Nearly 15 years after the last commercial supersonic flight, the quick evolution of technology combined with the emergence of ambitious industrial projects indicate that a second era for environmentally friendly supersonic commercial flights is about to happen. One of the main obstacles remaining on the path to sustainable supersonic commercial flight is the issue of noise, specifically the loud and sudden sonic boom felt by the populations overflown during the entire cruise. The high level of sonic boom produced by supersonic aircraft at the time led to a complete ban of civilian supersonic flights over land in the United States and several other countries. Since then “low boom” technologies have emerged, opening the door to regulatory evolutions. RUMBLE is dedicated to the production of the scientific evidence requested by national, European and international regulation authorities to determine the acceptable level of overland sonic booms and the appropriate ways to comply with it. RUMBLE will not aim at producing a low boom aircraft design but rather the quantified evidence needed to support new regulations. To this end, RUMBLE will associate the leading organizations in supersonic aviation in Europe and Russia, combining scientific excellence, world-class research infrastructures and industrial leadership bearing the heritage from Concorde and Tu-144, with strong involvement in the regulatory bodies. RUMBLE will develop and assess sonic boom prediction tools, study the human response to sonic boom and validate its findings using wind-tunnel experiments and actual flight tests. Extensive dissemination and regulatory activities will ensure that the European considerations are taken into account in the evolution of the international regulation affecting civilian supersonic flights. RUMBLE will also pave the way for a future low boom flying demonstrator.

Independent access to space is a key component of the European Space Policy. The competition is increasing in this area both for the full launching systems and the key subsystems. Cost-effectiveness becomes the main driving factor. HYPROGEO ambition is to study a propulsion module based on Hybrid chemical propulsion. Hybrid propulsion is not a new technology but its application to a transfer module or to a re-ignitable upper stage is very innovative. It is an interesting alternative for the GEO transfer, between the chemical propulsion (bi-liquid) and the new trend of Electrical Propulsion (EP). There are very good synergies and complementarities with the other propulsion activities. The proof of concept (specific impulse, thrust) has been demonstrated. The main technical challenge is the long duration firings. The future development of an operational system, already identified in the current roadmaps, requires advanced R&D work on 4 critical technologies: - Combustion chamber. - High endurance nozzle. - Catalytic injector. - Production, storage and use of high concentration hydrogen peroxide. These R&D activities structure 4 main work packages. A system study ensures the global vision in coherence with an economic analysis, the identification of technical challenges and the consolidation of scientific results. A last work package performs the dissemination of results. An innovative aspect is the fact that the R&D activities are directly driven by the ecvolution of market needs and system requirements. Main expected benefits are: - Green and simpler design (compared to bi-liquid). - Shorter transfer time and reduced cost of operations (compared to EP) A TRL 3-4 level is expected at the end of the project. The impact of the project is secured by the composition of the consortium led by Astrium with the main European actors of the hybrid: it contributes to the consolidation of the European industrial supply chain for Hybrid propulsion. Project duration is 36 months.

This project develops a new method to manage the decommissioning of satellites through the use of on-board heat generation systems based on non-explosive thermite charges, called thermite-for-demise (T4D). Thermites are mixtures of metal and metal oxide which can undergo spontaneous exothermic reactions even in vacuum, according to composition and production. Pioneering projects have demonstrated that T4D may be used to damage space components and support their demise during atmospheric reentry. However, its real world application needs the filling of knowledge gaps and practical problems: (A) the powdered form is not the best way to obtain localized reliable heat release; (B) the expected life cycle in a space mission has never been considered; (C) a strategy for T4D use is not available. The project targets the maturation of T4D technology in three major steps. (1) New thermite-based composite materials granting thermite a structural consistency will be developed and their behavior characterized. Environmental stress tests will secure their use across satellite lifecycle. (2) With these building blocks, heat-generating shapes and devices will be developed, supported by the experience of a large spacecraft integrator. The heat transfer behavior of thermite-based objects will be modeled and validated under representative reentry conditions, in hypersonic wind tunnel. Results will support the update of system-level reentry simulation tools and the definition of application strategy, further validated on demise test in wind tunnel with hardware of representative or simplified geometry from the selected use-cases, supplied by a space company. (3) All previous outcomes will support a cost-benefit analysis for T4D industrial implementation and its long term evolution. The results of the project will demonstrate with new experiments and modeling approaches that T4D has the potential to become an engineering standard for the space community.