Sebastian Klaus does not fit into the usual category of founders of European New Space. His background combines aerospace engineering, military culture, operational knowledge of risk and industrial intuition. A former German army officer, trained in special operations and deployed in Afghanistan and Africa, he approaches space less as a scientific territory than as a strategic infrastructure.
Its angle of attack is not launch, a segment already crowded by SpaceX, Rocket Lab, Isar Aerospace or Rocket Factory Augsburg, but the other half of the space problem, namely bringing cargo back from orbit. In its reading, the space economy will remain constrained as long as satellites, experiments, vehicles or payloads are mainly designed as single-use objects.
Atmos Space Cargo, which he co-founded with Marta Oliveira, Jeffrey Hendrikse and Christian Grimm, is developing capsules capable of bringing different types of cargo from space to Earth. The company positions itself as a space logistics company, not as a player in experimentation or manufacturing in orbit. This nuance is central: Klaus wants to build the equivalent of a return transport service, capable of serving manufacturers, space agencies, laboratories, manufacturers of microgravity materials and, ultimately, defense players.
His thesis is based on a technology, the inflatable heat shield. Unlike conventional ablative shields, which burn up upon atmospheric reentry, or the thermal tiles used on the Space Shuttle and Starship, this approach aims to increase the braking surface very high in the atmosphere. The vehicle decelerates earlier, heats up less, undergoes fewer constraints, and can theoretically bring back more varied shapes than a traditional capsule.
This is where his profile becomes interesting. Klaus knows atmospheric reentry through his training, parachute systems through his technical experience and pilot’s license, and mission constraints through his military background. He talks about space with the vocabulary of a logistician: cadence, orbit, payload, recovery, regulations, re-entry license, cost per kilogram, vehicle reuse. Its ambition is to do for space return what SpaceX did for rideshare access to orbit.
The first orbital flight of Atmos, carried out from the Kennedy Space Center on a Falcon 9 Bandwagon 3 mission, marks an important milestone. The Fenix 1 vehicle reached low orbit, transmitted telemetry data, and operated with client payloads on board. The next stage, Fenix 2, must be more complete: clean propulsion, orbital stay of two to four weeks, around 100 kg of payload capacity, on-board solar energy and attempt to return to the Azores. In the medium term, Atmos is aiming to ramp up: two flights next year, then a quarterly frequency, before moving towards monthly missions.
The tech defense dimension is the other side of its portrait, the war in Ukraine has changed the European perception of military space. Where, five years ago, the United States alone seemed capable of supporting military uses of orbital logistics, he now believes that Germany, France and other European countries constitute a strategic market. His formula is that the “high ground” of tomorrow will no longer be just aerial, but spatial. In this vision, orbital depots could reach any point on the globe in 60 to 90 minutes. It is a very military reading of space, but also very contemporary: drones, AI, hypersonics, distributed logistics, information superiority and projection capacity.
His interest in space biomedicine, however, provides a counterpoint; he also emphasizes civilian uses: organoids, 3D printing of human tissues, cancer research, cellular aging, advanced materials, ZBLAN optical fibers, semiconductors. In its reading, microgravity can become an industrial environment, provided that we know how to recover quickly, cleanly and at an acceptable cost what is produced or tested there.
Why is Sebastian Klaus worth following? Not because it promises a new rocket or a new space station, but because it works on a less spectacular but equally structuring brick: the return. Especially since its profile crystallizes several trends of the European New Space: the assumed militarization of the orbit, the search for technological sovereignty, the industrialization of microgravity, and the transition from an exploration space to an infrastructure space. He is less a dreamer than an operator, and that is precisely what makes him interesting.
