A Spanish startup, Orbital Paradigm, is making waves in the developing market for reusable reentry vehicles. Their goal is to provide frequent and affordable access to space for various payloads.
Orbital Paradigm recently announced its first test flight, the Kestrel Initial Demonstrator (KID), scheduled for later this year. This mission will carry payloads from Alatyr, Leibniz University Hannover, and a confidential client. Francesco Cacciatore, CEO and CTO of Orbital Paradigm, explained that KID, measuring approximately 40 centimeters in diameter and 30 centimeters tall, is a small-scale prototype of their planned Kestrel reentry vehicle. “It’s the smallest capsule we could build to transport customers,” he stated. The company, with just nine employees, developed KID in less than a year for under €1 million.
KID's mission will be short, remaining attached to the upper stage for a couple of hours before deploying and conducting a 30-minute free flight before reentry over the South Pacific. This will allow testing of guidance systems and a sample of ceramic thermal protection material. Recovery isn't planned for this mission; data will be collected via Iridium transceivers. “We’ll try to demonstrate as much as we can, get data back and move on to the next one,” Cacciatore said.
Future missions are ambitious. The “Learn To Fly” mission, slated for next year, will utilize a larger capsule (120-150 kilograms, including 20-40 kilograms of payload), incorporating a propulsion system developed by another Spanish startup, Pangaea Aerospace. This capsule will reenter and splash down near the Azores, with discussions underway with the Portuguese Space Agency.
The full-scale Kestrel capsule, aiming for service by 2027, will weigh around 350 kilograms and carry up to 120 kilograms of payload. Cacciatore acknowledged this is “an aggressive timeframe.”
Orbital Paradigm differentiates itself from competitors like Varda Space Industries, which uses a separate service module, by aiming for a fully reusable vehicle with onboard propulsion. “We want to have a vehicle with onboard propulsion, not leaving propulsion on the service module, for economic efficiency reasons,” Cacciatore explained. They also prioritize maneuverability to reduce g-forces during reentry, aiming for accelerations below 3g to accommodate sensitive payloads. This could eventually enable pinpoint landings.
Unlike Varda’s biotech focus, Orbital Paradigm targets a broader customer base. “Varda is really a biotech and space company at the same time. We believe the best route is to not do both things but to serve the customers doing in-space experimentation, demonstration and production as a transportation company.” Their vision includes monthly missions by the early 2030s. “We are a cab and we see that many people want to travel somewhere,” he added. “We’re happy to transport them all.”
Orbital Paradigm’s development has been funded by seed funding and government grants, with further funding sought to support future missions. Cacciatore concluded, “So far, when we talk with customers, it looks like they are interested in having a service that is lower mass, higher frequency, and that’s what we’re trying to do. But it’s true that what the customer says and then what the customer does, at times, is not exactly the same. Time will tell.”