Luxembourg-based Space Cargo Unlimited has secured €12.5 million in funding from the European Innovation Council Accelerator to advance the development of its BentoBox in-orbit testing and manufacturing platform.
In October 2022, Space Cargo Unlimited announced a partnership with Thales Alenia Space to develop REV-1, a returnable platform designed to support in-orbit manufacturing and microgravity research. The vehicle is heavily based on the European Space Agency’s Space Rider vehicle, retaining much of that system’s Return Module. Thales can leverage work carried out for Space Rider in its collaboration with Space Cargo Unlimited, thanks to intellectual property provisions introduced by ESA in 1989, which allow a company to retain any IP it develops while under an agency contract.
BentoBox is a modular payload platform that will be carried within the REV-1 cargo bay, capable of hosting up to 100 kilograms of customer payloads. While the platform is designed to operate alongside the REV-1 system, the company will initially use it in conjunction with an inflatable heatshield developed by ATMOS Space Cargo to conduct a total of seven multi-week missions between late 2025 and 2027.
On 30 June, the European Innovation Council (EIC) announced that it had selected 40 startups to receive nearly €230 million in funding as part of the latest round of its Accelerator programme. Among the selected companies was Space Cargo Unlimited, with the funding, awarded as a combination of grants and equity investment, earmarked to support the development of its BentoBox platform. According to the company, the funding will accelerate both the development and deployment of the platform.
The inaugural flight of the BentoBox platform as a standalone system using the ATMOS inflatable heatshield is expected in the fourth quarter of 2025. As of a late 2024 update, Space Cargo Unlimited had already secured bookings for 80% of the inaugural flight, and 50% and 40% of the second and third flights, respectively.
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