(Karlsruhe, Germany, September 29th 2026) Horizon Microtechnologies is accelerating industrialisation of its metallised polymer micro-additive manufacturing platform through IP-MASS, a two-year scale-up project supported by €500,000 and reinforced by selection for ESA Phi-Lab Austria.
The programme is expanding Horizon’s printing, coating and process-verification capabilities for shielding housings and other passive RF hardware, targeting up to 50,000 precision-coated satellite components and a repeatable manufacturing framework suited to constellation-class demand rather than one-off prototype production.
Horizon combines precision polymer 3D printing with conformal metallisation and protective coatings. Polymer provides the precision bulk geometry, while metal is applied only to the thickness required. Replacing even lightweight metals such as aluminium with metallised polymer can reduce weight by 40%, while 3D printing can deliver further size, weight and design advantages alongside attractive economics compared with conventionally machined metal parts.
ESA Phi-Lab Austria’s “Industrialization by Design” focus supports upstream space technologies with commercial potential, reflecting the move towards scalable, reliable and cost-effective industrial products.
Importantly, IP-MASS is not limited to shielding housings. Horizon is also seeking spacecraft and space-related terrestrial applications where polymer 3D printing and metallisation could address product requirements, manufacturing constraints or future volume demand.
“Horizon has proved that metallised polymer micro-AM can deliver far more than lightweight prototypes,” said Andreas Frölich, CEO of Horizon Microtechnologies. “The next challenge is industrial: achieving the prices, lead times, repeatability and throughput needed when a component is required not once or ten times, but thousands or tens of thousands of times.”
Frölich adds, “Shielding housings give us a strong first industrialisation case, but they are not the limit. We also want to address components where lightweight printed geometry and functional metallic surfaces could create a meaningful technical or manufacturing advantage.”
The move builds on Horizon’s space-readiness work, which subjected representative metallised polymer demonstrators to established LEO tests including outgassing, temperature shock, radiation, mechanical shock, material fatigue and atomic-oxygen exposure.
For high-volume satellite architectures such as phased-array payloads, components may be used hundreds of times per spacecraft and across hundreds of satellites, turning component-level mass and cost savings into significant programme-level gains.
IP-MASS also provides scope to cooperate on applications with anticipated demand of 100 units per year or more. Partners do not need a fully developed component: early-stage concepts are welcome while design-for-manufacturability decisions can still be made.
“We do not want to assume that we already know every application where this technology can create value,” Frölich says. “The organisations designing next-generation spacecraft know where their product and manufacturing constraints are. We want them to bring those challenges to us so we can explore whether the technology is relevant and, where it is, potentially shape the manufacturing route together.”
Horizon is moving beyond validation towards an industrial manufacturing platform for next-generation satellite hardware, while inviting the space community to help identify which applications it should industrialise next.
Horizon is a member of the Green Space Center, an initiative supported by the State of Baden-Württemberg and based at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Reutlingen (IHK Reutlingen) that promotes innovation in water management, New Space, and intelligent systems.
“We help SMEs in Baden-Württemberg internationalize space-related business models and products and support their entry into international markets,” said Marcin Bielecki, Head of Technology at the Green Space Center.
The initiative aims to position Baden-Württemberg as a sustainability-driven hub for space technology by fostering cross-sector collaboration and applying space technologies to create ecological impact.
Baden-Württemberg hosts a dynamic and rapidly growing New Space ecosystem, including leading European companies such as ATMOS Space Cargo, HyImpulse, ConstellR and CELERES while supporting emerging innovators such as InSpacePropulsion Technologies (ISPTech) and Yugen Space.
