The Exploration Company (TEC), the European space company, has been awarded a service contract by the European Space Agency (ESA) worth €760 million to build and fly Europe’s first commercial cargo capsule to the International Space Station (ISS).
The deal, signed at the International Space Summit in Paris, splits into €310 million for an initial demonstration mission and up to €450 million for two further optional service missions, to be confirmed later.
“Today’s agreement with The Exploration Company shows how ESA can act as an anchor customer—strengthening Europe’s commercial space sector and turning ambition into reality,” said Josef Aschbacher, ESA Director General.
The contract comes just days after TEC closed a €387 million ($450 million) Series C round, which it said would fund the final development of its Nyx reusable capsule and accelerate work on Storm, a reusable high-thrust rocket engine.
According to ESA, the contract falls under Phase 2 of what the space agency now calls ALADDIN (Autonomous LEO Accelerated Demo Docking to ISS Node), the successor to the agency’s Low Earth Orbit Cargo Return Service (LCRS) programme.
In 2022, the ESA Member States endorsed the concept of the Leo Cargo Return Service (LCRS), a competition for European industry that asks companies to propose a first step towards a cargo service to and from space stations in low Earth orbit, such as the ISS. ESA had previously selected two projects, and €25 million was awarded to each of these projects to develop the concept further.
Following confirmation at ESA’s Council at Ministerial level in November 2025, the programme moved into Phase 2, tendered in March 2026, which shifts from early development to full system completion and an in-orbit demonstration. TEC won that competitive tender, in a deal ESA describes as its first and largest capsule transportation service contract awarded to a European company in open competition.
“With ALADDIN, we are accelerating the development of a European capability to transport cargo to and from low Earth orbit. At the same time, we are enabling European companies to innovate faster, attract private investment and compete globally,” added Aschbacher.
Founded in 2021 by Hélène Huby and a team of aerospace veterans, The Exploration Company is a space company building the full stack of space transportation, including reusable capsules and high-thrust engines. The company aims to carry cargo, and eventually people, to orbit and safely back to Earth.
At the heart of its space transport mission is Nyx, a reusable capsule designed to launch on any heavy-lift rocket, dock autonomously with a space station, and return up to 3,000 kilograms of cargo to Earth. Built for up to 10 missions per capsule, Nyx relies on in-house carbon-based thermal protection for re-entry, along with proprietary flight software, guidance and navigation systems for autonomous docking. The company develops Nyx across sites in Munich, Bordeaux and Turin, and is expanding its footprint in the United States and the UAE.
Beyond the ESA deal, TEC has also signed pre-booking agreements with commercial space station operators Axiom, Starlab and Vast, taking its total booked missions to 10, worth roughly $2 billion in contracts. Nyx is currently going through the ISS certification process with NASA.
“This is more than a contract award: it reflects a shift in how we build space technology in Europe. We started the development of Nyx with private funding only, and we are now at a technical maturity level where ESA and Member States’ public funding can support us massively, as anchor clients, to help us finalise the vehicle. It is also the first time in Europe that a five-year-old space startup wins a contract worth hundreds of millions of euros in open competition,” said Huby, founder and CEO of The Exploration Company.
Under the agreement, TEC and ESA will jointly fund an initial Nyx demonstration mission to the ISS, with TEC having already secured 40% of the financing from private investors and ESA covering the remaining 60%. Two additional cargo missions to the ISS or a future commercial space station are included as options. Alongside the ESA agreement, TEC also signed a separate deal with Arianespace to launch the first Nyx capsule on an Ariane 6 rocket from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
Source: EU-Startups
