Can THE EXPLORATION COMPANY become Europe’s next space systems integrator?

In four years, THE EXPLORATION COMPANY has evolved from a reusable capsule project into a company seeking to cover almost the entire space transportation value chain. Orbital cargo, return to Earth, satellite operations, a lunar vehicle, a high-thrust engine and astronaut transportation: behind Nyx, an integrated space group is beginning to take shape. It is a strategy that could provide Europe with an alternative to SPACEX, provided governments are willing to become its first customers.

Europe knows how to build engines, satellites, pressurised modules and some of the most complex components of a spacecraft. It supplies the service module for the US Orion capsule, participates in the International Space Station, is developing the Argonaut lunar vehicle and, with Ariane 6, has institutional access to orbit. Yet it still has no operational vehicle capable of autonomously transporting cargo to a station, bringing it back to Earth and, eventually, carrying astronauts.

This paradox encapsulates part of Europe’s history in space: the continent masters many of the building blocks, but rarely the entire system.

Founded in 2021 by Hélène Huby and several former AIRBUS and ARIANEGROUP engineers, THE EXPLORATION COMPANY initially presented itself as the manufacturer of Nyx, a reusable capsule designed to transport cargo to stations in low Earth orbit. Four years later, its ambitions extend far beyond this first product.

The company is now developing engines for lunar missions, a high-thrust engine intended to lay the groundwork for a future European launch vehicle, rendezvous technologies that can be used for satellite operations and the first building blocks of a crewed capsule. It aims to reach the Moon before the end of the decade and transport astronauts around 2035.

A $300 million funding round is reportedly under discussion, at a valuation of more than $2 billion, which would help finance the construction of an integrated space group.

NYX, the gateway to the space transportation value chain

When Hélène Huby founded THE EXPLORATION COMPANY, she did not begin with a rocket. The choice may seem surprising in an industry where access to space attracts most of the attention and capital. In 2021, Europe already had several microlauncher projects. ISAR AEROSPACE was developing Spectrum in Germany, ROCKET FACTORY AUGSBURG was preparing RFA One, PLD SPACE was working on Miura 5 in Spain, while ARIANEGROUP was establishing MAIASPACE. By contrast, no private European company was developing a vehicle comparable to Dragon, capable of servicing a station and returning cargo to Earth.

TEC chose to occupy this missing link. Nyx is designed to transport scientific experiments, equipment and, eventually, several tonnes of cargo to the ISS or the commercial stations expected to succeed it. Crucially, the capsule must also bring them back intact. This is a decisive distinction: sending a payload into orbit has become relatively accessible, but recovering one remains a rare, expensive and highly regulated capability.

Several vehicles can currently resupply the ISS, including SPACEX’s Dragon, NORTHROP GRUMMAN’s Cygnus, Russia’s Progress spacecraft and Japanese vehicles. Dragon, however, remains the main operational Western capability for returning substantial amounts of cargo from the station. Cygnus and Progress are loaded with waste before being destroyed in the atmosphere. Return transportation therefore constitutes a separate market.

Nyx must also be compatible with several heavy launch vehicles. The company is taking into account the vibration levels and mechanical constraints of different rockets to avoid depending on a single provider. In theory, it could therefore fly on a European, US, Japanese or Indian launch vehicle.

This independence is useful, but relative. Until TEC has its own launch vehicle, it will remain dependent on the schedules, prices and priorities of ARIANESPACE, SPACEX or another operator.

Mission Possible, a successful demonstration until the final act

On 23 June 2025, TEC placed its second demonstrator, Mission Possible, into orbit. The capsule powered its 25 payloads, maintained communications, performed attitude-control manoeuvres and correctly oriented its heat shield. It then carried out a controlled re-entry from an altitude of around 550 kilometres.

Unfortunately, the mission did not end as planned. Communications were lost at an altitude of 26 kilometres, before the transonic phase and parachute deployment, and the capsule was not recovered.

The company acknowledged that the parachute had not undergone a prior drop test and that several critical systems lacked redundancy. This decision had made it possible to develop and launch Mission Possible in three years for around €30 million, including launch costs, but it also increased the risk of losing the vehicle, which is what happened. TEC published a detailed account of the mission and its technical trade-offs.

