Student Aerospace Challenge – Closing of the 17th exercise

The traditional “Suborbital Day” of the Student Aerospace Challenge was held at the Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace on June 8, 2023. This closing event of the 17th year of the Challenge enabled the 13 teams who had submitted their final reports to present their projects relating to manned suborbital vehicles, in the presence of astronaut Jean-Pierre Haigneré. Following the presentations, partner companies awarded prizes to the teams who had submitted the best work.

This year, the Dassault Aviation prize was awarded by our Space Program Director and our School Relations Manager to the “SpaceTOurists” team from Politecnico di Torino (Turin, Italy). These students worked on improving the shape of a winged suborbital vehicle. This study was part of the “Aerodynamics and Flight Quality” work package, one of the 13 themes proposed for this exercise.

Created in 2006, the Student Aerospace Challenge is organized and supported by the European Space Agency (ESA), the European Astronaut Club (ACE), ArianeGroup, Dassault Aviation and the Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace (MAE). Since 2016, with reinforced support from ESA, this student competition has become more Europeanized. This year, students from Belgian, Bulgarian, French and Italian schools and universities took part in the Challenge in a context that has become very buoyant with the realization of the first commercial manned suborbital flights.

Congratulations again to the “SpaceTOurists” team from Politecnico di Torino, and a special mention to the 3 participating French teams “ENSMenergetics” and “ENSMAch3.5” from ISAE-ENSMA, and “Aurora” from ESME.

See you next October for the 18th edition!