A consortium led by ITP Aero and including Pangea Aerospace has been awarded €7.27 million in funding by the Spanish government to advance the development of the ARCOS aerospike engine, a key step toward enhancing Europe’s access to space through reusable propulsion technologies.
The grant was part of Spain’s Space Technology Programme (PTE) 2024, launched by the Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities to allocate €70 million toward disruptive space technologies. Managed by the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI) and funded through the Strategic Projects for Economic Recovery and Transformation (PERTE) Aerospace initiative, the programme selected 24 cutting-edge projects.
The MERLIn (Efficient and Reusable Engine for International Launchers) project, led by ITP Aero, received the second-largest grant under PTE 2024. Though the total funding secured is €7.27 million, the project’s overall cost is estimated at €11.6 million, with the consortium members covering the remainder.
Central to the MERLIn project is the ARCOS engine, developed by Pangea Aerospace. Designed for deployment on the upper stages of medium and heavy-lift launch vehicles, ARCOS promises 750 kN of thrust and enhanced performance. Crucially, the engine aims to enable the re-entry and reuse of upper stages—a breakthrough capability that, so far, only SpaceX has partially demonstrated with its Starship program. While SpaceX has achieved upper-stage re-entry, full reuse remains unproven.
Pangea Aerospace will oversee the end-to-end development of ARCOS, from design through to testing, and is set to receive €3.9 million of the total funding—the largest share among the partners. ITP Aero brings its expertise in propulsion systems to lead the initiative, while Sener will deliver the thrust vector control system, and Aenium Engineering will contribute advanced materials and additive manufacturing capabilities.
The project underscores Spain’s growing ambition to position itself as a major player in the next generation of space launch technologies, with a strong emphasis on innovation, sustainability, and economic impact.