CLUJ-NAPOCA, Romania, - AROBS Engineering, part of AROBS Group in Cluj-Napoca, Romania has been announced as the prime industrial partner and consortium leader for the technical specifications, architecture, code development, and testing systems validation for the Space Rider program. Space Rider aims to be Europe's first reusable space transportation system. Such activities will be carried out under the Space Rider Program funded by the European Space Agency (ESA).
Space Rider aims to provide an affordable, independent, reusable end-to-end integrated space transportation system for routine access and return from low orbit.
AROBS and its partners will conduct activities to help the Space Rider mission ensure the quality of the specification, design, coding, and testing of the Central Software modules for both the AVUM Orbital Module (AOM) and the Re-entry Module (RM).
After landing, Space Rider Reentry Module will be refurbished for reuse, as it is designed to make at least five re-flights each lasting about two months. Up to 600 kg of payload can fit inside the environmentally controlled cargo bay. The inaugural flight is expected to take place towards the end of 2024.
Space Rider will have the potential to allow free-flying applications such as experiments in microgravity for pharmaceuticals, biomedicine, biology, and phyiscial science. In addition, Space Rider may also allow for in-orbit technology demonstration and validation for applications for exploration, earth observation, and telecommunications, plus surveillance applications such as Earth disaster monitoring and satellite inspection.
AROBS Engineering also recently announced that it is one of the ClearSpace and the ES) industrial partners to deliver an embedded software solution for the ClearSpace-1 program. In 2020, ESA commissioned ClearSpace to build, launch, and fly a novel deorbit mission to rendezvous with and capture a large piece of debris in orbit, then safely pilot the object into Earth's atmosphere.
