EIC Accelerator Winner GATE Space and the Satellite Thruster Race

GATE Space, a Vienna company founded by graduates of the TU Wien student rocket club, is betting that satellites dodging debris, docking with other spacecraft or correcting a bad rideshare orbit need the quick push of a chemical engine rather than the slower thrust of electric propulsion, as its CEO put the comparison to Tech Funding News. Its thrusters burn nitrous oxide and ethane, propellants that TU Wien describes as green and non-toxic and which feed the engine under their own pressure, without a separate pressurant gas.

The EIC Accelerator selected the company's project, PRO ASTRA (PROpulsion for Advanced Space Transportation and RPO Applications), at its 6 May 2026 cut-off for blended finance. On 19 June 2026 the company announced €6.3 million from the programme, a mix of grant and equity with the equity handled by the European Investment Bank. The split between the two has not been published, and a search of CORDIS on 4 November 2026 for "PRO ASTRA" and "GATE Space" returned no project; projects from 2026 cut-offs are often not listed there yet. RPO stands for rendezvous and proximity operations, the close-quarters flying a servicing or refuelling spacecraft needs.

A chemical engine for small satellites

The company's main product is the GATE Jetpack, a plug-in propulsion unit for satellites in the 50 to 500 kilogram class, according to Tech Funding News. CEO Moritz Novak told the outlet that chemical systems give the fast, powerful thrust needed for collision avoidance and rapid docking, in contrast to slower electric propulsion. Among the companies Tech Funding News lists in the same market is the Austrian electric propulsion maker Enpulsion, which it says has more than 320 units in orbit.

TU Wien reported in June 2025 that the company's own patented technology controls thrust precisely, and that three years of preparation included thousands of ground tests. The company's website puts the count at more than 8,000 hot-fire tests in atmospheric and vacuum conditions. Neither figure has been published with test data, and no thrust, specific impulse or throttling range for the Jetpack could be found on the website or in the press coverage reviewed.

Two missions that will test the claim

The first flight is BEACONSAT, Austria's first military satellite, which is meant to detect jamming and spoofing of GPS and Galileo signals from orbit. Payload reported on 2 March 2026 that GATE Space is prime contractor for the first time, building the propulsion, thermal and structural subsystems, with the Danish satellite maker Space Inventor and the Austrian payload company IGASPIN. Breaking Defense reported the same partners and the same funding: €1 million from the Austrian Ministry of Defence and €500,000 from the European Space Agency, with the total cost undisclosed. Novak told Payload: "If we're not stepping up, there is no Austrian satellite being built."

The second is ASTRAL, a refuelling demonstration led by Orbit Fab and funded with up to $3.8 million (€3.3 million) through the UK Space Agency and ESA. Orbit Fab's release of 21 November 2025 lists Gate Space Innovation GmbH in the consortium and plans an in-orbit experiment by 2028 that transfers nitrous oxide, ethane and xenon, two of them the propellants GATE Space uses. The release does not describe GATE Space's task; Trending Topics reported the same day that the company supplies the propulsion system, with several of its thrusters, for docking, fuel transfer, orbit raising and disposal at end of life. The project acronym, PRO ASTRA, points at the same kind of work, but the EIC project summary is not public, so what exactly the EIC is funding could not be verified.

The first launch has already moved

In June 2025 TU Wien wrote that a satellite with GATE Space propulsion would be launched on a SpaceX rocket in 2026. Vestbee repeated the 2026 date for a first in-orbit demonstration in October 2025. By March 2026, Payload gave February 2027 on a Falcon 9 for BEACONSAT. The company's own website, checked on 4 November 2026, still mentions a 2026 Falcon 9 launch in one place and carries a "Launching in 2027" header in another. No flight of a GATE Space thruster was found in searches of launch and company news on 4 November 2026, so none of the company's propulsion hardware is on record as having operated in space.

The money, figure by figure

Vestbee reported on 23 October 2025 that GATE Space had raised €10 million from private investors including the Vienna angel investor ROI Ventures, together with public funding programmes, international customers and aerospace partners; the split between them was not given. The company's EIC announcement also names a Seedfinancing Deep Tech grant, a guarantee from Austria Wirtschaftsservice and support from the Austrian Research Promotion Agency FFG. Tech Funding News puts the guarantee at €750,000 and says the company gives its total funding to date as about $22 million. That total is the company's figure; it could not be checked against filed accounts.

The Austrian company register shows annual accounts filed in March 2024, July 2025 and September 2026, a capital change on 6 November 2024 when GATE Space Inc. became sole shareholder, and a move of the registered seat in February 2025. It records no insolvency and no change of name. The figures in the filed accounts are not shown on the free register page and were not obtained for this article, so revenue, losses and equity are not reported here.

Why Europe funds a chemical thruster maker

The Payload report ties BEACONSAT to a wider concern: the project began in October 2025, after GNSS interference was reported on a flight carrying Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The EU Space Strategy for Security and Defence sets the aim of reducing strategic dependencies and securing supply chains for the space and defence industries, and a European maker of manoeuvring propulsion, paid by ESA and a national defence ministry, sits inside that aim. ESA's Laurent Jaffart said of ASTRAL, as quoted by Trending Topics, that it would further strengthen European autonomy and sovereignty. Trending Topics also reports that GATE Space was the only Austrian company, and the only space, aerospace or defence company, selected in its EIC round, a point Tech Funding News repeats for the sector.

1. Working ground hardwareClaimedThousands of hot-fire tests reported by TU Wien and the company; no test data published.
2. First flightPlannedBEACONSAT, February 2027, per Payload; moved from 2026.
3. Rendezvous and refuelling roleToo earlyConsortium member of ASTRAL, experiment planned by 2028, per Orbit Fab.
4. Commercial customersNot namedConfidential contracts for 2027 and beyond, per Novak to Tech Funding News.

GATE Space was not asked for comment for this article. The reporting is based on publicly available sources, listed below.