As ESA’s FLPP programme drives forward its ambition to strengthen Europe’s future space transportation capabilities through de-risking innovation at speed, delegates at the Future Space Transportation Spring Session saw this in action with the announcement of the successful projects under the FIRST! Propulsion category. Less than six months since the FIRST! Propulsion Pitch Day on 21 October, 16 successful entities gathered at the FLPP Spring Session at ESA HQ in Paris to present their proposals and collect their awards. The selected projects span all aspects of liquid propulsion in space transportation, with each successful project now given 12 months to develop and test their new technologies.
Kate Underhill, ESA’s Technical Officer for FIRST! Propulsion, opened this session by outlining the scale, speed, number and scope of the different projects proposed since the FIRST! Propulsion campaign kicked off in summer last year. In total, the call for ideas generated 95 eligible ideas, informing four subsequent ITTs which in turn generated a total of 40 proposals. These proposals came from more than 60 entities from across 12 ESA Member States, a diverse and impressive European collaboration.
Many of the successful companies are working in pan-European consortia, the leading company for each successful bid across each category are as follows:
Materials and Processes
- ARCEON, Netherlands
- AVIO, Italy
- Bimotech, Poland
Sensors, Intelligence and Electrification
- ESC Aerospace, Czech Republic
- RFA Rocket Factory, Germany
Hydrogen Peroxide and New Propellants
- Ariane Group, Germany
- ISP Tech, Germany
- T4i, Italy
Engine Components
- APP Ariane Group, Netherlands
- Delta Orbit, Germany
- DeltaVision, Germany
- Inpraise Systems, Czech Republic
- Safran, Belgium
- SoftInWay, Switzerland
- Stellar Exploration, Czech Republic
- The Exploration Company, France
The companies taking part in this event will reconvene in Paris in twelve months’ time, after manufacturing and testing a breadboard that will rapidly de-risk their liquid propellant technology that has a commercial potential. Marcin Orzechowski, CEO of Bimotech, a winning company in the Materials and Processes category said, “I believe our work is a vital step towards sustainable European propulsion. I would like to thank ESA for this opportunity and Kate and the team for the quick and efficient evaluation of our proposal.”
“I am really excited to present the awards to these 16 companies and to show the breadth and range of experience in the space propulsion sector in Europe”, said Kate Underhill. “It has been an extremely busy year and the scale of the response to our ITTs and the engagement from industry and investors marks an important step for space propulsion in Europe.”
With the contracts being finalised, the focus now shifts to development and testing over the next twelve months. The timeline is demanding, but reflects the pace of the programme and the momentum of FIRST!, showing that FIRST! is not just setting ambitions for Europe’s space transportation future, but actively driving them forward.