The Exploration Company wants to revive Europe in space cargo flights

• The Exploration Company is a new space start-up based in Bordeaux and Munich.

• It designs a reusable space capsule for Earth orbit in 2026 and the Moon in 2028.

• In the meantime, the company is the youngest start-up to be selected by the European Space Agency to embark a demonstrator on the maiden flight of Ariane 6.

It's hard to believe that it's in one of these small laboratories, at the end of a long corridor, that an important game is played for Europe in the space exploration market, which is opening up to everything.

Yet it is here, within the Bordeaux Technowest incubator, a building lost at the end of the runways of Bordeaux-Mérignac airport (Gironde), that the German-Bordeaux start-up The Exploration Company (TEC) is designing part Nyx, a reusable space capsule - in the vein of Space X's Crew Dragon.

This capsule will notably be used as a cargo ship to supply space stations and lunar bases.

And, "today, a vehicle like that does not exist in Europe", explains Hélène Huby, founder and director of the start-up, who recalls that the European Space Agency "stopped the program of the ATV that supplied the International Space Station [ISS]”.

The other space vehicles are, to date, to be sought on the Russian side with Soyuz, Chinese with Thianzou or American with, in addition to Crew Dragon, Starliner and Cygnus.

"The contribution of The Exploration Company is unique and will allow Europe to get back into the game in terms of space cargo flights," announced the president of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region Alain Rousset.

It is therefore a strategic undertaking.

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A demonstrator in the maiden flight of Ariane 6

Like Space X, The Exploration Company is growing and learning very quickly.

Eighteen months only after its creation, the space logistics company has grown from three to fifty people, and is already finalizing its first Bikini demonstrator which will embark on the maiden flight of Ariane 6. Winner of a prize launched by the European Space Agency, the start-up is one of seven companies selected for this highly anticipated flight, scheduled for the end of the year.

“We are even the youngest start-up selected by the space agency to fly on Ariane 6” points out the manager.

Designed in just nine months and for 500,000 euros, this atmospheric re-entry demonstrator will board Ariane 6 empty, then be released into space before coming back down to Earth... and sinking to the bottom of the ocean.

The demonstrator will therefore not be recovered.

The interest of this mission?

Packed with electronics, the capsule will make it possible to recover a whole lot of data during its re-entry phase: measurements of acceleration, orientation, temperature, etc. It will also make it possible to test the thermal protection material used, an aggregate of cork and very high performance resin. 

“It heats up enormously on the capsule at the time of atmospheric entry, so we have placed sensors to find out how effective this protection is,” explains Sébastien Reichstadt, propulsion manager and co-founder of the company.

“All of this data will allow us to improve the following capsules concerning atmospheric re-entry, one of the most technically difficult phases to master,” continues Hélène Huby, trained at ENA and who worked for Airbus Defense and Space. 

A price of 25,000 euros per kilo launched

And after ?

Everything should happen very quickly.

From 2024, The Exploration Company will send a second vehicle,

, into space, much larger (about 2.5 meters in diameter), and which will carry some 300 kg of equipment.

“It has already been fully booked by Cnes and the German and European space agencies,” emphasizes Hélène Huby.

will board the Space X rocket this time, “but we are an agnostic launcher, that is to say that we are compatible with Indian, European and American launchers, insists Hélène Huby.

This gives us an array of choices to get started on.

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It will then be the turn of the Nyx vehicles - Nyx Earth in 2026 and Nyx Moon in 2028 - to leave the company's workshops.

We will then move on to recoverable capsules, four meters in diameter.

The commercialization of Nyx Earth, which will be able to send cargo and remain in Earth orbit for up to six months before returning to Earth, has even already begun. 

For the lunar vehicle, “we will reuse the same parts as the terrestrial vehicle, adding cryogenic engines that we are developing in New Aquitaine.

It will have the ability to go to lunar stations and land on the Moon, or even

on the Moon.

For this lunar version, the start-up is developing a liquid-powered engine to land on the moon and take off again, with green propellant based on biomethane, which will be a first.

"We have also integrated a lot of electrical and electronics into this engine to control the operation of the engine, and to be able to reuse it by analyzing its behavior," adds Sébastien Reichstadt.

Server farms in space

The Exploration Company is targeting three main destinations: space stations around the Earth, the station around the Moon (Lunar gateway), and the lunar surface.

"We will have to transport everything related to the experiments of the astronauts, their food, the spare parts of the stations...", lists Hélène Huby.

But the future customers of the start-up will not only be space agencies.

“There are also five private space stations that are developing and are very interested in buying cargo from us.

Some will be used, for example, to position server farms in space, to allow the tens or even hundreds of thousands of space objects of tomorrow to perform their calculations

, with a view to greater security.

The most advanced of these stations is Axiom Space, one of whose biggest customers is Amazon.

Afterwards, we will send building materials and Rovers to the Moon.

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Question price, “we are aiming for a marketing price of 25,000 euros per kilo launched, announces Hélène Huby, in comparison, taking cargo to the International Space Station and bringing it down costs around 100,000 euros per kilo.

Our start-up price is therefore 25% lower than the competition today, which is enabled by our start-up approach and reuse technology.

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Manned flights for space tourism

To carry out its missions, the vehicle will need to “docking” at the stations, again with a lock to break, because the technology “is not yet mastered in Europe”, underlines Hélène Huby.

“But we are among the winners of an ESA contract to start developing this docking technology.

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The start-up finally wants to offer manned flights for space tourism.

“But getting humans on board is a bit more complex, and that will be a later step.

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