The European space future will be discussed at a summit in Spain on Monday 6 and Tuesday 7 November. In the sights, the privatization of certain activities, such as the design of spaceships. An area in which a French start-up hopes to compete with the American giant Space X.
The European Union’s space strategy is at the heart of a summit in Seville, Spain, Monday 6 and Tuesday 7 November. The ministers of the 22 member countries of the European Space Agency (ESA) are meeting to discuss the major issues that are shaking up the sector, in particular the delay in the launch of the Ariane 6 rocket. But this is far from being the only issue of this summit. The ESA promises progress in particular to promote the privatization of certain activities, in the manner of what the Americans are doing: European start-ups hope to have the same destiny as Space X.
This is for example the case of The Exploration Company which, despite the English name, is indeed a French company. A former Ariane rocket engineer, Sébastien Reichstadt, is one of the founders, and is trying with his teams to develop a spacecraft called Nyx. “This capsule has an Apollo type shape”explains Sébastien Reichstadt. “With a kind of cone, you have thermal protection on the bottom, and then you have the little thrusters on the side that allow you to orient the capsule.”
A ship partly designed near Bordeaux
This reusable capsule aesthetically resembles that of Space X, which sends astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station. And it also wants to be versatile. “We can transport cargo”adds the engineer, “so it could be food aspects, equipment replacements for space stations, but also medical experiments.”
The Exploration Company was founded just two years ago. Today it has around a hundred employees spread between Munich, Germany and Mérignac, near Bordeaux, where certain elements of the vessel are designed and tested. “We place the elements inside. Then we create a vacuum, this is what we call a vacuum chamber”explains Mathieu Sauvage, specialist in avionics systems. “This is one of the elements that allows us here in Bordeaux to guarantee that what we produce today is compatible with the vacuum of space.”
First flight of the final vehicle in 2026
Prototypes will soon be tested in real conditions and launched aboard rockets in the coming months. “After these two demonstrations, we will have the final vehicle which will fly in 2026,” according to Sébastien Reichstadt. The young company has already signed a contract with one of the heavyweights in the sector, the American company Axiom Space, which plans to manufacture the first private space station.
“We’re really moving into another world of space exploration”says Sébastien Reichstadt. “We are going to move more and more towards private stations such as Axiom. Their needs to bring back cargo will be multiplied. We want to have non-dependence on other countries. It’s a bit the same method as for Ariane, which was developed to allow Europe to have its own capabilities for importing and sending payloads.” The engineer hopes that one day this capsule could also transport astronauts.