Created: 2022-09-15
Updated: 2024-07-26
Company - Orbital Matter
Product/Service
- Classification
- In-Space Manufacturing
- Category
- In-Space Manufacturing
Space Construction Company
- Fields
- Large Space Structures
Space Construction Company
- Status
- Development
- First launch
- Not announced
- Orbital Matter, a Polish-German pioneer in space technology, announces the successful close of over €1 Million in its pre-seed funding round. The investment was led by deep tech VC Sunfish Partners, followed by participation from Dhyan VC, alongside angel investors.
- This significant funding marks a transformative moment for Orbital Matter as it accelerates its mission to revolutionize in-space manufacturing. Among the company’s ambitious projects, Orbital Matter is developing a spacecraft equipped with a 3D printer to manufacture ultra-light and cost-effective satellite parts and space infrastructure in-orbit.
- Orbital Matter will focus on demonstrating its technology in microgravity and advancing towards an in-orbit demonstration, while partnering up with the industry leaders. This pragmatic approach ensures Orbital Matter’s technology aligns seamlessly with the expectations of future customers, marking a crucial milestone in its commitment to delivering innovative solutions in the field of in-space manufacturing.
- In September 2023, Orbital Matter signed a MoU with Thales Alenia Space, a joint-venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), to join their industrial accelerator within the Space Business Catalyst, assessing in that way technical, commercial, networking and funding support, and a unique opportunity to build strategic partnerships with a legacy industry player. This agile structure, operating out of Thales Alenia Space’s facilities in Toulouse and Turin, fosters the shaping of future, disruptive markets and the development of solutions and technologies with the potential to create new business opportunities for all parties.
Ariane 6 launches: Replicator – 3D printing in open space, 2024-05-16.
- The Replicator mission, from Warsaw, Poland, and Berlin, Germany, based startup Orbital Matter, will launch on Ariane 6 to demonstrate a new 3D printing technology in orbit, potentially opening the door to new space structures that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise, made using fewer resources.
- Orbital Matter has already demonstrated that their 3D printing technology works in a vacuum on Earth, but with the Ariane 6 first launch, they will perform their first in-space demonstration: their three-unit CubeSat (10x10x30 cm) will print a 50 cm-long beam while at an altitude of 580 km, out of a custom polymer material.