{"id":816824,"date":"2025-01-03T07:23:30","date_gmt":"2025-01-03T13:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/03\/the-exploration-company-raises-160m-to-build-europes-answer-to-spacex-dragon\/"},"modified":"2025-01-03T07:23:30","modified_gmt":"2025-01-03T13:23:30","slug":"the-exploration-company-raises-160m-to-build-europes-answer-to-spacex-dragon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/03\/the-exploration-company-raises-160m-to-build-europes-answer-to-spacex-dragon\/","title":{"rendered":"The Exploration Company raises $160M to build Europe\u2019s answer to SpaceX Dragon\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Only two companies currently provide cargo delivery to and from the International Space Station, and both are based in the United States. The Exploration Company<\/a>, which operates out of Germany, France, and Italy, is looking to change that: It just closed a large funding round to further its mission of building Europe\u2019s first reusable space capsule.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The $160 million Series B round will fund the continued development of the Nyx spacecraft, which will be capable of carrying 3,000 kilograms of cargo to and from Earth. The company, which was founded by aerospace engineer H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Huby in 2021, is aiming to conduct Nyx\u2019s maiden flight to and from the ISS in 2028.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are the first company in the world where this is for the first time mainly funded by private investors,\u201d Huby said in a recent interview. This is in contrast to SpaceX\u2019s Dragon capsule, which she said was \u201cmainly funded by NASA.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The new funding, which was led by Balderton Capital and Plural, brings the startup\u2019s total funding to date to over $208 million. The Series B also included participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, NGP Capital, and two sovereign European funds, French Tech Souverainet\u00e9 and DeepTech & Climate Fonds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been able to deliver on promises in the past three years,\u201d Huby said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been able to meet our cash target every quarter. \u2026 The investors, they could see that we basically can deliver on time, on cost, on quality.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The startup has made traction with the European Space Agency (ESA), which has recognized the need to foster native space launch and transportation capabilities. The Exploration Company was awarded a study contract worth around \u20ac25 million ($27 million)<\/a>\u00a0to develop cargo return services earlier this year. That contract will run through 2026, with additional competitive contract opportunities expected to follow. ESA\u2019s aim is to have at least one capsule launching to the ISS in 2028.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The structure of the contract, called the LEO Cargo Return Service Contract, resembles NASA\u2019s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program that the agency launched in 2006. That program resulted in multibillion-dollar transportation contracts to SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corporation (now Northrop Grumman).\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a promising start, but equally promising is the traction The Exploration Company is seeing on the commercial side. Around 90% of the startup\u2019s $770 million contract backlog has come from private station developers Vast, Axiom Space<\/a>, and Starlab, according to recent reporting<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Exploration Company\u2019s first demonstrator vehicle launched on the maiden flight of Ariane 6 this summer, though it was not deployed due to an issue with the rocket\u2019s upper stage. The second subscale demonstrator mission, called Mission Possible, is scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 next year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI highly respect what SpaceX has been able to achieve,\u201d Huby said. \u201cWe are trying to learn as much as possible from that, we are inspired by what they have achieved. But we also believe the world needs more competition and we want, step by step, to build an alternative. We are very aware that we are late, that we are much smaller, et cetera, but we need to start.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The story has been updated to reflect that Huby is the sole founder. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Aria Alamalhodaei covers the space and defense industries at TechCrunch. Previously, she covered the public utilities and the power grid for California Energy Markets. You can also find her work at MIT\u2019s Undark Magazine, The Verge, and Discover Magazine. She received an MA in art history from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. Aria is based in Austin, Texas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n\t\tView Bio <\/svg><\/a>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Aria Alamalhodaei
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Only two companies currently provide cargo delivery to and from the International Space Station, and both are based in the United States. The Exploration Company, which operates out of Germany, France, and Italy, is looking to change that: It just closed a large funding round to further its mission of building Europe\u2019s first reusable space<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":816825,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[147,54702],"tags":[5541,16521],"class_list":{"0":"post-816824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-company","8":"category-exploration","9":"tag-company","10":"tag-exploration"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=816824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/816825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=816824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=816824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=816824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}