Research

The structure of the programme is arranged around the 3 main research areas of launch vehicle design: sustainable and reusable main stages, advanced upper stages and reliable re-entry. Underpinning for all is a drastically enhanced sustainability in the form of environment-friendly propellants, increased space situational awareness and safer disposal of space objects.

These areas are organized into a set of technical WPs and complemented by an intensive programme of training courses and network wide training events. Each Early Stage Researcher (ESR) will work within a high-level Individual Research Project (IRP) with strong interactions to other ESRs, reinforced by secondments to universities, companies, and (inter-)governmental space authorities. Moreover, thanks to its structure and the presence of both academic and industrial institutions, the consortium is able to cover the whole spectrum of space access, providing a supportive environment for the ESRs that will be able to perfect the research skills acquired in training courses, daily research and secondments by putting them into practice.

The research will be performed with a multi-disciplinal and multi-sectoral approach, representing the environment of the space domain.

• Multi-disciplinal: we believe that all the disciplines are interconnected, like their respective subsystems assemble a complete launch vehicle. Exchanges and links between the Early Stage Researchers and the partners are therefore the core of the project, that will not only cover one single aspect of research. All the aspects of vehicle design will be covered: propulsion physics, material engineering, flow mechanics, thermodynamics, GNC, sensor technology, computer science, system design.
• Multi-sectoral: ASCenSIon consortium includes 15 academic and 10 industrial partners with companies ranging from SMEs to major global players. Within the consortium are therefore covered fundamental research, applied research, industrial developments and commercial applications.