AVS (Added Value Solutions)
"Limitless deep tech"
Basque deep-tech SME (est. 2006) that built the end effector of ESA's Mars Sample Return Sample Transfer Arm and designs in-orbit capture bays.
AVS (Added Value Solutions) is a Spanish engineering and manufacturing SME headquartered in Elgoibar in the Basque Country. It works in four main areas: particle accelerators, fusion energy, space and scientific electronics. According to its website, the company was founded in 2006, has delivered more than 1,300 projects, and runs about 8,000 m2 of facilities in the USA, the UK and Europe, including 1,000 m2 of cleanrooms for assembly, integration and testing. Spain's CDTI industrial catalogue lists 160 employees and €25 million in turnover in 2023, ISO 9001 and EN 9100 certification, and in-house design, manufacturing, assembly, testing and delivery. Besides Elgoibar, AVS has Spanish sites in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Zamudio, Tres Cantos (Madrid), Mairena del Aljarafe (Seville) and La Laguna (Tenerife). Abroad it has offices in Lansing, New York; at Westcott Venture Park in Buckinghamshire, UK; and in Annecy, France. The company won the PYME 2023 award for technological innovation from Ifema Madrid and the newspaper Expansion.
In space, AVS works on astrophysics, Moon and Mars exploration, Earth observation, in-orbit servicing (IOS), in-situ resource utilisation and telecommunications. Its stated capabilities include space robotics, mechanisms, optomechanics, docking and refuelling systems, landing and sampling systems, planetary and lunar mobility, and rendezvous and proximity operations.
AVS's best-known robotics work is the end effector of the Sample Transfer Arm, the 2.5 m robot ESA designed for the joint NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return campaign. The arm was meant to retrieve Perseverance's sealed sample tubes and load them into the return lander. The CDTI catalogue records AVS's work on the Sample Transfer Arm end effector for ESA and NASA JPL through Leonardo in 2021. ESA images from 2024 show pickup tests of the prototype gripper at AVS facilities in Gipuzkoa. A May 2025 ESA image shows AVS engineers assembling an engineering model of the tool-change mechanism, which lets the arm switch between gripping fingers for the tubes and a plunger that pushes them into the return container. ESA notes that the technology could also suit lunar and low Earth orbit missions.
In in-orbit servicing, AVS designed a capture bay and carried out end-to-end verification for ESA's CAT/S2P activity in 2022. It also developed the LUR platform, its own modular small-satellite family. The first unit, the 57 kg LUR-1 microsatellite, launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 with multiband antennas, a seven-band multispectral camera and a quantum key distribution experiment. LUR-1 also carries the MICE device, which prepares satellites for future capture and deorbiting under ESA's Zero Debris 2030 approach, and CDTI notes that LUR-1 may later serve as a target for ESA's CAT in-orbit demonstration. For NASA's Mars 2020 mission, AVS built the structure and mechanisms of the Wind Sensor 2 for the MEDA weather station, working for INTA/CAB. Other AVS space initiatives include URA water-based thrusters and Meteomars, a concept for a network of Mars orbiters and surface penetrators to monitor Martian weather.
For the RobotToday directory, AVS is relevant as a European supplier of space-grade robotic end effectors, capture mechanisms and sampling hardware for agency exploration and servicing programmes.
Primary type & automation activities this supplier delivers:
Mars Sample Return Sample Transfer Arm End Effector
Two-finger gripper and tool-change mechanism (gripper/plunger) for ESA's 2.5 m Sample Transfer Arm; engineering model assembled by AVS (ESA, 2025).
ESA CAT/S2P capture bay
Capture bay design with end-to-end verification by AVS for ESA's CAT/S2P in-orbit servicing activity (2022).
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Contact AVS (Added Value Solutions)
WEBSITE
https://www.a-v-s.esPHONE
+34 943 821 841HEADQUARTERS
Spain
Company Facts
Founded
2006
Primary Role
Manufacturer
Company Size
-
Primary Region
Europe
Annual Sales
-
Funding Stage
-
Funding Total
-
Certifications & Memberships
Keywords
- AVS (Added Value Solutions)
- Mars Sample Return
- Sample Transfer Arm end effector
- capture bay
- in-orbit servicing
- LUR-1 microsatellite
- space mechanisms
- MEDA wind sensor
- planetary sampling
- Manufacturer
- Component Supplier
- End-effector & Grasping
- Motion & Actuation
- Aerospace & Space
- Education & Research
- Space Explore
- On Orbit Servicing
