A thruster that breathes the atmosphere is booked for a 2028 flight

Kreios Space will test air-breathing electric propulsion in very low Earth orbit on a NanoAvionics bus — a plan, not yet a result.

Spanish startup Kreios Space said on 4 August it will fly the first very low Earth orbit demonstration of its air-breathing electric propulsion system, on a Kongsberg NanoAvionics microsatellite bus. The demonstration is scheduled for 2028.

The idea addresses a specific problem. At around 200 kilometres altitude there is still enough atmosphere to drag a satellite down within months, so staying there normally means carrying propellant you will burn quickly and then die. Air-breathing propulsion collects the oxygen and nitrogen already present at that altitude, ionises it into plasma and uses it for thrust, which in principle removes the propellant tank as the limit on mission life. The demonstrator is meant to validate thruster performance, measure the environment it is flying through, and capture sub-metre imagery in visible and near-infrared bands.

Flying lower is a cost argument as much as a physics one. Closer means less power and smaller optics for the same resolution, and shorter round trips for communications. If satellites can hold that altitude for years rather than months, the economics of Earth observation and low-latency connectivity both improve without launching anything bigger.

The caveat is the important part: this is an announced plan with a date on it, not a demonstrated result. Nothing has flown. Kreios raised €8 million, about $9.21 million, in seed funding in 2025 and was selected for NATO's 2026 DIANA defence innovation accelerator. The card is weighted accordingly.

Source: SpaceNews