Beyond Gravity selects D-Orbit to provide carbon fiber components for ESA's Space Rider

FINO MORNASCO, Italy - Beyond Gravity in Toulouse, France needed carbon fiber components for the European Space Agency's Space Rider reusable space vehicle. They found their solution from D-Orbit in Como, Italy.

D-Orbit, a space logistics and orbital transportation company, has signed of a subcontract with space company Beyond Gravity under which D-Orbit will deliver lightweight carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) tools and metallic structural components for the European Space Agency’s Space Rider reusable space vehicle. The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

D-Orbit will supply the CFRP tooling and metallic structural flight hardware components. D-Orbit will also coordinate and monitor the work of Italian suppliers, to ensure that the production and documentation follows the space industry’s best practices.

The Space Rider spacecraft, which will be built by prime contractor Thales Alenia Space, which is based in Cannes, France, is an automatic, uncrewed laboratory designed to perform technology demonstration and pharmaceutics, biomedicine, biology, and physical science experiments over missions lasting up to two months.

A key feature of Space Rider is the ability to re-enter the atmosphere to return experiment results, land on a runway, and fly multiple times, a mission profile that will validate Europe’s know-how in operating missions in low Earth orbit. Space Rider’s maiden mission is expected to launch in 2023.