Delft, Netherlands: Dawn Aerospace, a space transportation company based in Delft, Netherlands and Christchurch, New Zealand has completed their move into their new European headquarters, adding 40% more space to their growing operations. The new building has 1000sqm of workshop and 700sqm of office space for their 50 plus Delft-based employees.
“Since starting the company in 2017, we’ve grown from 3 to over 50 employees in Delft and signed over 20 customers for our propulsion systems. We were bursting at the seams in our old space,” said Tobias Knop, Dawn co-founder and COO,” This new facility gives us the room we need to scale up our production and cater to our continued growth.”
The workshop will be home to a larger cleanroom for assembly and integration of their satellite propulsion systems. It will also house hot fire testing facilities and extra space for research and development programmes. Unlike traditional chemical propulsion systems that use toxic propellants, Dawn’s systems use nitrous oxide and propylene which are non-toxic, meaning the systems can be tested before being shipped and integrated with their satellite.
Dawn pioneered the use of nitrous oxide-based satellite propulsion systems as a replacement for toxic hydrazine, after four of the five founders met while studying Aerospace Engineering at TU Delft. “We were students, so we were looking for propellants that were affordable, stored well and easy to get hold of but gave excellent performance. It turns out that this simplicity is also valued by our customers and as a result we’ve seen rapid growth”, said Jeroen Wink, co-founder and CRO, “Because they’re non-toxic, we can also hot fire test the systems before they’re launched so we can be confident they’ll fire on orbit, which you can’t do with hydrazine systems.”
Dawn Aerospace is the fastest-growing supplier of green propulsion. The company was the first to demonstrate nitrous-based propulsion in space and now has 76 thrusters in orbit with more than 200 on order. Dawn’s customers include communications satellites, earth observation, deep space, and lunar missions.
Dawn also has a cutting-edge R&D programme aiming to revolutionise orbital launch with rapid reusability. The company is developing a high performance, rocket-powered aircraft that will act as the first stage of a two-stage-to-orbit launch vehicle. It can take off and land from existing runways and be capable of launching twice in a day. Their technology demonstrator, the Mk-II Aurora, has flown 50 test flights, including three under rocket power. The Mk-II will also be used for commercial suborbital payloads.
Along with its sites in Christchurch, New Zealand and Delft, Netherlands, Dawn also has a presence in the USA and France.
Source: Dawn Aerospace
