ATMOS Space Cargo raises €25.7 million Series A to build scalable Earth-to-space-to-Earth logistics

ATMOS Space Cargo, a Lichtenau-based company developing orbital transport and re-entry vehicles, has announced the closing of a €25.7 million Series A financing round. 

The round was co-led by Balnord and Expansion, and joined by Keen Defence and Security. The European Innovation Council (EIC) participates through its Accelerator programme via blended financing, combining 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.

“This financing allows us 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,” said Sebastian Klaus, CEO and co-founder, ATMOS Space Cargo. 

Founded in 2021, ATMOS Space Cargo is a European space company developing lightweight, reusable orbital transportation vehicles to transport, operate and return payloads across a broad range of mass classes and mission profiles from Low Earth Orbit.

The company operates the full mission lifecycle, combining spacecraft, logistics, mission control, and recovery into a single accountable operational framework. Its PHOENIX vehicle family comprises reusable orbital transfer and return vehicles (OTRVs) for autonomous cargo operations. 

Following its PHOENIX 1 demonstration flight in April 2025, the company states that it is now moving from demonstration to routine operations. Three PHOENIX 2 orbital transfer and return vehicles (OTRVs) will be constructed and operated as a phased operational mission campaign. It will be servicing institutional and commercial clients across a range of payload and mission profiles.

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 the company’s Inflatable Atmospheric Decelerator (IAD) technology. The IAD serves as both a heat shield and an aerodynamic brake, and its non-ablative design minimises material loss and environmental impact while maximising payload-to-mass efficiency and re-entry precision for rapid payload recovery.  

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

“The three-flight campaign creates an initial operational cadence, reduces programme risk, and gives research institutions, industrial customers, and government users a clear path to fly missions. In doing so, it begins to turn orbital return into a repeatable European service rather than a one-off demonstration,” mentioned the company in the press release. 

ATMOS has already begun developing PHOENIX 3, a next-generation orbital transfer and re-entry vehicle with a payload capacity of about one metric tonne, approximately ten times that of PHOENIX 2.

The company reveals that the vehicle is being designed to address larger payload classes, aggregated multi-customer missions, and future institutional and security requirements. PHOENIX 3 is intended to meet the needs of Europe’s evolving space economy, supporting sovereign access to and from orbit, independent technology validation, and the long-term needs of European industry, government, and security users.

“Europe’s strategic autonomy in space depends on sovereign, end-to-end access to orbit, including the ability to return. ATMOS Space Cargo is addressing an important capability gap in Europe’s space infrastructure. This investment reflects the EIC Fund’s commitment to supporting deep tech companies that strengthen European competitiveness, technological sovereignty, and the long-term development of the European space economy,” said Svetoslava Georgieva, Chair of the EIC Fund Board, European Innovation Council. 

ATMOS Space Cargo is also introducing 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. 

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

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