European Space Agency
Every Cosmic Herald story on European Space Agency — missions, launches, discoveries, and the business of space, newest first.
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Commercial
OHB Wins Nearly €1 Billion to Build IRIS²'s First 18 Satellites as Europe's Sovereign Network Moves to Hardware
Germany's OHB landed a nearly €1 billion SES contract to build all 18 IRIS² medium-Earth-orbit satellites, the first hardware award since the EU's sovereign connectivity program signed its implementation agreement in early August.
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Commercial
The First Air-Breathing Satellite Gets a Bus: Kreios Space Taps NanoAvionics to Fly an Engine That Eats the Atmosphere
Spanish startup Kreios Space will fly the first orbital demo of air-breathing electric propulsion on a Kongsberg NanoAvionics MP42 bus in 2028 — a ~200 kg satellite that scoops atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen for propellant, aiming to make 150-300 km orbits sustainable without carrying fuel.
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Commercial
The 3D-Printed Washing Machine Taking On the Geostationary Giants
SWISSto12 raised $70 million on July 16 to scale HummingSat, a 3D-printed, washing-machine-sized GEO satellite — backed by $500M in contracts, $140M in 2025 revenue, orders from SES and Intelsat, and 73 million euros of ESA member-state money betting on European space sovereignty.
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Commercial
A German Space Capsule Startup Just Planted Its Flag Next to NASA Johnson — With a Full-Scale Nyx Crew Mockup
The Exploration Company opened a Houston lab with a full-scale Nyx Crew mockup and formed TEC Federal to chase U.S. government contracts, backed by ESA's LEO Cargo Return funding.
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Commercial
Germany Bets on an Unproven Rocket: Planet and Isar Aerospace Sign All-German Launch Deal
Planet Labs Germany will fly a Pelican imaging satellite on Isar Aerospace's Spectrum rocket within a year — a milestone all-German mission riding on a launcher that has yet to reach orbit.
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Commercial
An Austrian Propulsion Startup Just Landed €6.3 Million From Europe's Sovereign Space Push
Gate Space, a Vienna-born satellite propulsion firm, secured €6.3M from the European Innovation Council — the only space company in a 38-firm cohort — as Europe doubles down on homegrown launch and in-orbit capabilities.
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Commercial
Low Earth orbit has a garbage problem. Here's who's trying to clean it up.
There are roughly 27,000 tracked pieces of debris in orbit, and hundreds of thousands more too small to track. Two companies — Astroscale and ClearSpace — are building the first commercial debris removal spacecraft. The engineering is harder than it sounds.
