Privately-Funded EU Company Raises $160M for SpaceX Dragon-Like Reusable Space Capsule (techcrunch.com) 44
Nyx is a new reusable space capsule that "safely and affordably carries cargo to and from space stations," according to the web page of its European-based manufacturer, The Exploration Company, "launching from any heavy launcher worldwide."
And the company "just closed a large funding round to further its mission of building Europe's first reusable space capsule," reports TechCrunch — pointing out that right now, "Only two companies currently provide cargo delivery to and from the International Space Station, and both are based in the United States." 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 three years ago by aerospace engineers Hélène Huby, Sebastien Reichstat, and Pierre Vine, is aiming to conduct Nyx's maiden flight to and from the International Space Station in 2028.
"We are the first company in the world where this is for the first time mainly funded by private investors," Huby said in a recent interview. This is in contrast to SpaceX's Dragon capsule, which she said was "mainly funded by NASA." The new funding, which was led by Balderton Capital and Plural, brings the startup's 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 Souveraineté and DeepTech & Climate Fonds. "We've been able to deliver on promises in the past three years," Huby said. "We've been able to meet our cash target ever quarter ... The investors, they could see that we basically can deliver on time, on cost, on quality."
The startup has made traction with the European Space Agency, which has recognized the need to foster native space launch and transportation capabilities... It's a promising start, but equally promising is the traction The Exploration Company is seeing on the commercial side. Around 90% of the startup's $770 million contract backlog has come from private station developers Vast, Axiom Space, and Starlab, according to recent reporting...
The second sub-scale demonstrator mission, called Mission Possible, is scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 next year.
TechCrunch quotes Huby as saying "I highly respect what SpaceX has been able to achieve.We are trying to learn as much as possible from that, we are inspired by what they have achieved."
In a CNBC interview, Huby says "It's a big market, and it's growing about a bit more than 10% per year because more nations want to fly their astronauts and more nations want to go to the moon. So there is an increased demand for sending people to stations, sending cargo to stations."
"Join us on our mission to democratize access to space," says a home-page link to the company's recruiting page — with a link further down titled "Book a mission."
And the company "just closed a large funding round to further its mission of building Europe's first reusable space capsule," reports TechCrunch — pointing out that right now, "Only two companies currently provide cargo delivery to and from the International Space Station, and both are based in the United States." 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 three years ago by aerospace engineers Hélène Huby, Sebastien Reichstat, and Pierre Vine, is aiming to conduct Nyx's maiden flight to and from the International Space Station in 2028.
"We are the first company in the world where this is for the first time mainly funded by private investors," Huby said in a recent interview. This is in contrast to SpaceX's Dragon capsule, which she said was "mainly funded by NASA." The new funding, which was led by Balderton Capital and Plural, brings the startup's 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 Souveraineté and DeepTech & Climate Fonds. "We've been able to deliver on promises in the past three years," Huby said. "We've been able to meet our cash target ever quarter ... The investors, they could see that we basically can deliver on time, on cost, on quality."
The startup has made traction with the European Space Agency, which has recognized the need to foster native space launch and transportation capabilities... It's a promising start, but equally promising is the traction The Exploration Company is seeing on the commercial side. Around 90% of the startup's $770 million contract backlog has come from private station developers Vast, Axiom Space, and Starlab, according to recent reporting...
The second sub-scale demonstrator mission, called Mission Possible, is scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 next year.
TechCrunch quotes Huby as saying "I highly respect what SpaceX has been able to achieve.We are trying to learn as much as possible from that, we are inspired by what they have achieved."
In a CNBC interview, Huby says "It's a big market, and it's growing about a bit more than 10% per year because more nations want to fly their astronauts and more nations want to go to the moon. So there is an increased demand for sending people to stations, sending cargo to stations."
"Join us on our mission to democratize access to space," says a home-page link to the company's recruiting page — with a link further down titled "Book a mission."
Good luck (Score:3)
Much as the US shouldn't be depending on the US for access to space, the EU shouldn't depend on the US. Like China, the EU should be follow in SpaceX's footsteps and build their own complete reusable launch system.
But we're going to have to find some kind of solution to the Starlink issue; we can't have every major political block throwing up 10k little bits of space junk for Internet access any more than any given political block should be comfortable with Musk controlling their feed.
Re:Editing... (Score:2)
Much as the US shouldn't be depending on the Russia for access to space,
Re: Editing... (Score:1)
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...and put your nation's communications in Musk and Trump's control. Yeah, very secure.
Last time Trump was in office, he declared my country a national security threat as leverage in trade negotiations. We really don't need him controlling our communications infrastructure; that's a national security risk for us.
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Not the US, obviously.
If you followed politics at all, there's only one country that matches what I've posted. If you don't know what it is, it's not like it will inform you further.
You apparently think Musk and/or Trump can be trusted, so that right there tells me you're not worth conversing with further.
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I try to read the news and stay reasonably well-informed about current events, but I must have missed this one. (Not saying I don't believe you-- it sounds very on-brand for Trump).
So yeah, actually, it would be informative. Would you mind specifying which country you're talking about here?
Which Country (Score:2)
The reason you most likely didn't hear about it is, it wasn't that big of a deal in the USA and in Canada, we got such an amazing sweet deal out of it we decided to keep our mouths shut. Like even the things our politicians intentionally gave
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At this point, the US doesn't depend on russia for space access. They *could* move all the Soyouz missions to Falcon 9, they just don't because money.
