The European NewSpace Ecosystem

I took some time this weekend to map some of the most exciting space startups and small to medium-sized enterprises in Europe. Although one gets the impression that the North American ecosystem continues to hog the limelight, the NewSpace ecosystem in Europe is slowly but surely growing. From small-lift launcher startups such as Isar Aerospace & Skyrora to satellite manufacturers such as Open Cosmos & SatRevolution, from satellite data providers such as SatelliteVu & UnseenLabs to startups extracting insights from satellite data such as LiveEO & SpaceSense.ai, Europe is filled with several players across the space value chain. This includes miscellaneous ones (okay, honestly, I was lazy to find a new category for them!) such as Yuri, which makes access to microgravity simple & Interstellar Labs, which is building habitats for Earth that could be potentially used for living in space.

It started as a simple thought exercise — I was trying to map, in my head, all the space companies I know in Europe — but, soon I realised that it might be worth documenting it and making it available for folks who would like to know more about the European NewSpace ecosystem. Europe has a huge role to play in the space economy, as seen by the recent increase in budgets for the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Commission (EC) — which is going to now create the European Union Agency for the Space Programme. If you are wondering what the roles of ESA and EC are concerning space in Europe and would like to understand how space is organised in Europe, do listen to my recent podcast episode.

Mapping the European NewSpace Ecosystem

Please note that the following ecosystem mapping is not exhaustive, and includes the United Kingdom (taking the continental definition of Europe). If you would like a detailed mapping of all companies or an in-depth analysis into a specific country or a particular segment, I will be happy to work on that. Nevertheless, my humble attempt should be comprehensive enough for discovering the NewSpace ecosystem in Europe.

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Aravind,

Founder, TerraWatch Space

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