While launches to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) have become increasingly frequent and affordable, return transportation from orbit back to Earth remains scarce, costly, and inefficient - especially for small-scale and sensitive payloads. Existing re-entry solutions are built for large, complex missions, with numerous moving components that increase system complexity and hinder reliability, making them unsuitable for the growing need to recover research samples, materials, and manufactured components from microgravity environments. This gap limits in-orbit R&D, materials testing, and the scalability of the orbital economy.

Orbital Paradigm is developing Kestrel, a reusable re-entry capsule engineered for high-cadence missions, precision landing, and low-acceleration re-entry, ensuring the safe recovery of diverse payloads, from biotech, pharmaceutical and in-orbit demonstration and validation (IOD/IOV) missions to advanced materials produced in microgravity. Built on a modular, software-centric architecture, Kestrel integrates advanced thermal protection, autonomous guidance and control, and a mechanically efficient design engineered for reliability and reusability, enabling repeatable, cost-efficient operations with minimal ground support.

By combining reusability, autonomy, and precision recovery, Orbital Paradigm delivers a critical European return capability for the next generation of in-orbit manufacturing and research missions. Its platform closes the loop between launch and return, making routine orbital logistics economically viable and strategically independent  bringing orbit closer to Earth through precision engineering and intelligent autonomy, enabling frequent, routine access and minimizing operational barriers for high-value microgravity users.