European space logistics startup The Exploration Company said it has completed the first test campaign of the micrometeoroid and orbital debris (MMOD) shielding for its Nyx spacecraft, a modular vehicle scheduled to make its debut in 2028.<\/p>\n
The tests were performed under the European Space Agency\u2019s (ESA) LEO Cargo Return Services initiative, which is funding early-phase vehicle design work by The Exploration Company and Thales Alenia Space. Both firms are maturing their spacecraft concepts through technology-readiness milestones and risk-reduction activities.<\/p>\n
According to the company, the shielding trials were conducted at the Fraunhofer Institute for High-Speed Dynamics (EMI) in Germany, where light-gas guns at facilities in Freiburg and Efringen-Kirchen simulate hypervelocity impacts. The Nyx shield was subjected to impact speeds of up to 9 km\/s, representative of debris threats encountered in low Earth orbit.<\/p>\n
The Exploration Company also recently completed an extensive wind-tunnel campaign at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Cologne. The tests assessed the Nyx Earth-return capsule\u2019s aerodynamic behavior across the full flight envelope, from subsonic through hypersonic regimes, and will support refinement of the spacecraft\u2019s numerical models.<\/p>\n
Nyx is being developed as a multi-mission platform capable of transporting cargo to and from the International Space Station, with later variants planned for lunar orbit operations, lunar surface missions, and eventually crew transportation.<\/p>\n
Completion of the shielding and aerodynamic test campaigns marks a critical step as the company prepares for Phase 2 of ESA\u2019s LEO Cargo Return Services program, which is expected to be reviewed at the agency\u2019s upcoming Ministerial Council meeting.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
European space logistics startup The Exploration Company said it has completed the first test campaign of the micrometeoroid and orbital debris (MMOD) shielding for its Nyx spacecraft, a modular vehicle scheduled to make its debut in 2028. The tests were performed under the European Space Agency\u2019s (ESA) LEO Cargo Return Services initiative, which is funding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1914,246,244,831,6325,874,279],"class_list":["post-20150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-dlr","tag-esa","tag-europe","tag-european-space-agency","tag-fraunhofer-emi","tag-thales-alenia-space","tag-the-exploration-company"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20150"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}