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 personal secretive thoughts and as open book to personal therapy or used to feel connected to onesel ...

'' n°20050049), by Jean-Pierre Haigneré (cosmonaut), Laurent Gathier (director of space activities of

Dassault Aviation Dassault Aviation SA () is a French Aerospace manufacturer, manufacturer of military aircraft and business jets. It was founded in 1929 by Marcel Dassault, Marcel Bloch as Société des Avions Marcel Bloch (Marcel Bloch Aircraft Company). After ...

and space pioneer) and Alain Dupas (Physicist, head of mission at

CNES CNES () is the French national space agency. Headquartered in central Paris, the agency is overseen by the ministries of the Armed Forces, Economy and Finance and Higher Education, Research and Innovation. It operates from the Toulouse Spac ...

); 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, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

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 surface of the primary (astronomy), gravitating body from which it was launched. Hence, it will not complete one orbital ...

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: *

; *

SAFRAN Safran S.A. () is a French Multinational corporation, multinational aerospace, defence industry, defence and computer security, security corporation headquartered in Paris. It designs, develops and manufactures both commercial and military airc ...

; *

THALES Thales of Miletus ( ; ; ) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek Pre-Socratic philosophy, pre-Socratic Philosophy, philosopher from Miletus in Ionia, Asia Minor. Thales was one of the Seven Sages of Greece, Seven Sages, founding figure ...

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