The flight nevertheless validated a substantial part of the technology chain. Mission Possible became the first private European capsule to perform a controlled orbital re-entry and only the third European vehicle to complete such a manoeuvre.

But an infrastructure is measured not by its ability to complete a demonstration, but by its reliability, flight rate and capacity to repeat the operation. To reach the ISS in 2028, Nyx must still qualify its propulsion, avionics, flight software, autonomous approach, docking system, parachutes, recovery process and, finally, its reusability.

In 2025, the company completed the first stage of the safety review conducted with NASA and the ESA. This approval covers the preliminary architecture and risk management. It is not yet a final certification, and two further phases must be completed before a vehicle can be authorised to approach the ISS. TEC is still targeting a first Nyx Earth mission in 2028.

The schedule is tight. In space, it almost always is.

SPACEX remains the benchmark, but the market is no longer a two-player contest

THE EXPLORATION COMPANY is regularly described as the future “European SPACEX”, but this label obscures considerable differences in maturity, capital and business model.

SPACEX does not simply sell a capsule. The company controls Falcon 9, Dragon, launch infrastructure, in-flight operations, recovery and a growing share of orbital destinations. It also benefits from two decades of experience, cumulative contracts with NASA and the Pentagon, and an unrivalled launch cadence.

While Dragon already transports cargo, government astronauts and private passengers, Nyx is not intended to replicate all of these capabilities immediately.

In Europe, its most direct competitor is THALES ALENIA SPACE. In 2024, the ESA selected both companies under its LEO Cargo Return Service programme. Each received an initial €25 million allocation to prepare a European cargo transportation service to the ISS, with a demonstration targeted for 2028 if possible and no later than 2030.

THALES ALENIA SPACE has several decades of experience in pressurised modules, crewed infrastructure and relationships with space agencies. TEC is betting on a leaner organisation, private risk-taking and a speed of development rarely seen in the European space industry. This is more than a contest between a startup and an incumbent. It pits two different ways of developing space programmes against each other.

In the United States, SIERRA SPACE is developing Dream Chaser, a reusable cargo spaceplane designed to service the ISS and return to a runway. Its architecture should limit the acceleration experienced by payloads during return, an advantage for certain biological experiments and materials. The programme has, however, accumulated delays and remains under development.

Other companies are attacking the market from below. Germany’s ATMOS SPACE CARGO is developing Phoenix, a smaller capsule intended for the autonomous return of experiments and products manufactured in orbit. In the United States, VARDA SPACE INDUSTRIES already operates capsules that combine microgravity manufacturing with atmospheric re-entry. The company also uses its missions as testbeds for thermal protection, hypersonic navigation and military equipment.

These companies cannot resupply a station in the way Nyx is intended to do, but they can capture high-value payloads, particularly in pharmaceuticals, advanced materials and defence. Not every microgravity customer will need a large capsule capable of docking with the ISS.

Following the opposite path to SPACEX

While SPACEX began with a launch vehicle before developing Dragon, THE EXPLORATION COMPANY is following the opposite trajectory.

The first reason is the capital required. A cargo capsule can be developed in stages, beginning with a small demonstrator, followed by an intermediate vehicle and then a complete system. Each flight generates data, helps secure new customers and gives investors a reason to finance the next stage.

A heavy launch vehicle does not lend itself as easily to this incremental approach. It requires engines, tanks, structures, separation systems, avionics, ground facilities, test stands and several flights before achieving commercial reliability. Hélène Huby estimates that a complete cargo capsule requires around half a billion euros in investment, compared with at least €1 billion to €2 billion for a large launch vehicle.

Choosing Nyx therefore allows TEC to build technical credibility before seeking the capital required for autonomous access to space.

TEC has nevertheless begun developing the propulsion system for this next stage through its Storm programme, which focuses on a reusable engine capable of delivering up to 180 tonnes of thrust at sea level. Fuelled by liquid oxygen and biomethane, it is based on a full-flow staged-combustion cycle, a particularly demanding architecture in which all the propellants pass through the preburners before reaching the main combustion chamber.

The programme is progressing through successive tests of turbomachinery, preburners, ignition systems and additively manufactured components. TEC presents Storm as the technological foundation for a future European heavy-lift system. Storm, however, is not a launch vehicle. It is one of its most complex building blocks, but only one. The company will still have to design the stages, structures, launch facilities and recovery architecture.

