Nano/microsatellites can make space industry more sustainable, environmental-friendly and efficient. However, development of these satellites evolves slowly, since scientific and technological research & test of the satellites and their separate components in relevant space environment is very limited and/or expensive. Microgravity is a perfect condition to test and qualify early technology readiness level (TRL5-6) technologies, turning into a business with great prospects. However, access to microgravity environment is not affordable for developers. Today, there are a very few solutions used to test and increase the level of technology maturity: research at the International Space Station (ISS) and on military missiles based sounding rockets. However, traveling to the ISS is something that only Space Agencies are allowed to do. On the other hand, heavy sounding rockets provides more opportunities, but bring several handicaps due to their military nature, such as high accelerations, high costs, lack of payload standardization as well as long integration processes. PLD Space proposes, ARION, a reusable sounding rocket for scientific and technological payloads suborbital launch, enabling the industry to get over the “technological death valley”. ARION uses kerosene and industrial liquid oxygen engine, which is safe to transport and launch. The rocket is cost-efficient, since it is assembled using commercial off-the shelf components and can be reused to up to 5 times. PLD is a pioneer of the space industry, who will facilitate research and scientific tests in microgravity in the safe, time & cost efficient way. The Phase 1 project will allow PLD Space to define a minimum viable product, plan a feasible ARION optimization and suborbital mission, elaborate the business scale up and size the reachable market. Within the overall project, PLD Space aims to reduce the rocket COGS, shorten a duration of payload integration and and qualify ARION in a suborbital mission.

Current launchers (ARIANE6 and VEGA C) will guarantee Europe’s independent access to space for the high-end satellite market. These launchers however are significantly less attractive for classes of smaller satellites. The SMILE initiative therefore addresses reliable, affordable, quick and frequent access to space for the emerging market of small satellites up to 50 kg, fulfilling the needs from the European space RTD community and commercial initiatives to put satellites into preferred orbits within a preferred time window. Herewith a market niche is addressed, which is projected to grow significantly in the coming decades and presently lacks availability of a European launcher. The project focuses on research and innovation to obtain European solutions enabling the development and realization of such a launcher system. Main objectives are to: • develop a concept for an innovative, cost-effective European launcher system for small satellites (target price below 50.000 Euro/kg) • design a Europe-based ground facility for these launcher systems • increase the Technology Readiness Level of several critical technologies required for such a launcher including the development and demonstration of component prototypes • create a roadmap defining the development plan for the launcher system from a technical operational and economical perspective These objectives are achieved through combined research into a novel and innovative launcher system following a multidisciplinary concurrent engineering design and optimization approach. The overall design and development process encompasses technology and process advances aiming at cost reduction, such as series production, re-usability, and the applicability of European industrial grade components. The consortium is composed of organizations in relevant fields from eight European countries, from well-established and experienced SMEs to young and innovative start-ups.

Approximately 600 satellites have been launched in the last 6 years with an average annual growth of 40%. The decline in launches has been seen since 2014. Over 100 small satellites were impacted by the 2016 delays, due to the fact that there are no rockets designed for small payloads and cubesats, and only 6 large launchers around the world accept small payloads. An alternative is the International Space Station (ISS), which requires special safety qualification for each payload and have limited flight opportunities. Therefore, concentration on relatively few launch vehicles increases uncertainty in the launch schedule for small satellite operators and limits near-term growth. The opportunity to test the technologies in suborbital space is significant for the developers of space, biomedical and pharmaceutical technologies, enabling them to advance the technology maturity or achieve space demonstration and qualification/certification, which otherwise will take more time or even will be impossible. PLD proposes revolutionary reusable rockets, to be used as micro-launchers and suborbital launch vehicles. The development of the micro-launcher foresees the demonstration of a smaller scale reusable rocket for commercial suborbital flights, ARION, whose design will be completed and then flight qualified within this Ph2 project. We will provide the first commercial micro-launcher service in Europe and second world-wide, exclusively designed for small payloads and fully managed by our team. For the first time ever, small payloads will fly to Space as primary payload and at an affordable price. The key objectives of this project are to finalise the design of ARION suborbital vehicle, to develop a launch infrastructure, and to qualify the reusable launch vehicle in space, leading to commercialisation of the first commercial sRLV in Europe and mirco-launcher.

Space activities have increased impressively in the last decades. New actors and concepts are raising new challenges to ensure the security, safety, sustainability and stability of space operations. Initiatives on national and international level aim to tackle this issue through promotion of prevention, understanding the situation, active collision avoidance operations as well as active debris removal. To ensure autonomy and leadership in the field whilst reducing the dependability on U.S. SSA data, the EU started to work on an independent SSA/SST capability. EUSTM is an end-to end activity towards the definition of a future STM capability: • Counting on the main experts in all applicable domains within the team • Consulting the main stakeholders worldwide in relevant domains • Defining the needs in terms of organisation and responsibilities, technology, policy, laws, guidelines, best practices and standards • Elaborating detailed specs, a preliminary design, a reference roadmap and a ROM cost analysis • Developing an innovative collaborative platform for exchange of information inside the team and with external stakeholders • Creating a community of interest on STM be active beyond the duration of the project • Organising workshops and a dedicated European STM Conference anchored to a space event EUSTM is coordinated by GMV, the main European industrial player in the SSA/SST domain supported by European … • industrial players and research institutes from all across Europe • experts in SSA/SST-related technologies • current and future (NewSpace) users (EUTELSAT and many others) • experts in the policy (ESPI), governance & security (SatCen) and legal domains (IDEST), professionals for impact assessment and cost benefit analysis (PwC) and key actors in the air traffic management domain (ENAIRE) EUSTM is supported by 20+ additional stakeholders including operators, industry, emerging NewSpace players and institutions, as well as the Secure World Foundation.