option one step at a time. “We know we’re late, that we’re not as big as we thought we would be, etc., but we need to start.”
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