WASHINGTON — A Spanish startup is entering the emerging reentry vehicle market with plans to develop a reusable capsule offering frequent flights.
Madrid-based Orbital Paradigm announced Sept. 4 its first test flight, scheduled for later this year on an undisclosed launch. The capsule will carry payloads from French space infrastructure startup Alatyr, Leibniz University Hannover and a confidential customer.
The mission, called Kestrel Initial Demonstrator, or KID, is a small-scale prototype of Orbital Paradigm’s planned Kestrel reentry vehicle, said Francesco Cacciatore, the company’s chief executive and chief technology officer. KID, about 40 centimeters in diameter and 30 centimeters tall, weighs 25 kilograms.
“It’s the smallest capsule we could build to transport customers,” he said. The nine-person company developed KID in under a year for less than 1 million euros ($1.2 million).
KID will fly a brief mission. The capsule will remain attached to the upper stage for a couple of hours, then deploy after the stage performs a deorbit burn. The spacecraft will fly free for about 30 minutes before reentering over the South Pacific, testing guidance systems and a sample of ceramic thermal protection material.
Orbital Paradigm won’t attempt to recover the capsule, which lacks parachutes to slow down after reentry. Instead, a pair of Iridium transceivers — one low data rate, the other high data rate — will return spacecraft and payload data during the flight. “We’ll try to demonstrate as much as we can, get data back and move on to the next one,” he said.
The next mission, called Learn To Fly, is slated to launch next year. It will use a larger capsule weighing 120 to 150 kilograms, including 20 to 40 kilograms of payload. It will be the first to incorporate a propulsion system another Spanish startup, Pangaea Aerospace, is developing.
That capsule will perform a short mission before reentering and splashing down near the Azores. Cacciatore said the company has been in talks with the Portuguese Space Agency about those reentry plans, part of the agency’s effort to establish a spaceport there.
The full-scale Kestrel capsule will weigh about 350 kilograms and carry up to 120 kilograms of payload. It could be ready to enter service as soon as 2027. “An aggressive timeframe,” he acknowledged.
Orbital Paradigm is among several companies pursuing spacecraft to return cargo from orbit. Varda Space Industries has completed three missions of its W-Series spacecraft, with capsules landing in Utah and South Australia. Its fourth mission is in orbit.
Inversion Space launched its first prototype reentry vehicle, Ray, in January, declaring the mission over in May after a propulsion malfunction prevented reentry. German company Atmos Space Cargo launched its Phoenix spacecraft in April, collecting data during a brief flight but not during reentry.
Cacciatore said Orbital Paradigm seeks to set itself apart from competitors, particularly Varda, in both technology and market strategy. Varda’s spacecraft uses a capsule and a service module that provides power and propulsion, which is discarded at the end of each mission.
Orbital Paradigm, however, intends to reuse its Kestrel and put as many systems on it as possible. “We want to have a vehicle with onboard propulsion, not leaving propulsion on the service module, for economic efficiency reasons,” he said.
The company also aims to increase capsule maneuverability to reduce g-forces during reentry, keeping accelerations below 3g, which is necessary for payloads like protein crystals and live tissues. That capability could eventually allow pinpoint landings.
Cacciatore said that unlike Varda’s focus on pharmaceutical research, Orbital Paradigm is open to a wide range of customers. “Varda is really a biotech and space company at the same time. We believe the best route is to not do both things but to serve the customers doing in-space experimentation, demonstration and production as a transportation company.”
“We are a cab and we see that many people want to travel somewhere,” he added. “We’re happy to transport them all.” The company envisions monthly missions by the early 2030s.
Orbital Paradigm developed KID with a small but experienced team and 1.5 million euros in seed funding plus about 1.7 million euros in government grants, including from the European Space Agency. The company expects to raise new funding to support its second mission and beyond.
“I’m a very skeptical person on everything, so I keep testing my hypotheses,” Cacciatore said. “So far, when we talk with customers, it looks like they are interested in having a service that is lower mass, higher frequency, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
“But it’s true that what the customer says and then what the customer does, at times, is not exactly the same,” he added. “Time will tell.”