The brief

Analyst view

• RFA is building RFA One, a 71-metre tall Falcon 9-class launcher with nine Helix staged-combustion engines, targeting first flight in 2026.
• The company uses automotive manufacturing techniques to reduce costs and enable volume production of rockets.
• RFA has secured over €100M in funding including €30M from KKR in 2023 and €46.78M in grants from the European Space Agency.

Technical approach

As reported

Staged Combustion

Helix engine architecture

Helix uses full-flow staged combustion, burning all propellant efficiently. This reduces engine count versus simpler designs.

Automotive Production

Serial manufacturing model

RFA applies automotive manufacturing principles: modular parts, supply chains and tooling to build rockets repeatably instead of hand-assembly.

Reusability

First-stage recovery

RFA One's first stage is designed to be recovered and reflown, reducing per-launch costs over time. The approach is validated by SpaceX's Falcon 9 success.