A consortium led by French launch startup HyPrSpace has secured €35 million in funding for the Projet Agile de Developpement d’Acces à l’espace 1 (PADA1) project.
The French government, through its France 2030 initiative, will be supplying 60% of the total project funding. The consortium partners will contribute the rest, with HyPrSpace taking on the lion’s share of that responsibility.
“The recognition of our PADA1 project by the France 2030 program confirms the transformative potential of our hybrid technology for the space industry,” said HyPrSpace CEO Alexandre Mangeot. “We are honored and energized by this opportunity, and we will continue to work tirelessly to ensure France a leading position in the future space economy.”
The PADA1 consortium is made up of HyPrSpace, Telespazio France, and CT Ingénierie. Telespazio will be responsible for the ground segment and operations activities that will include support for HyPrSpace vehicles from the factory floor to the deployment of customer payloads. CT Ingénierie will be focused on system engineering and the design of the OB-1 and Baguette One launchers.
In addition to supporting the continued development of its hybrid propulsion technology, the €35M funding will be used to launch the maiden flight of the company’s suborbital Baguette One vehicle, which the company is hoping to complete in the first quarter of 2026. It will also be used to complete the detailed design for its orbital-class OB-1 launch vehicle.
Baguette One is a single-stage suborbital launch vehicle that will stand at 7 metres tall and have a maximum payload capacity of 300 kilograms. The OB-1 vehicle would have Mark 1 and Mark 2 variants that would stand between 11 and 16 metres tall and have a payload capacity of between 200 and 250 kilograms. However, the details for all three rockets have been pulled from the HyPrSpace website in the last few months, suggesting that the designs may be in the process of evolving.
