It looks like a big white bullet, with a rounded nose that swings open to reveal a docking port, and a cylindrical trunk in back that can be mated to any of a number of large launch rockets. If it sounds familiar, that’s because we’re describing the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, and in the last decade it has become the leading player in the market for getting people and cargo to and from Earth orbit.
Now comes a competitor from Europe, a reusable cargo capsule called Nyx, planned by a startup called The Exploration Company (TEC for short). How to describe its appearance? Perhaps like this:
It looks like a big white bullet, with a rounded nose that swings open to reveal a docking port, and a cylindrical trunk in back that can be mated to any of a number of large launch rockets. TEC’s people agree it’s a time-tested configuration.
So what makes Nyx stand out in a field dominated by SpaceX? The vehicle’s outward design may not be dramatically different, but its rapid development has turned some heads—along with the potential for a space cargo option that doesn’t carry the political baggage of China, Russia, or the United States.
“Only three countries around the world are mastering this capsule technology,” said Hélène Huby, the founder of The Exploration Company, at a business conference in Zurich last year. “We need to have also a capsule in Europe.”
TEC announced in November that it had raised 150 million euros (about US $160 million) in Series B venture capital funding—making it one of the best-financed space startups Europe has seen. And it’s already launched a small test capsule, in July, on the first European Ariane 6 rocket, and it plans another demonstrator, called Mission Possible, in 2025.
That’s hyperspeed for a company that only began in 2021. And if Mission Possible lives up to its name, the European Space Agency may award the company additional funding to build Nyx. ESA and NASA have signed agreements with TEC, hoping it can make a first cargo flight to the International Space Station as soon as 2028.
The ISS is not TEC’s primary target; the company is more interested in the various commercial space stations that may be assembled in the 2030s, including NASA’s Gateway in high lunar orbit. If Nyx succeeds as an uncrewed cargo ship, the company says a version that can carry human passengers could follow, along with a possible robotic lunar lander.
“That’s a $300 billion market over a 10-year period,” says Mark Kirasich, a NASA veteran who is now TEC’s vice president for U.S. operations. “So there’s room for people who can compete on both performance as well as cost.”
TEC’s European roots are a significant selling point. Several EU countries would be natural customers. The company plans to build most of Nyx in Germany, with additional facilities in France and Italy. TEC says it’s happy to carry cargo from the U.S., India, Japan, Middle Eastern countries, or anyone else in need of a pressurized spacecraft.
TEC staff works on the Mission Possible test capsule, 2.5 meters in diameter, during assembly.The Exploration Company
Much of the resemblance between Nyx and Dragon is superficial: Engineers calculated more than 60 years ago that a blunt cone, with a heat shield at its base, was an efficient, reliable shape for a vehicle that is launched vertically by a rocket and re-enters the atmosphere at the end of its flight. Both capsules are 4 meters in diameter. The Exploration Company says Nyx will be capable of carrying 4,000 kilograms of cargo to a space station in low Earth orbit, flying for up to six months, and bringing 3,000 kg back down to a water landing. (Cargo Dragon is somewhat larger; SpaceX says it can carry 6,000 kg to orbit.)
TEC bills its spacecraft as environmentally friendly, drawing electricity from photovoltaic panels on its service module and maneuvering in orbit with “green” propellants. It would use a German fuel called HIP-11, short for Hypergolic Ionic Propellant, with high-test peroxide—concentrated hydrogen peroxide mixed with water—as an oxidizer. The chemicals ignite on contact with each other, but they are far less toxic than hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide, the powerful but caustic mix that has been used by spacecraft for decades.
The history of space is littered with the names of companies that never reached orbit. TEC’s executives say they hope to beat the odds by moving quickly, keeping costs down, and filling market niches left by bigger companies like SpaceX.
And they may just pull it off, if they can start carrying cargo for paying customers. “It’s a low-volume, high-margin business, so you don’t need very much of it,” says Chad Anderson, managing partner of the venture capital firm Space Capital. His firm has not invested in TEC, but he’s watched the marketplace develop.
“There is significant revenue associated with each one of these launches,” Anderson says. “So I don’t think that The Exploration Company would need to launch very many times per year to break even. I think that’s one of the reasons why this is attractive.”
This article appears in the February 2025 print issue.
