The Astronaute Club Européen or ACE, is a French association created on December 3, 2005 (decree of the ''
Journal Officiel
A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to:
*Bullet journal, a method of personal organization
*Diary, a record of what happened over the course of a day or other period
*Daybook, also known as a general journal, a ...
'' n°20050049), by
Jean-Pierre Haigneré
Jean-Pierre Haigneré (born 19 May 1948) is a French Air Force officer and a former CNES spationaut.
Jean-Pierre Haigneré was born in Paris, France, and joined the French Air Force, where he trained as a test pilot.
He flew on two missions ...
(cosmonaut),
Laurent Gathier (director of space activities of
Dassault Aviation and space pioneer) and Alain Dupas (Physicist, head of mission at
CNES
The (CNES; French: ''Centre national d'études spatiales'') is the French government space agency (administratively, a "public administration with industrial and commercial purpose"). Its headquarters are located in central Paris and it is und ...
); and whose headquarters are located in the rooms of the Aéroclub de France in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
.
Presentation
Its role is to promote space tourism and
sub-orbital spaceflight
A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the atmosphere or surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched, so that it will not complete one orbital re ...
in Europe and to pilot the development of private parabolic and suborbital flights, and to make them available to the general public. With this purpose, the association is promoting the design and development of the suborbital crewed spacecraft (VEHRA-SH).
Since it has been created, the ACE has participated in :
* the publication of space books;
* the organisation of conferences;
* many events (conferences, congresses, etc.);
* the proposal of study topics to European universities.
The VSH project
The VSH project is part of the Aerospace Student Challenge, which allows teams of European students, through collaborative work, to participate in the development of the project by addressing various aspects of the VSH system: propulsion, avionics, flight simulation but also maintenance, management, legal aspects, etc. while complying to the overall technical framework of the VSH. The name stands for ''VEHRA (Véhicule Hypersonique Réutilisable Aéroporté) Suborbital Habité'', or Suborbital Manned ARHV (Airborne Reusable Hypersonic Vehicle), and the vehicle will be launched from a commercial aircraft, which will reach Mach 3.5 and an altitude of 100 km, the limits of space.
This VSH will be developed in close association with aeronautical and space companies:
*
Dassault Aviation;
*
SAFRAN;
*
THALES
Thales of Miletus ( ; grc-gre, Θαλῆς; ) was a Greek mathematician, astronomer, statesman, and pre-Socratic philosopher from Miletus in Ionia, Asia Minor. He was one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Many, most notably Aristotle, regarded ...
.
External links
*
The web site of the aerospace student challenge*
Biography of Jean-Pierre Haigneré on the CNES web site*
Presentation of the VEHRA-VSH project (Acrobat Reader format)*
Video of an initial design of VEHRA by Dassault*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Astronaute Club Europeen
Private spaceflight companies
Commercial spaceflight
Space tourism