Dawn Aerospace, a space transportation company with offices in the Netherlands, New Zealand and the USA, today announced the formation of a new subsidiary Dawn Aerospace France SAS based in Toulouse. This marks another milestone in the company’s expansion, creating a permanent presence in one of the world’s most renowned aerospace hubs.
“We are excited to be putting down roots in Toulouse, a city with a rich history in aerospace and a strong community of aerospace innovators”, said Stefan Powell, Dawn Aerospace CEO. “This move puts us closer to our French customers and will allow us to build long-term partnerships with French entities to provide unique, European-made propulsion solutions.”
Dawn’s Toulouse office will initially focus on customer support, business development and R&D.
Dawn is the fastest-growing supplier of satellite chemical green-propulsion systems in the world. They have 69 units of hardware on 14 operational satellites and a further 200 delivered to international customers awaiting launch. Dawn’s systems use non-toxic propellants, nitrous oxide and propylene, which are readily accessible and significantly reduce the complexity and costs associated with commonly used toxic propellants such as hydrazine.
The company is also building a spaceplane, a rapidly reusable launch vehicle that combines the performance of a rocket with the fleet economics of an aircraft. A subscale technology demonstrator, the Mk-II Aurora, has completed 50 test flights, 47 with surrogate jet engines and three under rocket power.
The subsidiary announcement took place at the Space Tech Expo Europe in Bremen at the Occitanie region plateau, and was attended by the VP of the region, Jalil Benabdillah.
“We’d like to express our sincere thanks to the City of Toulouse and the Occitanie Region for their warm welcome and the support they’ve shown us. We’re looking forward to a long and productive presence here”, Jeroen Wink, Dawn Aerospace Co-founder and CRO said.
Local authorities and industry leaders have expressed their enthusiasm about Dawn Aerospace’s move.
“The establishment of Dawn Aerospace stands as a clear testament to the region’s vibrant aerospace ecosystem. We extend a heartfelt welcome and eagerly anticipate fruitful collaborations ahead,” said Jalil Benabdillah, VP in charge of Economics, Innovation & Reindustrialization of the Occitanie Region & VP of the AD’OCC agency.
