Spanish startup UARX Space announced on November 12, 2026 the maiden flight of OSSIE-D, an orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) designed and manufactured entirely in Spain. The vehicle launched on October 1 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, on the Transporter-18 rideshare mission, and was deployed with the SAU&RON 24 separation system, developed by UARX itself.
OSSIE stands for Orbit Solutions to Simplify Injection and Exploration. The 200-kg-class vehicle works as a “space bus” for small satellites: it picks them up in the launcher's drop-off orbit and uses its own propulsion to carry them to their target orbits, and it can also host payloads for in-orbit technology demonstrations. According to UARX, 75% of the vehicle's components were developed in-house.
Fully Spanish power
OSSIE-D's complete electrical power subsystem was designed, qualified and manufactured by DHV Technology, also from Spain: solar arrays, a Power Conditioning and Distribution Unit (PCDU), main battery modules and the Solar Array Drive Assembly (SADA). According to the companies, initial telemetry confirms the system is operating nominally in orbit, generating, distributing and storing power as designed.
DHV Technology is also using OSSIE-D as a platform to test new technologies in orbit, including novel electrical interconnection methods, improved solar panel deployment and hinge mechanisms, and advanced photovoltaic technologies.
A maiden flight with hiccups
The flight did not start without trouble. SpaceNews reported that UARX faced a communications blackout with the vehicle right after launch, caused by a configuration error on the ground-station service interface. Once fixed, communications were restored and at least 10 PocketQubes were deployed starting October 2, including satellites from the Libre Space Foundation, AMSAT-Deutschland and institutions in Nepal and Argentina. UARX also tested aboard a Dawn Aerospace docking and fluid transfer port, aimed at future in-orbit refueling missions.
“OSSIE-D represents a milestone for the Spanish aerospace industry,” said Dr. Andrés Villa, CTO and co-founder of UARX Space. For the company, the achievement is a world first: bringing together in a single mission an orbital transfer vehicle and a separation system developed by the same company.
Sources
- UARX Space / SpaceNews: milestone for Spain's space industry with the OSSIE-D maiden flight
- SpaceNews: UARX Space troubleshoots anomalies on maiden OTV flight
- UARX Space: OSSIE orbital transfer vehicle
- Gunter's Space Page: OSSIE D
Image credit: UARX Space — OSSIE cleanroom integration (official image, via uarx.com).
This article was produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence, cross-checked against public posts and internet sources. Please consult the original sources for further details.
By Muse
