Creating an electrical project in weeks after transitioning to a single-source platform that improved collaboration

Developing where in-space propulsion meets green innovation

Founded in 2020 and based in Castellón, Spain, Arkadia Space (Arkadia) is leading the charge to replace toxic hydrazine-based thrusters with high-performance, hydrogen peroxide propulsion systems. The company operates Europe’s first privately owned orbital engine test center, which enables fast prototyping and in-house validation.

In 2025, Arkadia launched its DARK propulsion system aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-13 mission, marking the first time green propulsion technology developed in Europe was flight-tested in orbit. As the company continues to scale its in-space mobility offerings, efficient, collaborative engineering workflows are critical for supporting accelerated development timelines.

Leveraging a seamless ECAD environment

To tackle this challenge, Arkadia evaluated alternatives to its disjointed engineering computer-aided design (ECAD) environment through Siemens Channel Partner Prismacim. After multiple product sessions and extensive technical discussions, the company chose Siemens Digital Industries Software’s Capital™ X Panel Designer Advanced software, a cloud-native solution that can be used to unify schematic design across disciplines.

Using Capital X Panel Designer Advanced, Arkadia could leverage intuitive, rules-based tools for creating various schematics along with panel layout and wiring design capabilities, all in a single browser-based interface. This solution is full-featured and designed for electrical, fluid and panel design teams who need robust capabilities with deployment flexibility.

As a cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) product, Arkadia can use Capital X Panel Designer Advanced to support comprehensive design workflows, including electrical schematics, panel layouts, pneumatic and hydraulic diagrams and piping and instrumentation diagrams (P&IDs). With this solution, the company gained access to a rich component data portal and a solution that integrates 2D designs with the 3D mechanical computer-aided design (MCAD) tool, NX™ software, which extends the multidiscipline environment. Capital and NX are part of the Siemens Xcelerator business platform of software, hardware and services.

Prior to adopting Capital X Panel Designer Advanced, the team’s design workflow was hindered by overlapping edits from various engineers, which led to frequent conflicts and delays. Additionally, electrical system design times took on average 30 percent longer (about two to three months) due to lack of automation tools and limited collaboration functionalities.

“Sharing schematics or P&IDs was not straightforward, and we had to create and maintain our own version control system, which required onboarding and explaining every detail to each new team member,” says Adam Hagan, automation engineer at Arkadia. He also mentions that setting up the previous toolset was slow, and the outdated user interface (UI) made the learning curve unnecessarily steep. These issues became more evident as the team and projects grew in complexity, especially when working under tight development timelines.

Optimizing data sharing and workflows

Another key factor in Arkadia’s decision to implement Capital X Panel Designer Advanced is that it is not a standalone ECAD tool and integrates with NX. By integrating with the Siemens Xcelerator ecosystem, Arkadia gains access to a growing suite of capabilities.

“We knew that scaling up required rethinking our toolset,” says Hagan. “We were looking for a solution that could grow with us – one that was intuitive enough to allow new users to be productive quickly, powerful enough to handle advanced designs and flexible enough to allow integration. Using Capital X Panel Designer Advanced stood out by not only meeting our core criteria – modern UI, a rich component library and reasonable licensing – but also offering features we didn’t know we needed, like collaboration, robust version control and plugin support for automation.”

Achieving minimal ramp-up and maximum impact

Arkadia started using Capital X Panel Designer Advanced immediately upon implementation, without any software installation or extended training. Starting with a focused deployment and two engineers – one for electrical schematics and another for P&IDs – they quickly produced a full 50-page project with over 180 electrical cables, validating the platform’s performance and value from day one.

“Leveraging the Capital X Panel Designer Advanced interface is intuitive and its online documentation comprehensive, so many engineers could self-learn while working directly on the first quote,” says Hagan. “This fast onboarding drastically reduced time-to-productivity and kept our development timeline on track.

“One of the most pleasant surprises from integrating Capital X Panel Designer Advanced was the extensive built-in library of standardized industry components,” says Hagan. “This not only accelerated our early schematic drafts but also gave the team clear visual benchmarks for best practices. It helped us align our design approach and avoid redundant work, especially during early prototyping phases.”

Additionally, with Capital solutions, Arkadia was able to decrease design times for future similar systems thanks to the ease of duplicating large sections of wiring diagrams and components. Having a single-source platform for all test bench hardware also reduced development times, since the electrical and mechanical departments could ensure they had the most up-to-date designs. Previously, engineers and designers had to relay any modifications to sensor location or quantities orally, which was flawed. Proper integration between MCADs and ECADS removes most risk of unexpected design changes. Having the updated schematics on hand improved performance validation of the test bench, as engineers could easily spot configuration errors by following the clearly labelled signal and power traces.

Creating unified workflows for smarter, faster engineering

As Arkadia enters a new, accelerated growth phase, using Capital X Panel Designer Advanced will be a strategic enabler, positioning the team for longterm success by delivering faster design cycles, stronger collaboration and a foundation for traceable, high-quality documentation. Additionally, the success of Arkadia’s initial rollout has opened the door to broader use across the company’s engineering team, including a potential expansion into hydraulic design.

Arkadia’s investment in the advanced version of the platform reflects that strategic vision. Throughout the company’s expansion, the team can easily onboard additional engineers, extend into more disciplines and take full advantage of a digital thread that spans the entire design process, from schematic to 3D routing and lifecycle management.

“Before integrating Capital X Panel Designer Advanced, we often developed electrical and fluidic systems in silos, with alignment requiring constant manual checks,” says Hagan. “Leveraging Capital X Panel Designer Advanced and collaboration features allowed us to break down those walls, and for the first time, our teams could truly codesign within a shared digital environment. With a single source of truth for our schematics, we have consistency across systems and reduced integration errors in the design and build stages.”