Space Economy

Astroscale France SAS, a subsidiary of Astroscale Holdings Inc. ("Astroscale") celebrated its first anniversary this month, marking a year of significant achievements. These include team growth and the conclusion of a feasibility study contract with the French national space agency, Centre National D’Etudes Spatiales ("CNES"), for active debris removal (ADR), setting the stage for continued innovation and growth in the on-orbit servicing market.

Indra has signed a contract with Elecnor for the acquisition of Deimos, a Spanish space company specializing in space missions and satellite integration. The agreement constitutes a major step in Indra’s space strategy and complements other recent developments, including the approval of the Indra Space spin-off, the creation of the Space NewCo and the integration of the Startical initiative into its portfolio.

HyImpulse Technologies and Spacemanic CZ s.r.o. have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to collaborate on launch services. Under this MoU, HyImpulse and Spacemanic will prepare and enter into launch contracts for up to 10 orbital missions from 2026 to 2036. This collaboration also includes utilizing HyImpulse's Small Launcher 1 (SL1) for orbital services and the SR75 vehicle for suborbital technology demonstration missions.

EtherealX, an Indian space technology start-up has announced its successful raise of $5 million to develop fully reusable medium-lift launch vehicles. YourNest led the round with further participation from BIG Global Investments JSC, Blue Hill Capital, Campus Fund, and Golden Sparrow Ventures. The Indian company aims to build reusable rockets that can return both rocket stages to earth after flight to address issues of substantial transportation costs and considerable waiting periods during launches

Muon Space has announced the completion of its $56.7 million Series B funding round. Activate Capital led the round with participation from Acme Capital, Costanoa Ventures, Radical Ventures, and Congruent Ventures. Muon Space will consequently leverage the funding to accelerate the buildout of its Halo™ Platform, allowing the Company to expand its capabilities and deliver exceptional solutions to its growing customer base.

Dcubed has successfully closed its Series-A funding round that saw oversubscription by 26% to boost further growth in the global space market. Eight prominent investors from France, Sweden, Germany, and the U.S., including Expansion and BayBG joined the round as lead investors, alongside HTGF, Aurelia Foundry, Ventis, Rymdkapital, and Decisive Point Europe. 

Swiss battery startup BTRY has raised a 150,000 convertible loan from Swiss funding initiative VentureKick, raising their total fundraised for the year to over 1m CHF. BTRY previously raised 900,000 in January in a pre-seed financing led by High-Tech Gründerfonds with participation from Zürcher Kantonalbank.

The Government of Canada has concluded negotiations on a Technology Safeguard Agreement (TSA) with the United States. This landmark government-to-government treaty represents a significant milestone for the Canadian space industry, particularly launch, and paves the way for enhanced collaboration, innovation, and security in space technology between the two nations. 

Dawn Aerospace has disclosed its Docking and Fluid Transfer (DFT) port for SatDrive propulsion systems to enable in-space refueling for Dawn customers. The DFT leverages Dawn’s existing flight-proven components such as valving common to the B20 thruster. Over 200 such valves are already in space. As a result, multiple SatDrive customers are in line to use the DFT port, the first of which will tentatively launch in 2025.

Join Torsten Kriening, Publisher at SpaceWatch.Global, during the grand opening of Morpheus Space's new production facility in Dresden, for an engaging discussion with Daniel Bock, CEO and co-founder. They discuss Morpheus Space's expansion, innovative propulsion systems.