Reditus Space completed assembly of ENOS, a 200-kilogram reentry vehicle designed to recover and reuse spacecraft for orbital missions. The startup announced the completion July 13, with the vehicle scheduled to launch later this year on a SpaceX rideshare mission. Unlike traditional reentry systems that attach a small capsule to a satellite, ENOS functions as a singular system where more than 80% of the vehicle's mass returns to Earth, enabling reuse and allowing a higher payload return capacity of roughly 60 kilograms. The approach matters because it increases both reusability and the amount of cargo that can come back from orbit, capabilities Reditus aims to refine through future iterations.
The company spent 15 months developing ENOS with about a dozen employees on $7.1 million in seed funding raised last December. The spacecraft uses a proprietary thermal protection material called RHEA, developed with NASA support, to manage the extreme heat of reentry while preventing that heat from reaching the vehicle itself. ENOS will spend two months in orbit before splashing down off Florida's coast, carrying both technology demonstration components and customer payloads from pharmaceutical and advanced materials companies. Reditus is one of several startups in the reentry vehicle market, though SpaceX's recent Starfall test flight has introduced larger-scale competition. CEO Stef Crum characterized Starfall as validation of the broader market and said the company plans to build more specialized vehicles with increased capabilities rather than reflyinig ENOS hardware.