Tucked next to a forest just north of Amsterdam lies an unassuming, white shipping crate. The only thing differentiating it from an empty container is the large navy ESA logo emblazoned on the side and the fact it’s located on a Netherlands Aerospace Centre (NLR) site – so you’d be forgiven for thinking it was used as storage and not knowing that inside is ESA’s brand new Chemical Propulsion Laboratory (CPL).
What you see here is the first commissioning test of that lab. Before they can declare the lab operational, the team are testing a ‘battleship’ design thruster (meaning it is built for testing only, not for flight) to calibrate and test the equipment.
The thruster uses hydrogen peroxide (98% concentration) as its propellant, which is reacting with a catalyst located in the pipe you can see above, called a combustion chamber. At the beginning of the footage, you can see small wisps of smoke, as the team fire ten short pulses of propellant through the combustion chamber to heat up the catalyst ready for the main firing. If the catalyst is heated, the reaction works better.
“Once the catalyst is heated, a few seconds later we push the propellant through continuously to get a few seconds of static firing. This continuous operation was the goal that we wanted to achieve,” explains Sebastian Klein, one of the ESA engineers in charge of the CPL. “Of course, the whole test is not primarily on the thruster but to verify and ensure safe operation of the test bench itself.”
The lab will offer ESA, small companies and academia a chance to safely test their small propulsion technologies with ESA expertise and training to hand.
It’s a necessary boost for European space industry since existing propulsion test centres are often heavily booked, with waiting times stretching to years – time SME’s and academics on tight deadlines often don’t have. This lab provides a safe, regulated environment with trained support, which is crucial when working with propellants and combustion systems and quick turnaround testing and critical for startups that need to iterate rapidly to survive and grow.
The CPL’s symbolic opening event was held on 3 July 2026, it is designed to complement ESA’s existing Propulsion Laboratory and will be operated under an ESA–NLR partnership.