The Exploration Company raises $450M to rival SpaceX

A Munich startup called The Exploration Company just raised $450 million. It's the largest funding round any European space company has ever closed. The money goes toward Nyx, a reusable capsule meant to carry cargo, and eventually people, to space stations. It also funds a new rocket engine called Storm. The company wants to become Europe's answer to SpaceX.

Europe doesn't have anything like SpaceX's Dragon capsule right now. Most crewed and cargo trips to the space station rely on American or Russian hardware. Founder Hélène Huby, a former Airbus executive, has built the company since 2021 to close that gap. Investors including Bessemer, Atomico, and Scaleup Europe Fund are betting it's real. This round brings the company's total funding to roughly $680 million.

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Can a startup catch up to a company that's been landing rockets for over a decade? Money isn't the same as flight history. SpaceX proved Dragon works over dozens of real missions. Nyx still has to dock with a space station and come home safely. It has to do that more than once before anyone trusts it with astronauts.