Francesco Cacciatore is a self-proclaimed skeptic. However, it took twenty years in the European aerospace industry, and as he said, it was a “crisis” and he undeniably made an optimistic bet: he set up a space company.
“You ask yourself, ‘What am I doing?’” he said in a recent interview. “I got some interesting opportunities, but then I got a little broken and realized I wanted to build something on my own.”
It turns out to be one of the most challenging issues in aerospace: reentry. Cacciatore was founded with his co-founder Víctor Gómez García Orbital ParadigmThis is a Madrid-based startup that has built a new entry capsule to unlock a new market for materials created with zero gravity.
In less than two years, the company has a team of nine people and €1 million to build a test capsule called KID, the precursor of future reusable space capsules called Kestrel. The smallest thing the child deliberately did was: it weighed about 25 kg, about 16 inches, without pushing. This will mark the first time that startups have put their hardware on track.
Clients for the first demonstration mission included French space robotics startup Alatyr, the University of Leibniz in Germany, and a third unnamed client. To date, the company has raised €1.5 million in seed funding from ID4, Demium, Pinama, Ever Curious and Akka.
The orbital paradigm was not initially intended to be developed back to capsules. The co-founders first envisioned space robotics, but potential customers repeatedly said that what they really wanted was the ability to go orbit, stay for a while and then come back.
Cacciatore said customers “don’t want to be one-off.” He observed that institutions, startups and companies often want to fly three to six times a year. Biotech companies represent a potentially profitable market, as microgravity can enable new materials, drugs and therapies, and these applications often require repeated testing by design.
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That’s why the Orbital Paradigm chose to build a smaller capsule instead of capsules like SpaceX’s Dragon, which flew astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station. “If you want to fly hundreds or thousands of kilograms, then your customer is no longer a payload, it’s the destination for you to fly,” he explained.
The market for orbital returns is becoming increasingly crowded on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Varda Space Industries became the first company to peg commercial reentry in 2024, while European exploration companies gained a controlled reentry this summer with their own testing tools.
U.S. startups like Varda and Reversal Space benefit from some unique headwinds: In particular, the Department of Defense and other agencies are putting millions of dollars into supersonic testing and delivery demonstrations, often in the form of non-second-tier funds or non-second-tier funds or contracts that do not require waived ownership of the company.
“We don’t understand,” Cacciatore admitted. “That’s one of the reasons we sold to customers from the beginning because otherwise we wouldn’t be anywhere. We’re a little hungry, so we might need to be more sporty.”
The first release is approaching quickly. The Orbital paradigm will drive its Virgin Sent missions through an unnamed release provider in about three months with three customer payloads. The child will not be recovered; instead, the goal is to separate from the rocket, transmit data from orbit, survive the intense heat and velocity of hypertension reentry, and then ping at least home before the capsule hits an undisclosed area.
Because of the cost and complexity, he said: “We designed the vehicle to not have to land at a specific location.”
The second mission in 2026 will feature a shrinking kestrel with propulsion systems and parachutes to guide the capsule to the Azores, and the Portuguese Space Agency is developing a spaceport. Like the first mission, there will be no orbital phase – it will only launch, taking about 30 minutes of microgravity before returning – but in this case the orbital paradigm will be able to restore the vehicle and internal payload.
Cacciatore is proud of what the team has achieved so far, but he is sober about the long road ahead: “Until we fly, we didn’t do much,” he said. “The words are good, but flight is the final test.”
