European Startup Snags $825M Space Contract After Massive Raise

Jan de Vries · 2026-09-11

Europe just made a bold move in the space race. The Exploration Company (TEC), a five-year-old startup, has won a contract worth €760 million ($825 million) from the European Space Agency (ESA) to build and fly Europe's first commercial cargo capsule to the International Space Station (ISS). The deal was signed at the International Space Summit in Paris. ### The Deal: What's Included? The contract is split into two parts: €310 million ($336 million) for an initial demonstration mission, and up to €450 million ($488 million) for two optional service missions that will be confirmed later. ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher said, "Today's agreement with The Exploration Company shows how ESA can act as an anchor customer—strengthening Europe's commercial space sector and turning ambition into reality." ### A Fresh $450 Million Raise Just days before the contract, TEC closed a €387 million ($450 million) Series C round. That funding will go toward finishing development of its Nyx reusable capsule and speeding up work on Storm, a reusable high-thrust rocket engine. This combination of private and public backing is a big vote of confidence for the young company. ### The ALADDIN Program ESA calls this contract Phase 2 of ALADDIN (Autonomous LEO Accelerated Demo Docking to ISS Node). It's the successor to the Low Earth Orbit Cargo Return Service (LCRS) program. Back in 2022, ESA member states endorsed the LCRS concept and awarded €25 million ($27 million) each to two projects to develop their concepts. After confirmation at ESA's Council at Ministerial level in November 2025, the program moved to Phase 2, with a tender in March 2026. TEC won that competitive tender, marking ESA's first and largest capsule transportation service contract awarded to a European company in open competition. ### Meet Nyx: The Reusable Capsule At the heart of TEC's plan is Nyx, a reusable capsule designed to launch on any heavy-lift rocket, dock autonomously with a space station, and return up to 6,600 pounds of cargo to Earth. Each capsule can fly up to 10 missions. It uses in-house carbon-based thermal protection for re-entry and proprietary flight software for autonomous docking. The company develops Nyx across sites in Munich, Bordeaux, and Turin, and is expanding into the United States and the UAE. ### Beyond ESA: Commercial Deals TEC isn't relying solely on ESA. It has pre-booking agreements with commercial space station operators Axiom, Starlab, and Vast. That brings its total booked missions to 10, worth roughly $2 billion in contracts. Nyx is also going through ISS certification with NASA. ### A Shift in European Space Hélène Huby, founder and CEO of TEC, said, "This is more than a contract award: it reflects a shift in how we build space technology in Europe. We started the development of Nyx with private funding only, and we are now at a technical maturity level where ESA and Member States' public funding can support us massively, as anchor clients, to help us finalise the vehicle. It is also the first time in Europe that a five-year-old space startup wins a contract worth hundreds of millions of euros in open competition." This deal could signal a new era for European space startups, blending private innovation with public support to compete globally.