Several options remain open. TEC could develop a rocket independently, partner with an industrial group, supply its engine to another operator or consolidate an existing company.

ARIANE 6, a partner today and a competitor tomorrow

This move upstream towards launch systems places TEC in an ambiguous position within the European ecosystem.

ARIANESPACE is a natural partner for launching Nyx. Ariane 6 has the necessary capacity and could give the programme a coherent European framework. But if TEC develops its own heavy-lift system, ARIANEGROUP and ARIANESPACE will become competitors.

The same ambiguity applies to the new generation of launch vehicles. MAIASPACE, an ARIANEGROUP subsidiary, is developing a liquid-oxygen and biomethane rocket that will be available in expendable and partially reusable versions. ISAR AEROSPACE is developing Spectrum for small and medium-sized satellites and raised an additional €270 million in 2026 to accelerate industrial production. RFA, PLD SPACE and AVIO, meanwhile, occupy other segments of the European launch market.

These vehicles are not necessarily sized to carry Nyx, but they nevertheless compete for engineers, test stands, public funding and institutional orders. Europe no longer lacks rocket projects. It must now decide which ones it actually wants to fly at a commercial cadence.

If Storm leads to a heavy launch vehicle, its main benchmarks will not be Europe’s microlaunchers, but SPACEX’s Falcon 9, BLUE ORIGIN’s New Glenn, ROCKET LAB’s Neutron and future reusable US rockets.

TEC would then move into a different category and enter one of the most capital-intensive industries in the world.

Commercial stations, future customers and new centres of power

Another challenge is the destination, because owning a capsule and, one day, a launch vehicle raises the question of where to send them.

The ISS is due to be retired around 2030. Several US companies are preparing its successors. VAST is developing Haven-1 and then Haven-2. AXIOM SPACE is gradually building Axiom Station. STARLAB SPACE, backed notably by VOYAGER SPACE and AIRBUS, is also targeting the commercial station market. BLUE ORIGIN and its partners are working on Orbital Reef.

All these projects represent future customers for Nyx, but they may also become its main points of dependency.

VAST currently has one of the most advanced schedules, with Haven-1 announced for 2027. Its first missions, however, are expected to use Dragon and Falcon 9. France itself has signed an agreement covering two French missions, including one to Haven-1, with transportation provided by SPACEX. VAST presents Haven-1 as a first step towards the Haven-2 station.

The risk for TEC is that future stations will organise their procedures, interfaces and business models around Dragon before Nyx arrives. In space, a technical standard can quickly become a commercial advantage.

Some stations also belong to vertically integrated groups. BLUE ORIGIN is developing New Glenn, the Blue Ring mobility platform, the Blue Moon lunar vehicle and Orbital Reef. SIERRA SPACE is working on Dream Chaser and participates in orbital infrastructure projects. AIRBUS, for its part, is involved in STARLAB while remaining a central player in the European space industry.

TEC’s potential customers may therefore buy its services, favour a vehicle owned by their own consortium or become competitors themselves.

This industrial uncertainty is compounded by market uncertainty. Commercial stations may be delayed, scaled back or abandoned. Their occupancy rates remain unknown, as does the true level of demand for manufacturing in microgravity. Capacity reservations and memoranda of understanding make it possible to display an order book, but they do not necessarily generate recurring revenue.

The post-ISS economy currently exists more as a strategic expectation than as a fully established market.

The Moon as a second testing ground

THE EXPLORATION COMPANY is no longer limiting its ambitions to Earth orbit. The company is working with the UAE Space Agency, the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre and Khalifa University on a lunar vehicle.

A landing demonstration is planned in the desert in 2027. It is intended to test technologies that could be used both for a lunar descent and for the propulsive recovery of a rocket stage. TEC is then targeting a mission to the lunar surface before the end of the decade.

The project relies in particular on Huracan, an engine distinct from Storm and developed for lunar applications. It allows TEC to build expertise in autonomous navigation, propulsion, thermal management and landing that can be reused across several vehicle families.

The company is not, however, entering an empty field. In Europe, THALES ALENIA SPACE leads the consortium responsible for developing Argonaut, the ESA’s first autonomous lunar lander, alongside partners including OHB. The descent module is due to be delivered in 2030 for a first operational mission in 2031. The ESA presents Argonaut as Europe’s future autonomous access capability to the lunar surface.

