From EIC Accelerator Grant to Liftoff: HyImpulse's Hybrid Rockets

On 1 October 2026 the UK Civil Aviation Authority gave HyImpulse a licence to launch its SR75 suborbital rocket from SaxaVord Spaceport on Unst, the northernmost of the Shetland Islands, and the flight is now hoped for in spring 2027, according to PA Media and NationalWorld. A month earlier, aviation and maritime notices had set out a launch window of 5 to 18 October 2026, European Spaceflight reported. The German company is active, it is growing, and it has raised more than €125 million. Its record on dates is weaker: every flight it has announced since 2022 has come later than first said.

The European Commission selected HyImpulse in the 5 June 2019 cut-off of the EIC SME Instrument Phase 2, the grant-only scheme of the Horizon 2020 EIC pilot that later became the EIC Accelerator. The company appears on the Commission's list of winners as "HyImpulse" of Hardthausen, with no partner company, for HyTEC, a project to scale up the propulsion of a small satellite launcher and a sounding rocket. CORDIS lists an EU contribution of €2,455,000 towards a total cost of €3,514,062.50, from 1 November 2019 to 30 September 2022.

An Active Company Still Waiting for Its Second Flight

HyImpulse is active. The commercial register in Stuttgart shows no insolvency or liquidation, and it records capital increases in September and December 2025 and again in August 2026, when registered share capital rose to €91,087, according to North Data. The company was registered on 8 May 2018 with Mario Kobald and Christian Schmierer as managing directors; its team page still lists all four founders, with Schmierer as chief executive and Kobald as board member and managing director, according to HyImpulse.

On 2 September 2026 HyImpulse announced a Series A extension of more than €50 million, led by JOIN Capital and Ace Capital Partners, with North Ventures, BW-Capital, Bayern Kapital and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) as new investors, according to Startbase and European Spaceflight. The law firm that advised investors also names NRW.BANK, Oscar Mike Venture Partners and Thesiger Capital Group, according to CMS. The company put its total equity and public funding at more than €125 million and its order book at more than €350 million. The order book is the company's own figure; no contract values have been published that would allow it to be checked.

The Technology: Candle Wax and Liquid Oxygen

A hybrid rocket motor burns a solid fuel with a liquid oxidiser. HyImpulse uses a paraffin-based fuel, close to candle wax, with liquid oxygen. The company's Marie Curie fellowship report on CORDIS sums up the case: the inert fuel and the oxidiser can never form an explosive mixture, the motor can be throttled, shut down and restarted, and only one feed line is needed. Solid motors cannot be throttled or restarted, and liquid engines need two propellant feed systems. The same report names the weak spot: combustion stability, "the biggest issue regarding a rocket motor", which hybrids have historically struggled with and which the company says it has mitigated.

Startbase quotes the company as saying the design needs about half the components of conventional systems. HyImpulse builds two vehicles on this motor. The single-stage SR75 is a 12-metre sounding rocket that can carry up to 250 kilograms to about 200 kilometres, according to European Spaceflight; a 2022 launch contract announcement had given 350 kilograms, according to SmallSat News. The SL1 is a three-stage orbital launcher with hybrid motors in every stage. Its stated capacity has moved from 500 kilograms to a 400-kilometre sun-synchronous orbit and 675 kilograms to low Earth orbit in 2022 to "up to 600 kilograms" to low Earth orbit in 2025, according to the same 2022 announcement and Via Satellite.

What HyTEC Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

The CORDIS objective promised to scale up and test the flight engine, the turbopump assembly, valves, piping and electronics, to work out a launcher production strategy using European composites and 3D printing, to enter the sounding rocket market, and to halve costs against competitors through mass production of hybrid motors. The project ran to its planned end date of 30 September 2022.

The final periodic report says the company tested "the largest hybrid motor (75kN) ever tested in Europe", completed acceptance tests of 75 kN motors and turbopump gas generators, and more than doubled its staff from 20. It also says it gathered customer interest worth about €120 million. A CORDIS results article of February 2023 repeats the 75 kN claim and says the sounding rocket's maiden launch was planned for later in 2023. The report does not say that a complete turbopump assembly was tested, and the launcher production strategy is not published.

