4 Ministers in Vernon

Last Friday, MM. Eric Lombard, Minister of Economy, Finance, and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty, Sébastien Lecornu, Minister of Armed Forces, PHILIPPE BAPTISTE, Minister of Higher Education and Research, and Marc Ferracci, Minister of Industry and Energy, as well as Charles Giusti, Prefect of Eure and Hervé Morin, President of the Normandy Regional Council, came to see firsthand MaiaSpace’s Proto-Factory in Ville de Vernon (27200), where several prototypes of almost all sub-systems of the #Maia launcher have been designed, integrated and tested.

3 years after the creation of the company in April 2022, our technical and financial roadmap is in line with expectations, to target a first flight in the second half of 2026.

Developing in less than 5 years the first competitive, reusable and eco-designed mini-launcher in Europe requires to changes rules and do things differently; using new Agile, iterative and incremental development methods while leveraging the existing expertise and excellence of the European space industry; implementing renewed public-private partnerships based on an obligation of results, the best way to support industrial and commercial ramp-up to be competitive on the global market.

Speaking about industrialization, our ambition is crystal clear: carry out a series of commercial launches from the first successful flight and ensure a rate of around twenty lift-offs per year from French Guyana by the start of the next decade.

To quickly achieve this critical size, a condition to profitability, we need a new Factory by 2027 to take over from our Proto-Factory; learning, like our rocket, from our first iterations – here our Proto-Factory; and designed, like our rocket, to be scalable, flexible, and focused on performance and cost control.

In this context, MaiaSpace’s CEO Yohann Leroy announced our intention to lay the foundation stone of the Maia Factory here in Vernon, on the CAMPUS DE L’ESPACE, as soon as possible. With the support of four Ministers and all local authorities, MaiaSpace is delighted to be part of a strong territorial dynamic, where so many chapters of spatial history have been written. We are determined to succeed in our challenge of writing, here in Vernon, a new page in the European space adventure.

Ministère de l’Économie, des Finances et de la Souveraineté industrielle et numérique ; Ministère des Armées ; Ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche et de l’Espace ; Région Normandie