Progress Summary of H2020-project FALCon

Kurzfassung

The innovative approach “in-air-capturing” for the efficient return of reusable space transportation vehicles has been refined in the EC-funded H2020-project FALCon. Following the basic idea, winged stages are to be caught in the air and towed by subsonic airplanes back to their launch site without any necessity of an own propulsion system. The project FALCon (Formation flight for in-Air Launcher 1st stage Capturing demonstration) funded by EC in Horizon 2020 and running from 2019 until 2022 has achieved significant progress. The project finished after 45 months in November 2022. The paper provides a retrospective progress summary. The successful establishment of significantly refined simulation models and the definition of the development roadmap for the next steps in technology maturation are presented. Further, lessons learned from the complex authorization process of the UAVs to be used in the lab-scale flight demonstrations are discussed. Finally, an outlook on the intended follow-up activities is given, including an estimate of the relatively modest investments required.