Apr 25, 2025
Business
SPHERICAL Clinches Two More Contracts Worth €450 000 — Extending Its Perfect Bid Record
SPHERICAL, the Dutch specialist in software-defined, radiation-hardened satellite power systems, has secured two fresh contracts under the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Future Launchers Preparatory Programme (FLPP). The combined award value of €450 000 pushes the start-up’s competitive tender success rate to a rare-fied 100 percent — three wins out of three bids since 2023.
“Winning is great, but winning consistently is the real proof of problem-solution fit,” said Bastiaan Bom, SPHERICAL’s co-founder and CCO. “ESA keeps raising the technical bar, so holding a perfect record means our engineering approach is landing exactly where the agency’s roadmap is headed.”
What the New Contracts Cover
Project | Prime Contractor | SPHERICAL’s Role | Problem Addressed |
|---|---|---|---|
IMPULSE (Intelligent Management of Propulsion Unit Logic with Smart Electronics) | esc Aerospace (CZ) | Design & deliver a standardized power-electronics module that orchestrates valves, heaters and sensors in a spacecraft propulsion cluster | Re-engineering GNC and power interfaces from scratch for every new propulsion system wastes months of engineering effort |
PROPEL (Proportional Regulators for Orbital Propulsion and European Launch) | deltaVision (DE) | Develop a rad-hard motor-controller driving deltaVision’s proportional pressure regulator | Europe is still buying critical pressure-regulation hardware from outside the EU, creating critical dependencies and export-control headaches. |
Why ESA Picked SPHERICAL (Again)
Modular, software-defined power architecture. ESA reviewers have repeatedly selected SPHERICAL’s semiconductor-centric design, which slashes NRE* and de-risks upgrades.
Radiation-hard by design. Flight heritage is still thin, but the firm’s ability to design for radiation effects in a cost effective way is deemed to be attractive.
Lean partnership model. Rather than trying to do everything in-house, SPHERICAL slots its power modules into partner stacks from esc Aerospace, deltaVision and Creotech Instruments, shortening ESA’s payback cycle.
*Non-Recurring Engineering
What Happens Next
The projects are expected to kick off in May and last for 12 months, with multiple prototypes to be demonstrated.
Bom is blunt about the road ahead: “€450 k won’t carry us to orbit. We still have to convert lab-grade prototypes into flight hardware, lock down supply chains and survive an industry that loves PowerPoint more than solder. But the milestones are clear, the cash is confirmed, and the partners are strong.”
