Rocket Factory Augsburg builds RFA One, a three-stage orbital launch vehicle for small satellites, applying car-style serial manufacturing to offer low-cost, flexible access to orbit from European spaceports.
Notable milestones from Rocket Factory Augsburg’s journey — funding rounds, launches, and other moments worth knowing.
SaxaVord set a launch window from 10 August to early September for a rocket test flight, with attempts limited to Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings and decided 24 hours ahead. For RFA, it turns the long-delayed maiden flight from an integrated vehicle into a regulated launch campaign.
SourceRFA shipped its stages to Shetland and integrated the full RFA One stack in the SaxaVord assembly hangar, closing in on a long-delayed first orbital attempt that would mark the UK's first vertical launch to orbit.
At ESA's November 2025 ministerial, member states subscribed over €900M to the European Launcher Challenge, with Germany pledging €180.5M to RFA One — anchoring the company's path to a first flight and recurring institutional launches.
ESA shortlisted RFA alongside Isar Aerospace, MaiaSpace, Orbex and PLD Space to compete for institutional launch contracts and funding — Europe's bid to seed a commercial alternative to Ariane and cut reliance on foreign rockets.
SourceDuring a full nine-engine static fire on 19 August 2024, an anomaly in one Helix engine triggered a fire and explosion that destroyed the first stage and damaged the launch mount. No one was hurt, but the loss pushed RFA's maiden flight back by years.
SourceRFA hot-fired the RFA One first stage at SaxaVord — an integrated stage-and-engine firing on the British pad that cleared a key step toward what would have been the UK's first vertical orbital launch.
Global investment firm KKR put €30M into RFA through a convertible bond, becoming a lead investor alongside OHB. The money funded the integrated first-stage test campaign and finished the launch pad at SaxaVord.
RFA secured exclusive access to a pad at the UK's SaxaVord Spaceport on the Shetland island of Unst, with a double-digit-million investment — picking a high-latitude site ideal for the polar and sun-synchronous orbits its small-satellite customers fly.
DLR's German Space Agency awarded RFA €11M and signed the German government as anchor customer for RFA One's first two flights — institutional backing that validated the privately financed launcher against its domestic rivals.
Jörn Spurmann and Stefan Brieschenk founded RFA as a spin-off of the German space group OHB, betting that car-style serial manufacturing — buying parts in, building cheaply and at volume — could undercut traditional launchers and give Europe its own low-cost route to orbit.
