The Exploration Company

The Exploration Company (TEC) designs and manufactures Nyx, a modular, reusable orbital vehicle intended to carry cargo to and from space stations in low-Earth orbit and beyond, with crewed missions envisaged later. The vehicle is in-orbit refillable and launch-vehicle agnostic, able to fly on any heavy launcher worldwide. The company prices LEO missions at €20,000 per kg. Founded in 2021 by aerospace executive Hélène Huby, it employs approximately 400 people across Germany, France and Italy and has raised €196.8m.

The Nyx programme is broken into mission variants. Nyx Earth covers low-Earth orbit services, including commercial space station cargo transport, with missions starting in 2026. Nyx Gateway, a variant to service the Lunar Gateway station, and Nyx Moon, for lunar surface operations, are both planned by 2028. Engineering work spans spacecraft design and manufacturing, carbon-based thermal protection systems, atmospheric re-entry and lunar and deep-space mission architecture. TEC favours open interfaces and open standards, so that firms outside the space sector can build on its technology.

In June 2025 the company flew "Mission Possible", a re-entry demonstration that validated its carbon-based thermal protection system. It has secured contracts with ESA, Axiom Space and Starlab Space, and was the first European company to sign a Space Act Agreement with NASA. TEC describes its purpose as widening access to space, with an emphasis on affordability, safety and sustainability in space logistics.