1. Scale up and test the flight engineDelivered75 kN motor tested; flew on SR75 in May 2024.
2. Turbopump assemblyPartialGas generators accepted; no full turbopump test reported.
3. Enter the sounding rocket marketPartialOne test flight in 2024; first customer flight not yet flown.
4. Launcher production strategyUnverifiedNot published.
5. Halve launch costs by mass productionNot achievedNo series production or orbital price shown yet.

The grant did what EU money for hardware development is meant to do: it carried the motor from test stand to flight. The SR75 lifted off from the Koonibba Test Range in South Australia on 3 May 2024, according to Australian Defence Magazine and Wikipedia; Wikipedia gives an apogee of 50 kilometres and a parachute recovery, which the company has not confirmed in a source found for this article. The flight came about 20 months after the project ended, and the company had flown no customer on it.

A Record of Slipping Dates

In August 2022 HyImpulse signed In Orbit Aerospace as a customer for SL1 and said the SR75 would fly "later this year" and the SL1 in 2024, according to SmallSat News and SatNews. In February 2023 CORDIS reported the SR75 maiden flight for later in 2023. The UK regulator had cleared a SaxaVord launch between December 2023 and November 2024, but the company moved the first flight to Australia, according to Wikipedia. In October 2025 it promised a first commercial SR75 flight in 2026 and SL1 in 2027, according to Via Satellite and the EIC Scaling Club.

The second SR75 has not flown. With the licence issued only on 1 October 2026, the flight is now hoped for in spring 2027 rather than in the 5 to 18 October window. SaxaVord, which has never hosted a launch, dropped plans for a shared suborbital launch rail, so HyImpulse is bringing its own, built with the UK Space Agency's SHARP grant, European Spaceflight reported. That grant was £4,995,000, awarded in July 2024 with Cranfield University, the University of Birmingham and the AVICON Partnership as partners, according to the UK government and European Spaceflight. The September 2026 funding announcement still named 2027 for the first SL1 attempt, according to Aviation Week; European Spaceflight noted the date was no longer firmly stated.

The Money

The fundraising record is strong. In October 2025 HyImpulse announced €45 million: a €15 million Series A led by Campus Founders Ventures and €30 million of further, public financing, bringing its total since 2018 to about €74 million, according to Via Satellite and the EIC Scaling Club. Less than a year later the extension took the Series A past €65 million. Wikipedia names Rudolf Schwarz, chairman of the German technology company IABG, as an early backer, and North Data lists a Schwarz Holding GmbH among the shareholders; neither claim could be confirmed in a second source, nor whether the two are linked.

The filed accounts could not be checked. North Data shows balance sheets for 2018 to 2024 and income statements for 2021 to 2024, the latest filed on 28 April 2026, but their figures sit behind a paywall, so revenue, losses and equity are not reported here. Other public money is on record: a Marie Curie fellowship, HyTeX, worth €174,806.40 from March 2021 to February 2023 for paraffin fuel research, per CORDIS; a €262,500 share of ECHO 2, a SESAR project on air traffic management above conventional airspace running to December 2026, per CORDIS; and a Bavarian state aid award of €2,094,500 in September 2022, which North Data lists and which could not be confirmed in a second source.

Why It Matters for Europe

Independent European access to space is a stated goal of both the EU and ESA, and HyImpulse frames itself in those terms: "Europe does not have its own access to space," Schmierer said in October 2025, according to Via Satellite. In September 2026 Schmierer named "commercial, institutional and defence markets" as targets, according to Shetland News, which places the company within the security side of European space policy as well as the commercial one. In July 2025, however, ESA preselected five other companies for its European Launcher Challenge, which offers up to €169 million each: Isar Aerospace, Rocket Factory Augsburg, PLD Space, MaiaSpace and Orbex, according to ESA and European Spaceflight. HyImpulse was not among them, so its orbital plans depend on private money, national grants and the market.

The Verdict

HyImpulse and the EIC have not been asked for comment for this article. It is based on public records and published statements, linked throughout.