In the United States, NASA has already structured a commercial market through the CLPS programme. INTUITIVE MACHINES, FIREFLY AEROSPACE, ASTROBOTIC, BLUE ORIGIN and other operators receive orders to transport payloads to the Moon. SPACEX is developing Starship HLS, while BLUE ORIGIN is building Blue Moon, whose cargo version is expected to carry up to three tonnes.

For TEC, the question will be less whether it can demonstrate a working engine than whether it can define its position: light missions, a reusable vehicle, transportation for the Emirates, a complement to Argonaut or an international commercial service.

At this stage, the lunar objective remains more of a roadmap than a fully funded mission. The customer, launch vehicle, payload and budget will need to be specified before the programme can be compared with US offerings or Argonaut.

2035, the horizon for a crewed capsule

The final stage of this ambition concerns astronaut transportation, for which THE EXPLORATION COMPANY’s founder has cited 2035 as the reference horizon.

Moving from cargo to crew is a considerable undertaking. It requires a life-support system, adapted interfaces, an emergency architecture, higher levels of redundancy and a long qualification campaign. TEC is nevertheless seeking to incorporate some of these requirements into Nyx from the design stage.

The capsule is expected to have four parachutes. This architecture is intended to enable a safe return even if two of them fail. The company is also working on an abort system capable of moving the capsule away from the launch vehicle in the event of an anomaly during the early phases of flight.

Hélène Huby estimates the development cost of a crewed capsule at around €3 billion, of which at least €2 billion would need to come from public funding.

The crewed programme cannot therefore be financed by the market alone. It requires a European political decision, potentially in partnership with the United States.

For Europe, the question is not simply whether TEC can build this capsule. It is whether governments genuinely want an autonomous crewed capability and how much they are prepared to pay for it.

Behind cargo, space defence

The least visible part of TEC’s strategy concerns military applications. To reach a station, a capsule must be able to detect its target, calculate its trajectory, manoeuvre accurately and approach without causing a collision. The same technologies can be used to inspect a satellite, observe its behaviour, refuel it, repair it or move it.

The boundary between commercial maintenance, intelligence gathering and military action therefore depends less on the vehicle than on its mission. TEC is not alone in this market. ASTROSCALE is developing rendezvous, inspection and debris-removal technologies. CLEARSPACE is working on capture, deorbiting and life extension. Toulouse-based INFINITE ORBITS is developing vehicles capable of inspecting geostationary satellites and docking with them. D-ORBIT already operates a fleet of orbital transportation vehicles, while EXOTRAIL is developing Spacevan to move payloads between different orbits.

In the United States, NORTHROP GRUMMAN SPACELOGISTICS has an operational lead. Its Mission Extension Vehicles have already docked with INTELSAT satellites to extend their service life.

TEC can benefit from the safety requirements imposed on a vehicle designed to approach a crewed station. But Nyx will often be too large and too expensive for satellite inspection. The company will probably need to deploy its software, sensors and rendezvous technologies on smaller platforms.

The thermal protection used for atmospheric re-entry, materials resistant to extreme temperatures and certain thruster-manufacturing processes may also be relevant to hypersonic and ballistic programmes.

The real innovation may come from public procurement

TEC’s success will ultimately depend less on its ability to announce new vehicles than on whether European institutions can become customers.

The US precedent set the tone. NASA did not simply subsidise SPACEX. It defined services, organised a competition, financed development milestones and guaranteed mission orders. The agency allowed companies to retain control over their architecture and to market their vehicles to other customers.

This visibility allowed manufacturers to raise private capital. It also transferred part of the risk to the companies, which were paid for results rather than for time spent on the programme.

Europe operates very differently. Its agencies define systems in detail, distribute work among countries under the geographical-return principle and finance development costs. While this model preserves industrial expertise across the continent, it also slows decision-making and makes it harder for a product-owning operator to emerge.

The LEO Cargo Return Service programme marks an initial shift. Yet while a grant can build a prototype, a recurring order can build a company.

This logic extends beyond space. It also concerns defence, cloud computing, high-performance computing, energy and robotics. Europe provides substantial funding for research and demonstrators, but struggles to use public procurement to create markets predictable enough for companies to industrialise.

