A few years ago at Space Symposium, we met some awesome people from The Exploration Company. I really enjoyed chatting with Victor and thought it was really cool the concept that were working on for a free-flyer capsule that can carry payloads. I am a big believer about loving to work with good people and while their concept was super interesting, and they were people I would love to do some work with, I simply couldn’t figure out how to make it work for us.
Their design requirements for active payloads were simply not in the wheelhouse of things that we are able to create given how we operate. But I kept in touch with Victor and we would always chat and say hello when we saw each other at conferences.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with The Exploration Company (TEC), they are a European Aerospace Company that is developing reusable spacecraft and space logistics solutions to advance sustainable exploration beyond Earth. They are headquartered in Munich and Bordeaux and now also have a Houston office. They have created the Nyx spacecraft.
You can checkout their website here - https://www.exploration.space/
The Exploration Company's vision is to ensure the establishment of an intact and affordable logistics infrastructure in space through the construction of its modular, reusable, and sustainable spacecraft, Nyx.
Nyx exclusively uses environmentally friendly propellants and features a refuellable cryogenic engine with higher performance than conventional models. The spacecraft can be used by any rocket manufacturer or system, regardless of the launch vehicle.
In 2024 at Space Symposium, I wandered by their booth to say Hello! Victor and I chatted for a bit and then he had an idea for Higher Orbits… he offered that he had some passive space aboard their spacecraft for the Mission Possible mission that we could purchase. My brain immediately went into overdrive. I started thinking – how can we get creative with this space and use it to do something for Higher Orbits and potentially, how could we do something that helps support Higher Orbits programs across the country financially.
I came back to an idea that I had bounced around with some other colleagues about a decade ago that we couldn’t figure out how to make work with the options we had for flights… but this is a different sort of flight so I thought… hey maybe this will work for this flight… so I asked Victor if my idea was possible and he said yes!
We signed a deal and I started to put the pieces in place for what will be different than anything we have done before…
Wondering what in the world we are going to fly? Stay tuned! My next blog will reveal much more!
