2023年2月7日

Hélène Huby，探索公司的创始人兼首席执行官和他们的尼克斯飞船。在过去的几年里，珍妮、我和EQT风投团队的其他成员见过很多欧洲太空科技公司。虽然有一些雄心勃勃的项目(比如Endurosat)，但许多项目要么是从科幻小说中复制/粘贴过来的(让我们进入虫洞，用人工智能从小行星中提取矿物质)，要么太过爱好化。科幻小说或学生项目但那是在我们遇到Hélène Huby之前。Hélène是我们在欧洲见过的太空科技创始人中最令人印象深刻的resumés。她在空中客车公司工作了10年，在那里她是空间战略副总裁，后来是ESM(欧洲服务舱)的副总裁，这是美国宇航局猎户座飞行器的动力所在，目标是自1972年以来首次将人类送上月球。她与ESM推进子系统负责人Artur Koop和副首席系统工程师Jon Reijneveld一起离开了空中客车公司，并与Sebastien Reichstat(反应发动机和AriadneGroup)以及Pierre Vinet (AriadneGroup和AVIO)联合成立了探索公司。他们的目标是建造一个可持续的、可重复使用的“尼克斯”太空舱，最终可以在轨道上重新加油。它与SpaceX的“龙”太空舱或波音的“星际飞船”(Starliner)有相似之处，但在欧洲没有竞争对手。私人和公共运营商都可以使用Nyx将货物送入太空，为空间站提供补给，并及时运送人类。 With the International Space Station being decomissioned and a lot of private space stations on the horizon the market for Low Earth Orbit Space Exploration is projected to be $52bn in 2035. A roundtrip with Nyx Nyx will be the first multi-mission, sustainable space exploration platform, and is compatible with all major launchers from Europe and beyond. Illustration of Nyx on a SpaceX Falcon launcher Beyond doing research in space or resupplying space stations, the Exploration company is dreaming about developing a crew version of Nyx in the future, enabling a whole new era of space travel and exploration. We at EQT Ventures are super happy companies like The Exploration Company are born in Europe. What Hélène, Artur, Jon, Sebastien, Pierre and the rest of the team at The Exploration Company is building, is exactly what Europe needs. Huge thanks to Red River West for letting us invest alongside them, Cherry Ventures who introduced us, and Jenny and Sai at EQT Ventures who worked alongside myself on the deal. Also, don’t miss this excellent write-up by Aria Alamalhodaei for Techcrunch . This was before the funding round and explains what The Exploration Company wants to do beautifully. Space. The final frontier.