French startup Gama raises €15M Seed for deployable solar arrays for satellites
Satellites need more power each, and Gama plans to build its Wing arrays from terrestrial silicon cells. The first demonstration unit is due in summer 2027.
Gama, a French company developing ultra-light deployable solar arrays for satellites, announced €15 million in Seed funding, Tech.eu reports. The investors are Transition, Planet A, Draper Associates and Manta Ray. tech.eu
Tech.eutech.euOpen source ↗ The company will use part of the money to bring forward investment in its first Wing production line in Ivry-sur-Seine.
According to Gama, power is becoming the bottleneck in orbit. Direct-to-device networks, broadband constellations and orbital data centres need far more electrical power per satellite than earlier generations. Every watt comes from solar array area, and all of that area has to fold into a rocket fairing.
Wing array and silicon cells
Wing is a deployable array that packs a very large surface into a small stowed volume. Gama describes it as a complete power system in one unit: solar generation, sun-tracking rotation of the array, power management and optional energy storage. The company says Wing is designed for scale production and aims at an industry-leading cost per watt.
Gama also supplies control algorithms that keep a satellite stable with a large array attached. They run on the customer's flight computer. tech.eu
Tech.eutech.euOpen source ↗
According to the company, most satellite makers still use specialised III-V solar cells, made in small volumes by a handful of suppliers, with lead times of a year or more. Gama instead takes high-volume terrestrial silicon cells, of the kind made for rooftops, and prepares them for space. Once the production line is running, the company targets six-month lead times for Wing.
Partnership, plans and team
In September 2026 Gama and Eclipse Space, a provider of customer-owned satellite constellations founded by former SpaceX Starlink engineers, announced a partnership. Gama will supply deployable solar arrays as the power layer for Eclipse's satellite platforms. The first demonstration unit is to be delivered in summer 2027.
Besides the production line, the funding will go to expanding in-house development and functional and environmental testing. Gama also plans to recruit around 60 engineers in mechanical engineering, power electronics, software, production and test. tech.eu
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The engineering team is led by CTO Daniel Chapman and VP of Engineering Duncan Adams, who both built Starlink hardware and production lines at SpaceX. "Building one great piece of hardware is not the hard part. Building thousands is," Chapman said. CEO Andrew Nutter said that demand from constellation builders is arriving faster than the company planned.