TEC will need the ESA, but also NASA for access to the ISS, CNES and DLR for testing, the French and German governments, defence ministries, the United Arab Emirates and, potentially, US institutions such as the Texas Space Commission.

Every major competitor benefits from comparable support. SPACEX relies on NASA and the Pentagon. BLUE ORIGIN combines US government orders with Jeff Bezos’s capital. Lunar operators are developing through the CLPS programme. ARIANEGROUP and THALES ALENIA SPACE remain closely tied to European institutional programmes.

In space, public authorities do not intervene after a market has formed. They help create it.

Sovereignty built through interdependence

Although THE EXPLORATION COMPANY claims a European ambition, it is not developing an autarkic project.

The company distributes its teams across France, Germany, Italy and the United States. It recruits former NASA and SPACEX executives, works with US partners, collaborates with the Emirates and wants Nyx to be able to fly on several international launch vehicles. The capsule’s docking mechanisms are notably expected to be supplied by REDWIRE.

This organisation reflects a particular conception of sovereignty. The objective is not to manufacture every bolt in Europe, but to control enough critical components to avoid depending on a single country or supplier.

TEC is seeking less to separate Europe from the United States than to give it a capability it can bring to the transatlantic relationship. A Europe capable of transporting cargo, operating around satellites and, later, carrying astronauts would no longer be merely a customer. It would become a partner.

This strategy nevertheless creates new dependencies. NASA controls access to the ISS. Foreign suppliers manufacture certain critical components. The first commercial stations will primarily be American. Only a small number of launch vehicles will be capable of carrying Nyx.

Today’s partners may also become tomorrow’s competitors. ARIANESPACE may launch Nyx before confronting a future launch vehicle based on Storm. THALES may compete with TEC in cargo transportation and then collaborate with it on a station or lunar mission. SPACEX may place its demonstrators into orbit while continuing to dominate the market it is trying to enter.

The risk of integrating everything before completing the first product

TEC’s strategy is coherent, but it also carries an obvious risk of losing focus.

Nyx Earth, orbital operations, defence, the lunar vehicle, Huracan, Storm, the abort system, the crewed capsule and a future launch vehicle are all extremely capital-intensive programmes. Any one of them could require several hundred engineers and hundreds of millions of euros.

In each segment, TEC also faces specialist competitors that are often further ahead. SPACEX has mastered integrated transportation. THALES ALENIA SPACE has experience in crewed infrastructure. ARIANEGROUP controls European heavy launch. ASTROSCALE, D-ORBIT and NORTHROP GRUMMAN have a lead in in-orbit services. INTUITIVE MACHINES, FIREFLY and BLUE ORIGIN already benefit from lunar contracts.

TEC’s distinctive proposition is to connect these markets through a single architecture. Such integration can create technological economies: the same navigation software can serve docking and satellite operations, the same materials can protect both capsules and hypersonic systems, and the same engines can prepare for lunar landing and launch-vehicle recovery.

It can also multiply priorities before the first service becomes operational.

Even if TEC succeeds in raising $300 million, that amount will not simultaneously finance Nyx, a heavy launch vehicle, a lunar vehicle and a crewed capsule. The company will need to return regularly to the capital markets, obtain debt financing, sign defence contracts, form industrial partnerships and secure public orders.

Nyx therefore remains the decisive test. If the capsule reaches the ISS in 2028 and returns to Earth, TEC will be able to demonstrate that a new generation of European space company can develop, certify and operate a complete vehicle. It will then be able to raise more capital, negotiate alliances and expand its architecture.

If the schedule slips significantly, the multiplication of programmes will instead be seen as an attempt to keep moving forward without delivering the core product.

Ultimately, THE EXPLORATION COMPANY will not become Europe’s space infrastructure because it has announced a capsule, an engine and a lunar vehicle. It will do so if Nyx flies, if stations buy its services, if governments place orders and if Storm one day allows it to stop asking its competitors for permission to lift off.

Since its creation, the company has raised nearly €200 million from investors including Balderton Capital, Plural Platform, Bessemer Venture Partners and Bpifrance. It is preparing a new €300 million funding round, which is expected to be announced shortly and would value the company at more than €2 billion. It has completed two acquisitions, including the acquisition of European Astrotech last June.