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I think the main reason Europe doesn't do any of this is they basically don't have any will to do so. This is neither a good thing nor a bad thing, that's just how people choose to live their lives there. They often say about Americans that we work too much and we're always on the go. It's probably true, though that's also why the more ambitious among them end up moving here. Hence you've got people like Elon Musk that have embraced American culture (not European granted, but similar temperament where he's
Re:Good luck (Score:5, Interesting)
But they do have the will to have a space program, they are willing to dump billions of Euros into ArianeSpace to create a new expendable rocket so obviously there is some desire there. This particular entry seems to be pretty lackluster, half the payload of a Dragon Cargo and doesn't yet exist. Their claim about SpaceX being NASA funded is pretty funny considering the article says "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 €25 million ($27 million) to develop cargo return services earlier this year.". So they are getting funding from their local space agency to develop a cargo capsule, just like SpaceX. We'll see if it ever flies, any delays and there won't be an ISS to fly to.
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Ariane is national security, the ability to independently put stuff in orbit.
Beyond that the EU has been held back by the UK for a long time, but is now starting to integrate more and develop "federal" level stuff like a more integrate space programme and some kind of defence force.
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Just imagine the crew of that EU capsule contacting EU space control for permission to land. /s
EU Capsule: When can we land?
EU Space Control: I'm sorry but EU Space Control is unstaffed right now due to culturally expected 5-week summer vacations for the staff. This is a recording.
EU Capsule: WTF !
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Vacations are scheduled. Not everyone goes the same period.
Facepalm.
There are exception, like in France. But to your surprise, gasoline stations, trains and air planes: just work.
But kind of funny post.
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Vacations are scheduled. Not everyone goes the same period. Facepalm.
There are exception, like in France. But to your surprise, gasoline stations, trains and air planes: just work.
But kind of funny post.
I would like to extend my heart-felt thanks to the EU for writing my material for me. :))))
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That is a Japanese saying.
But perhaps they have the same in China.
China does many things its own way.
E.g. the solar and electric car revolution.
The way China goes, in 30 years they will be the world leader in everything.
May you live in interesting times <- that is a Chinese saying.
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I think the main reason Europe doesn't do any of this is they basically don't have any will to do so
Europe is a continent.
Political "Europe" is very different to other large entities like the US and China, to the point where one might question its ability to develop any kind of coherent "will".
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I think the main reason Europe doesn't do any of this is they basically don't have any will to do so. This is neither a good thing nor a bad thing, that's just how people choose to live their lives there. They often say about Americans that we work too much and we're always on the go. It's probably true, though that's also why the more ambitious among them end up moving here. Hence you've got people like Elon Musk that have embraced American culture..
When you look at the big picture end goal for Elon, it tends to focus on getting us the hell off this dying rock.
Thats not really a “culture” thing as much as it is common sense survival tactics. There are still “third” worlds for Greed to feed on relentlessly and without regard for planetary impact. The utter lack of regulation, is exactly why Greed will do that. Takes ambition to survive that.
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The EU has had enormous aerospace success with Airbus. They should absolutely be setting up an organisation like it with a mandate to produce rockets that are as efficient, and reliable as Airbuses planes.
Everyone's gone silicon valley (Score:2)
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"If these trends continue...Eeeeeh [youtube.com]!"
"You're fish are dead."
works like this (Score:1)
Take two war-era VW Beetles
Cut them in two, across the body, just behind the doors
Arrange the 4 halves with the cut parts all facing an opening at the center
With some shop scrap and miscellaneous bits, hack it all together into one unit
Make sure one of the doors still works.
You'll need to cerakote the bottom
This badboy is good for 8 people
Take that Boeing
"Nyx is a new reusable space capsule..." (Score:2)
That sounds great. Now let's see you do it.
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Often the most important thing to know about a thing is that it is *possible*.
Apollo showed that the conical reentry capsule/cylindrical service module design was practical. SpaceX showed it could be built as a proprietary vehicle. So these guys are copying SpaceX copying NASA. It's all good, because as you're pointing out it's about execution, not proving that this architecture works.
I think it would be cool for someone to build something a lot more like Soyuz or Shenzhou, which include a cargo/living a
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I want to see a rocket that can achieve a high orbit and then make like a sea squirt and dump its innards leaving a usable hab space behind. We send a lot of mass up, and it bothers me knowing a lot of it is just orbiting the Sun if it hasn't come back down to Earth.
Where's my rotating ring station like we were promised back in the 1970s?
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That's what I was saying about Soyuz; it has a command module, a reentry capsule, and an orbital module. Maybe you could bolt the orbital modules together like legos.
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I was reviewing the Artemis program on WP and ran across an infographic of different operational capsules. Most were in the 9 cu/m range, but one jumped out at me: China's 14 cu/m. Like Soyuz, the return capsule is 3 cu/m, about half of the space in US capsules.
Good luck. Developing a new car costs $1bn (Score:2)
I would hazard a guess that aerospace R&D costs quite a bit more than automotive.
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Maybe not. Aerospace has fairly high regulatory costs, but so does automotive (crash tests, fuel efficiency tests, etc). And a lot of the automotive costs go into building factories that can operate at scale, which you avoid with a hand-made space capsule. Not to mention costs relating to advertising, dealerships, and maintenance.
Hope they're not delayed (Score:2)
If they wait 2 more years after their 2028 plan to reach the ISS, they could do it with a submarine in 2030 when it's somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.
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Hate to say it, (Score:3, Insightful)
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It's probably $4B in Europe but maybe this is seed funding.
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TFS says it's for delivering cargo. So, not human rated. And I'd guess that the booster doesn't have to be either. The Ariane will probably suffice (TFS says reusable capsule, not booster).
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Soyouz (Score:1)
"Only two companies currently provide cargo delivery to and from the International Space Station, and both are based in the United States."
And Russia? I know they are they bad guys, but is it legit to use a Soyouz for cargo?
Rather Chilly on the IIS (Score:2)
Irony? (Score:1)
In Eve Online a Nyx is a Supercarrier. Arguable the most powerful, or second most powerful ship in the game.