ATMOS Space Cargo secures €25.7M Series A to expand Europe’s sovereign return-from-orbit capability

ATMOS Space Cargo, a European company developing orbital transport and re-entry vehicles, has closed a €25.7 million Series A financing round. 

The funding will support an initial three-vehicle PHOENIX 2 fleet, the launch of ATMOS WORKS for governmental and defence customers, and the development of PHOENIX 3, the company’s next-generation orbital return vehicle. 

PHOENIX 2 is a free-flying spacecraft equipped with integrated propulsion and power systems, capable of mission durations from hours to several months in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The vehicle performs autonomous de-orbit, controlled atmospheric re-entry using ATMOS’s Inflatable Atmospheric Decelerator (IAD) technology, which serves as both a heat shield and an aerodynamic brake.

Its non-ablative design minimises material loss and environmental impact while maximising payload-to-mass efficiency and re-entry precision for rapid payload recovery.   

Three PHOENIX 2 orbital transfer and return vehicles (OTRVs) will be constructed and operated as a phased operational mission campaign, servicing institutional and commercial clients across a range of payload and mission profiles. In doing so, it begins to turn orbital return into a repeatable European service rather than a one-off demonstration. 

Initial recovery operations are being prepared near Santa Maria in the Azores, under Portugal’s ANACOM-09/2026-AE licence, enabling commercial orbital re-entry operations under a continental European Union member state’s jurisdiction. 

ATMOS has also begun development of PHOENIX 3, a next-generation orbital transfer and re-entry vehicle designed for a payload capacity of approximately one metric tonne – roughly ten times that of the PHOENIX 2. 

The launch of ATMOS WORKS: a dedicated entity for European governmental and defence institutions

ATMOS Space Cargo is also launching ATMOS WORKS, a dedicated business focused on space logistics and operational capabilities for European governmental and defence customers.

The PHOENIX platform’s dual-use architecture supports mission profiles including in-orbit demonstration and validation (IOD/IOV) , secure and sovereign return of sensitive hardware and data, and responsive time-critical operations. 

The round is co-led by Balnord and Expansion, and joined by Keen Defence and Security. The European Innovation Council (EIC) participates through its Accelerator programme, which uses blended financing that combines grant and equity components.  

Additional investors include OTB Ventures, High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), APEX Ventures, Seraphim, Faber, E2MC, Kirch Ventures, Lennertz & Co., Mätch VC, MBG Baden-Württemberg, and Tech Horizons.

According to Sebastian Klaus, CEO and co-founder, ATMOS Space Cargo the financing allows the company to move to regular operational service. 

“A structured campaign of three vehicles establishes Europe’s first routine orbital return infrastructure.  PHOENIX 2 is the first step to build a scalable European return infrastructure that will demonstrate our ability to access, operate, and return materials, data, and hardware from orbit independently.

With ATMOS WORKS and PHOENIX 3, we are building the full architecture – commercial, institutional, and defence-capable – in parallel.”

Aleksander Dobrzyniecki, General Partner, Balnord, contends that ATMOS is building exactly the kind of dual-use capability Europe needs more of: sovereign access not only to orbit, but back from orbit. 

“We believe ATMOS can become a crucial part of the logistics backbone of a real European space industrial base — one built on operational services, strategic autonomy, and the ability to serve commercial, institutional, and defence customers from the same platform.”