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22 September 2011

EC REA September 2011
The final contractual meeting with the European Commission was done in Bruxelles, September 22th 2011. All the technical documentation is accepted, confirmed by REA project officer. Therefore, AEROFAST is technically finished

15 July 2011

M4 Meeting Les Mureaux 2011
The final M4 Meeting took place from 7th to 8th July 2011 in Les Mureaux.

IPPW7 Barcelone 2010
There was published also a poster on the IPPW websites. Poster for download.

9 February 2011

IPPW7 Barcelone 2010
H. Requiston-Costantini, F. Bonnefond, J-M. Bouilly et al. (AST) presented AEROFAST Project in session 6b. PDF for download.

9 February 2011

IPPW7 Barcelone 2010
Tom van Eekelen (Samtech) & G. Pinaud (AST-AQ) presented AEROFAST Project: Thermal/ Ablation Analysis of the Front Heat Shield for a Martian Aerocapture Mission - poster 392 presented in session P2. PDF for download.

9 February 2011

IPPW7 Barcelone 2010
Philippe Vernis (AST-MU) presented AEROFAST Project: Aerocapture Guidance, Navigation and Control Design. Poster presented in session P2. PDF for download.

27 - 28 January 2011

AEROFAST TRR meeting in Lisbon.
Hosted by: DEIMOS Space S.L.U. and Amorim Cork Composites Lisbon, Portugal

17 December 2010

"New project manager"
Since 1st November 2010 was nominated as a new Project Officer Mrs Petri Backman. Jean Muylaert as a reviewer remains.

17 November 2009

"Letīs embrace space"
video on space exploration: link

23 October 2009

1st EU-ESA International Conference on Human Space Exploration - Prague.
Francine Bonnefond presented AEROFAST project at press conference. PDF for download.

9 - 10 July 2009

AEROFAST meeting in Warsaw.
Hosted by: Space Research Center and Institute of Aviation Warsaw, Poland

10 March 2009

New project manager.
Rene Steiner was nominated as new AEROFAST project manager in European Commision.

15 - 16 January 2009

Kick of Meeting in Aquitaine in France.
Next kick of meeting will be in June 2009 in Warsaw in Poland.

1 January 2009

Project start.
According to GA contract AEROFAST project officially started on 1st January, 2009. Project duration is 30 months (i.e. by 30th June, 2011).


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AEROcapture for Future spAce tranSporTation, call reference N: FP7-SPACE-2007-1

Proposal Reference N 218797

The main goals of the AEROFAST project are, to design an AEROCAPTURE vehicle and to improve the AEROCAPTURE technology. An important step, to allow for human exploration of the solar system, is to develop advanced transportation systems to move humans and cargo between GEO and LEO, or to return them from the Moon of from Mars. Typically such a vehicle must rely on AEROCAPTURE to be mass efficient: using atmospheric drag to slow space vehicles is regarded as one of the largest contributors to making both lunar and Martian missions affordable. In the coming decades, AEROCAPTURE will become one of the core capabilities for efficient planetary transportation. This technology allows for a large amount of mass saving (up to 30%) at launch, and it is well adapted for large weight missions (Sample return missions and manned missions). For an insertion into a low Mars orbit with propulsion, 41% of the initial mass is put on final orbit whereas with an aerocapture manoeuvre 82% of the initial mass is put into final orbit. Today the technology readiness level, in Europe, of such an aerocapture mission is roughly 2 to 3. AEROFAST's goal is to prepare for a flight demonstration on a planet with an atmosphere (earth or even more attractively Mars) and to reach TRL 3 to 4 in the frame of this FP7 first call.
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