European aerospace manufacturer The Exploration Company has established its first U.S. entity and named Space City as its headquarters.
The company announced earlier this month that it has launched TEC Federal to support U.S. government customers and agencies, and to scale The Exploration Company's engineering operations in the country.
Mark Kirasich serves as president of TEC Federal. Kirasich most recently served as the senior director of human spaceflight at Blue Origin after a nearly 40-year career at NASA.
The Exploration Company is developing the reusable Nyx space vehicle. Nyx is designed to take off from any heavy launcher in the world. It will then dock at space stations, retrieve up to 3,000 kilograms of cargo, splash down and return the cargo to Earth. The company aims to make Nyx fully reusable for up to 10 missions, making it a more affordable and sustainable option for aerospace missions.
The Exploration Company completed a successful drop test of the spacecraft in May in the Mojave Desert. The company says Nyx is slated to perform its first flight demonstration in 2028.
In addition to launching the Houston business, The Exploration Company also opened its new Rapid Innovation Lab near Houston's NASA Johnson Space Center on Space Park Drive.
The Exploration Company opened its Rapid Innovation Lab earlier this month. Photo via LinkedIn
The Rapid Innovation Lab features a full-scale mockup of the future Nyx crew capsule as well as ongoing development and testing of the Nyx cargo capsule, according to the company.
The Exploration Company says the new lab will allow its engineers, designers, and operators to prototype and test crew interfaces. It will also support partnerships with NASA personnel and astronauts.
“Houston gives us direct access to the people and expertise that have built and operated human spaceflight systems for decades. We’re excited to invest and expand around that— engineers, operators, and astronauts working together and moving quickly towards building a crew capsule.” Hélène Huby, founder and CEO of The Exploration Company, said in a blog post.
According to The Houston Chronicle, The Exploration Company has about 30 employees in the Houston area.
The company was founded in 2021 by Huby, a French rocket scientist, and has raised more than $350 million in venture capital. It operates out of Germany, France, Luxembourg, Spain and Italy, with offices in the U.S. and the United Arab Emirates. It is also developing a reusable, high-thrust rocket engine known as Storm.