JOHANNESBURG — The Exploration Company, a space transportation company based in Germany, established TEC Federal, a United States-based entity that will enable it to compete for government programs and contracts. The company also opened the doors of its new Rapid Innovation Lab in Houston, Texas.
In a July 8 press release, the company said the new entity and Houston lab would together provide the company with engineering and testing capabilities it needs for U.S. government contracts.
“From our perspective, this is about meeting growing and global demand for both cargo and crew capabilities, as space agencies and CLDs both prepare for a human presence in LEO after the planned retirement of the ISS,” a company spokesperson said
The lab, located near NASA’s Johnson Space Center, includes a full-scale mockup of the planned crewed version of Nyx, the Exploration Company’s in-development reusable spacecraft, the company said. That mockup will be used to further develop Nyx’s crew interfaces.
“Houston gives us direct access to the people and expertise that have built and operated human spaceflight systems for decades,” Hélène Huby, chief executive of The Exploration Company, said in the press release. “We’re excited to invest and expand around that — engineers, operators, and astronauts working together and moving quickly towards building a crew capsule.”
The Exploration Company is working toward a 2028 orbital flight test of the cargo variant of its Nyx capsule. The mission is expected to carry cargo to the International Space Station, with its initial development funded through the European Space Agency’s LEO Cargo Return initiative.
The company, along with Thales Alenia Space, received 25 million euros ($28.6 million) for the first phase of the program’s development. ESA is now nearing a decision on Phase 2, which could provide The Exploration Company with an additional 200 million euros to complete the demonstration mission.
With its Houston expansion, The Exploration Company has positioned itself closer to NASA and a substantially larger pool of government funding for human spaceflight as it considers how to finance the development of a crewed version of Nyx.
