Rocket Factory
Augsburg selects Kourou for launch site
implementation with CNES
Rocket Factory Augsburg AG
(RFA), a Germany-based
launch service provider, concludes the major
part of phase 0/A project with CNES/CSG European
Spaceport towards implementing a launch site for
the RFA ONE launch system on the historic
Diamant
launch complex in Kourou, French Guiana.
“The agreement between our
companies not only expands RFA‘s launch service
portfolio to the
customer, being able to launch from European
territory to all inclinations offered by the
unique
French launch location, but also enforces a
unrivalled position in the New Space industry in
Europe
and beyond.” said Jörn Spurmann, Chief
Commercial Officer at RFA.
Dr Stefan Brieschenk, Chief
Operations Officer at RFA, added, “This marks
the beginning of a new era,
where a team of NewSpace veterans combines the
unmatched experience from launching all
European orbital vehicles since 1968 for a true
best-of-both-worlds setup.”
Rocket Factory, a start-up
backed by the German satellite manufacturer OHB
as a strategic investor
and Munich-based venture capital firm Apollo
Capital Partners, currently is developing a
launcher
system called RFA ONE for small satellites with
a payload performance of up to 1.500kg to low
earth
orbit (LEO). The first launch is scheduled for
2022. The company recently qualified the upper
stage
tank system during cryogenic tests and is
currently preparing hot-fire tests of the main
engine in
Esrange, Sweden.
Covering an area of 700
sq.km and with three operational launch
complexes, the Guiana Space Centre
(CSG) is the cradle of Europe’s launchers and,
since 2011, a base for the Russian Soyuz. CNES
is in the
process of building the ELA4 complex for Ariane
6 and investing to accommodate future launchers,
notably reusable ones and micro launchers. It is
also preparing the CSG New Generation programme
designed to modernize the launch base, topped by
a new Operations Centre where all the
information
required by its teams will converge. Assuring
independent access to space is a strategic,
political and
economic choice. Europe is preparing its future
launchers to keep pace in the fiercely
competitive
commercial space launch services market. The
excellence of the Guiana Space Centre, renowned
as
the most effective space launch base in the
world, are key assets in this respect.
RFA is at the forefront of
the global new-space launch vehicle development,
with its state-of-the-art
staged-combustion engine technology. This
high-performance engine design, coupled to
lowestpossible-cost production techniques, is
essentially new to Europe, and through the
support of OHB,
RFA has managed to acquire key technologies and
key talent that will propel the business case of
the
RFA One launch vehicle to dominate the market on
a global scale. Recent firing tests have
demonstrated that RFA is on a winning path to
establish Europe’s most efficient and most
powerful rocket engine technology. Recently, RFA
won the first round of the German micro-launcher
competition of the German Space Agency DLR,
which granted RFA with a letter of support to
receive
500.000 € of funding within ESA’s C-STS
programme. In the next round of the competition,
DLR and
ESA will award a launch contract worth
11.000.000 € for institutional payloads.