In-Air-Capturing Development Roadmap (Update)

Abstract

According to the FALCon GA the WP 2.2 is about the “Definition of Technology Development Roadmap”. In the first step the state of the art and initial proposals for technology developments have been proposed in Deliverable D2.2. This document has been made available to the European stakeholders e.g. ESA, CNES, ONERA, DLR-agency and industrial primes. After an on-line workshop held in February 2021 dedicated splinter meetings were organized and recommendations of the various experts were collected. The second and final Technology Development Roadmap workshop in FALCon has been organized April, 28th 2022, one day after the VKI-Lecture on “In-Air-Capturing” and together with a dedicated session at the 9th EUCASS-conference in Lille on June, 30th, 2022 allowed for an inperson critical assessment and coordination of the technology development needs. This second issue of Deliverable D2.4 concludes the development roadmap definition in FALCon. An overview of these meetings and comments from the review of D2.2 had been included in the first issue of the update of the Technology Development Roadmap. Review remarks and latest updates from the second dedicated workshop as well as final demonstration status of FALCon are included. Based on the intended achievements in FALCon the necessary next demonstration steps for in-flight verification are defined. Suitable test ranges accessible to Europe are identified and evaluated. Synergies to RLV-demonstrator flight tests of complementary programs are critically assessed. A rough cost assessment of development effort is provided. This deliverable serves as a document to be made publicly available to the European space transportation community. The special purpose of this Issue 2 is to provide guidance tor future technology maturation activities in the field of reusable space transportation.