TU Wien spinout GATE Space secures €6.3M – can Austria’s space industry rise to the challenge?
A Vienna-based startup, GATE Space, has secured €6.3 million in grants and equity from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator to prepare its chemical propulsion hardware for two landmark missions: Austria’s first military satellite, BeaconSat, scheduled for launch in February 2027, and ASTRAL, Europe’s first in-orbit refuelling mission, targeted for 2028.
Funding for a fast-growing market
The EIC Accelerator is one of Europe’s most selective deep-tech funding programmes, with acceptance rates as low as 6%. GATE Space was the only company from the space, aerospace and defence sectors chosen in the current round. The blended finance package combines non-dilutive research and development grants with equity investment from the European Investment Bank, designed to help companies at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 5 to 8 bridge the gap from prototype to commercialisation.
The latest round brings GATE Space’s total funding to approximately $22 million. It follows earlier support from Austria’s FFG research agency, a €750,000 guarantee from Austria Wirtschaftsservice, and backing from the Techstars Space Accelerator. The company, founded in 2022 by seven graduates from the TU Wien Space Team, is based in Vienna with additional locations in Lower Austria and San Francisco and employs around two dozen people. The leadership team includes chief executive Moritz Novak, chief financial officer Clemens Weisgram, chief technology officer Alexander Sebo and chief operating officer Taras Weinl.
The funding will be used to industrialise the company’s propulsion technology and scale up production, chiefly for BeaconSat and the ASTRAL mission. Novak has also said the company has signed confidential customer contracts for 2027 and beyond.
Chemical propulsion: speed when it matters
GATE Space designs and manufactures chemical propulsion systems for satellites weighing between 50 and 500 kilograms — the most common size for satellites launched today. Its main product, the GATE Jetpack, is a plug-and-play unit for ESPA-class satellites that enables them to adjust their position, avoid debris, dock with other spacecraft and deorbit safely at the end of their operational life.
The company’s technology is built around the need for quick, powerful manoeuvres. While electric propulsion systems are highly efficient over long periods, they generate only low thrust, making them unsuitable for rapid collision avoidance or urgent docking. Chemical propulsion, by contrast, delivers high thrust in short bursts — exactly what is required when a satellite must change its orbit quickly, correct a path error after a shared launch, or perform a time-sensitive rendezvous.
This capability will be critical for BeaconSat, Austria’s first military satellite, which is being developed in partnership with Danish manufacturer Space Inventor. The satellite’s primary mission is to detect and analyse hostile interference — jamming and spoofing — against global navigation satellite systems such as GPS and Galileo. GATE Space’s propulsion hardware will enable BeaconSat to manoeuvre precisely in orbit, allowing it to track sources of interference and respond to evolving threats.
The company is also developing hardware for ASTRAL, Europe’s first in-orbit refuelling mission, led by Orbit Fab. Backed by the European Space Agency and the UK Space Agency, the mission aims to demonstrate autonomous satellite docking and propellant transfer by 2028. ASTRAL will test Orbit Fab’s RAFTI™ and GRASP refuelling interfaces, transferring propellants including xenon. The mission involves a consortium of European companies — KISPE Space Systems, Blackswan Space, and Indra Deimos — and is seen as a strategic step towards extending satellite life and maintaining operational advantage in space.
A crowded orbit: competition and context
GATE Space operates in a competitive landscape that includes Austria’s Enpulsion, a leader in electric propulsion for micro- and nanosatellites with more than 320 units in orbit, and US-based Orbion Space Technology, which manufactures Hall-effect plasma thrusters for small satellites. The key differentiator for GATE Space is thrust: where electric propulsion offers efficiency, its chemical systems deliver the quick, powerful bursts needed for collision avoidance and rapid docking.
The global satellite propulsion market is large and growing. Grand View Research valued it at $11.05 billion in 2024 and projects it will reach $23.24 billion by 2030. GATE Space is positioning itself to capture part of that growth, particularly as defence spending on space systems increases. As a PitchBook analyst noted earlier this year, more investment is flowing into defence-linked space technology. GATE Space’s involvement with BeaconSat places it squarely within that trend.
The problem of satellite signal jamming is a growing concern. Research has shown that GPS interference incidents rose by 2,000% between 2018 and 2021, with potential losses of about £1 billion a day. Other European startups are also targeting this vulnerability: Aquark Technologies raised €5 million for quantum positioning sensors as an alternative to GPS, and UK-based Shield Space raised £2 million to protect satellites from jamming and interference, with its first flight also planned for 2027.
“This funding is an extraordinary validation of our technology, our team, and our vision,” Novak said. “It enables us to significantly accelerate our growth strategy and further strengthen our position as a leading provider of mobility and infrastructure solutions in space.” GATE Space is betting that as orbits become more crowded and competitive, building the engines will be more valuable than building the satellites themselves. Enough other small European companies share this view that it is starting to look less like a niche and more like a crowded field.
