NordSpace announces new partnership with German Fraunhofer ILT
Press Release
NordSpace is pleased to announce a groundbreaking Canada-Germany R&D collaboration and funding towards medium-lift rocket engine development with Fraunhofer ILT, receiving advisory services and up to $335,000 from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP). This collaboration will support a research and development project that will advance our large format multi-material additive manufacturing capabilities for medium-lift rocket engines.
This collaboration between NordSpace, the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology, and SWMS (Systemtechnik Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH) builds upon the recent launch of our Advanced Manufacturing for Aerospace Lab (AMA Lab), and marks an important step toward our ongoing efforts to advance orbital launch vehicles that are fully scalable from light to medium-lift payload capacities. NordSpace's Tundra and Tundra+ light lift vehicles, capable of 500 kg and 1,100 kg to LEO respectively, are being designed specifically to scale to the medium-lift Titan vehicle (5,000 kg+ to LEO) by the early 2030s.
This advanced manufacturing project for space propulsion harnesses breakthrough methods such as large volume, high-speed, high-resolution, multi-metal deposition to optimize rocket engine design, fabrication, and testing. NordSpace will partner with Fraunhofer ILT – the German research institute that has developed the world-leading EHLA laser-based high-speed additive manufacturing capability, and SWMS – the German company that has developed the CAESA software for AI-powered advanced manufacturing path planning optimization. This collaborative project will support NordSpace in developing next-generation, large-scale, regeneratively cooled liquid engines, validated through rigorous hot-fire test campaigns and positioned for flight qualification and commercial scale-up.
This announcement builds on NordSpace’s AMA Lab launched earlier this year with Ontario Centre of Innovation support and another advanced manufacturing project that received funding from the Canadian Space Agency. The AMA Lab has already accelerated the design of our 3D-printed Hadfield engines and enhanced development cycles through AI-driven design methodologies and direct validation at our test range. Now, this new Canada-Germany collaborative R&D project will go further into efficient production methods for these advanced rocket engines.
We will also present updates on this initiative at the Canadian Space Launch Conference on May 5, 2026 in Ottawa.