Francesco Cacciatore is an self -processed skeptic. However, after spending two decades in the European aerospace industry and hitting, as he expressed, a “crisis” made an undeniably optimistic bet: a space company began.
“You wonder,” What am I doing? “He said in a recent interview.” They offered me some interesting opportunities, but then, son of collapsed and I realized that I wanted to try to build some. “
That something turned out to be one of the most challenging problems in the aerospace: resentment. Together with his co -founder Víctor Gómez García, founded Cacciatore Orbital paradigmA startup based in Madrid that builds a re -entry capsule to unlock new markets for materials created at zero gravity.
In less than two years, with a team of nine and less than € 1 million, the company built a test capsule called Kid, a precursor to a future reusable space capsule called Kestrel. The child is deliberately minimal: it weighs about 25 kilograms and has approximately 16 inches wide, without propulsion. It will mark the first time the start puts hardware in orbit.
Customers for this first demonstration mission include the French Startup of Space Robotics Alatyr, the University of Leibniz in Germany, Hannover and a third client without a name. To date, the company has raised 1.5 million euros in initial funds from ID4, Demium, Pinama, Evercurious and Akka.
The orbital paradigm did not propose to develop return capsules. The co -founders first imagined robotics in space, but the possible clients repeatedly said what they really wanted was to go to orbit, stay a little and return rebuke.
Customers “don’t want to make a single,” said Cacciatore. Institutions, new companies and companies often because flying between three and six times a year, observed. Biotechnology companies represent a potentially lucrative market because microgravity can allow new materials, medications and therapies, and these applications require repeated tests by design.
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That is why the orbital paradigm chose to build a narrower capsule instead of something like the spacex’s tarragon, which flies astronauts and loads to the International Space Station. “If you want to fly hundreds or kilograms or thousands of kilograms, then your client is no longer the payload, it is the destination you fly,” he explained.
The market for orbital is being filled more on both sides of the Atlantic. Varda Space Industries became the first company to nail a commercial re -entry in 2024, while the European exploration company achieved a controlled re -entry with its own test vehicle this summer.
The new US companies such as Varda and the investment space benefit from some single -tailed winds: in particular, the Department of Defense and other agencies have poured millions in hypersonic evidence and delivery demonstrations, often in the form of non -filutive funds such as subsidies ownership.
“We don’t understand that,” Cacciatore. “That is one of the reasons we build to sell to the client from the beginning, because otherwise we do not get anywhere. We are hungry a little more, so we need to be a bit more athletic maybe.”
The first launch is quickly approaching. The orbital paradigm will fly the mission mission in approximately three months with an unnamed launch supplier, with three useful customers. The boy won to be recovered; On the other hand, the objective is to separate from the rocket, transmit data from the orbit, survive the intense heat and the hypersonic re -entry speeds, and ping home at least once before the capsule impacts an unrelated area.
“We design the vehicle so as not to land in a specific location,” he said, due to cost and complexity.
The second mission in 2026 will have a climbing cernícalo, with a propulsion system and a parachute to guide the capsule to the Azores, where the Portuguese space agency is developing a Spacport. Like the first mission, there is no orbital phase: it will only be launched, it will pass about 30 minutes in microgravity before returning, but in this case the orbital paradigm can recover the vehicle and the useful loads inside.
Cacciatore was proud of what the team has achieved so far, but he had a clear eye on the long way ahead: “Until we fly, we housed” h made a lot, “he said.” The words are pleasant, but flying is the best test. “
