NATO has just invested in Kreios Space, a Spanish startup founded in 2021 by six recent graduates with a single, formerly impossible ambition: to have satellites orbit closer to Earth than ever before.
NATO has just invested in Kreios Space, a Spanish startup founded in 2021 by six recent graduates driven by the desire to put satellites closer to Earth than anyone has before.
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Orbiting a satellite within 500 kilometres of Earth has long been considered a dead end. The atmosphere at that altitude still exerts enough drag to slow any object within days, pulling it back down to Earth.
No one had found a sustainable way of going closer without burning through fuel at an absurd rate, so the industry settled for higher orbits and left the rest unexplored.
To understand the distances involved, we first have to consider that the Moon finds itself at an average of 384,000 km distance from Earth. Geosynchronous orbits (GEO), which match the Earth's daily rotation, sit at 35,768 km and are home to satellites such as SpainsatNG, which hovers permanently over the Iberian Peninsula.
Below that are medium orbits (MEO), between geosynchronous orbits and 2,000 km from Earth.
Below 2,000 km we get the low Earth orbit, or LEO. And below 500 km — until now, effectively off-limits — lies very low Earth orbit, or VLEO.
That is exactly where Kreios Space is headed. The Vigo-based company has developed an electric engine that turns the very drag that makes these orbits so hostile into a source of propulsion, targeting altitudes of between 150 and 400 kilometres.
Francisco Boira, one of the six founders, puts it plainly.
"VLEO orbits are not currently used because at these distances there is a lot of aerodynamic drag. To counteract it, huge amounts of fuel are needed, enough to give the satellite an autonomy of days and make it entirely unfeasible."
Their solution is the ABEP (Air-Breathing Electric Propulsion) engine, which captures atmospheric air, converts it into plasma and uses it as propellant, powered entirely by solar energy. The result is a satellite that can remain in orbit for years rather than days, with no fossil fuel reserves and no debris left behind.
After more than five years of development, the engine achieved certification and ground testing in 2026. The next step is orbit.
Why NATO set its sights on Galicia
In September 2025, Kreios Space closed an €8 million funding round led by the NATO Innovation Fund, a €1 billion private equity fund backed by 24 NATO allies that invests in cutting-edge European technology across defence, security and resilience. JOIN Capital, Grow Venture Partners, Xesgalicia and Tasivia Global also participated.
Kreios is the first Spanish startup to appear on the Atlantic alliance's strategic radar.
David Ordóñez of the NATO Innovation Fund said Kreios represents a breakthrough into an orbit previously considered out of reach and highlighted its significance for European security. The round follows an earlier €2.3 million raised in 2024, bringing total investment to more than €10 million.
What VLEO orbits offer compared to higher orbits
The advantages of operating at very low altitude are significant. Satellites at VLEO capture images at three times the resolution of those in higher orbits using the same technology.
They offer direct broadband connectivity to mobile devices without bulky antennas, with communication latency dropping to between 2 and 8 milliseconds compared to around 50 milliseconds for LEO satellites and nearly half a second for geostationary ones.
VLEO orbits are also uncrowded and free of space debris — a growing problem at higher altitudes.
"It would help avoid the Kessler syndrome, where a single explosion in LEO could trigger a chain reaction of collisions that renders the orbit unusable," Boira, one of the founders, said.
Any Kreios satellite whose propulsion fails would simply fall back into the atmosphere and burn up.
There are trade-offs. The closer to Earth, the more satellites are needed to achieve global coverage, and the more propulsion energy is required to maintain altitude.
Launch logistics are also more complex. SpaceX currently offers positioning at a minimum of 500 km, meaning a VLEO-bound satellite must be released higher and allowed to descend.
That cost premium may fall if operators develop dedicated VLEO launch services, with candidates including SpaceX or Spain's own PLD Space.
One thing VLEO is certainly not is a collision risk with aircraft. Commercial flights cruise at 13–14 km, and even high-altitude jets reach no higher than 37 km. Any descending satellite would burn up in the atmosphere long before it got close.
From the Barcelona classrooms to the Nigrán facilities
The six founders, including Adrián Senar, Jan Mataró, Francisco Boira, Adrià Barceló, Max Amer and Francisco Bosch, were classmates while studying Aerospace Engineering at the Polytechnic School of Catalonia.
The company was born in 2021 from that group, each of them less than 25 years old, and soon found in Galicia the institutional support it needed in its early stages when the risk was higher.
Today they have their headquarters in the free zone of Vigo and are about to move to new facilities in Porto do Molle, in the municipality of Nigrán. There they will complete the entire manufacturing and validation process without leaving Galicia.
The space has a clean room, a sealed environment with extremely low levels of suspended particles, essential for working with precision components, and a vacuum chamber that simulates the conditions of outer space for testing prior to launch.
Then the road takes the satellite to Cape Canaveral in Florida. For the time being, this is the only remaining leg outside Galicia.
The team has grown to 17 people and has accumulated awards in 2025 such as the EmprendeXXI Galicia Awards, the award for the most disruptive startup at South Summit Korea and another at MindtechVigo.
Its advisors have experience in Thales, the European Space Agency and the Japanese space agency JAXA.
In-orbit demonstrations
The funding will go towards launching the first two test satellites, including the first in-orbit demonstration of an ABEP engine.
If that goes to plan, the next stage is commercial constellations targeting Earth observation and direct-to-device communications.
The applications are wide-ranging. High-resolution Earth observation has uses in agriculture, resource management and defence.
In Spain, Kreios is already collaborating on an early fire-detection project called Ícaro, alongside the University of Vigo and Telespazio Ibérica.
The communications potential may be just as significant. VLEO satellites could maintain functional networks even when ground infrastructure fails, a capability that would have been valuable during Spain's recent nationwide blackout or the floods that devastated Valencia in the Dana disaster.
Kreios Space is not yet five years old, and none of its founders has reached 30. What they have built in that time — proprietary technology, NATO backing, state-of-the-art facilities and a satellite on the cusp of launch — is a reasonable measure of what a handful of young Spanish engineers can achieve when given the room to try.
