Electric propulsion systems used in rockets and satellites are gaining momentum in the industry, which was validated as ESA has signed two contracts with Exotrail. Under the agreement the company will build and deliver engineering, qualification, and flight models of its ExoMGTM, nano, and ExoMGTM, micro, electric propulsion systems. These contracts will allow Exotrail to develop new features on both products ready to be demonstrated in space.
The first contract follows a General Support Technology Programme (GSTP) under which Exotrail has been supported by the French Space Agency (CNES). It will accelerate the qualification and flight demonstration of ExoMGTM – micro.
The other contract follows a standard competitive procurement process from the European Space Agency through the EXPRO+ mechanism, under which Exotrail has been chosen to deliver a propulsion system in 2021 followed by a test campaign at ESTEC.
With this new contract award, Exotrail confirms that its ExoMGTM product portfolio meets both commercial customer needs, such as Eutelsat and AAC Clyde Space, as well as institutional customers & agency’s requirements, namely CNES and ESA, for electric propulsion systems.
From the Space Forum conference held in Luxembourg, David Henri, Exotrail’s Cofounder and CEO commented, “Within the last six months, Exotrail has signed a string of contracts with commercial and institutional customers, both in Europe and in Asia. We are thrilled to announce these two new contracts with ESA. It fully confirms our ExoMGTM product strategy and the growing interest of the smallsat market for the solutions we are building to support smallsat constellation deployment and operation. We are super excited to work with ESA!”