We build the parts that satellites cannot fly without
Satellites are assembled from thousands of qualified components — the wheels that point them, the electronics that survive radiation, the mechanisms that deploy in vacuum and never get a second attempt. Sirious Mechanics is a European manufacturer of that hardware. We are starting with one component category and expanding as our qualification and production capability grows.
Why now?
The bottleneck in space has moved. Satellite factories are not the constraint — the components inside them are. Lead times for critical parts have stretched from weeks to around a year, and several categories have three or fewer qualified suppliers anywhere in the West.
Europe has learned what it costs to depend on supply chains it does not control. The satellites it flies are built from components sourced far away, on lead times and licensing terms set by others. We are building sovereign European capability in that hardware — parts designed and manufactured here, available on terms our customers control, so that European programmes are not held up by decisions taken elsewhere.
That ambition is not Europe’s alone. Japan, South Korea, India and the Gulf states are all building serious national space capability, and all of them face the same constraint: too few suppliers, concentrated in too few countries, on terms they do not set. A supplier that lets them design in, build and export without waiting on someone else’s authorisation is a supplier worth having. We intend to be one.
The pressure is compounded by consolidation. Independent component makers are being bought by the companies that build satellites. We will stay independent of any platform builder.
Constellation programmes now count satellites in the thousands rather than the dozens. Every one of them needs these parts, at a rate the existing supply base was never built to deliver.
What we’re doing about it?
Building the capability that is actually scarce: taking a component from design through space qualification into reliable serial production — then doing it again for the next component, and the one after that.
We are early, and we are hiring, partnering and raising. If you build satellites, invest in high-tech manufacturing, or have spent a career making hardware that must work first time in orbit, we would like to hear from you.