Since it was founded less than a year ago, MaiaSpace may be a controversial pick this high up on the raking. However, the company’s age has very little to do with its development progress thanks to its parent company ArianeGroup.
MaiaSpace will be utilizing the Prometheus methlox rocket engine being developed by ArianeGroup. The team will also lean heavily on the work done for the Themis demonstrator for other major components of the vehicle. Additionally, much of the core team is made up of ex-ArianeWorks employees, a now-discontinued skunkworks division of ArianeGroup that spearheaded the development of Prometheus and Themis. This pool of talent along with an aggressive recruitment strategy and seed funding from its parent company has allowed MaiaSpace to grow to close to 30 employees within 12 months. With the technology and the experience already onboard, MaiaSpace has managed to leapfrog many competitors that have been at it for far longer.
Another notable element of the MaiaSpace strategy is the company’s drive to develop a reusable vehicle from the onset. Many other companies on this list do have plans for reusability once they have managed to bring an operational vehicle to market. MaiaSpace is, however, unique in the fact that reusability is a core tenant of its design philosophy and not a "nice to have.” The company’s reusability efforts do, however, prove the extreme cost these small vehicles have to pay in order to be reusable. Maia will be capable of delivering 1,500 kg payloads to orbit when launched in an expendable configuration and just 500 kg when it is to be recovered and reused.
Web: https://maia-space.com/