NEWS

Successful first flight of Bundeswehr spaceplane demonstrator

On November 8th POLARIS successfully conducted the first flight of the spaceplane demonstrator ATHENA from the airport of Peenemünde. ATHENA was built under a contract awarded by the Bundeswehr in March 2022. ...   read more

POLARIS tests spaceplane demonstrators at Peenemünde Airport

From Friday 28th to Monday 31st of October, POLARIS conducted a 4-day flight campaign at the Airport of Peenemünde on the Baltic Sea. While previous demonstrator flight test campaigns took place at the local airport of Rotenburg/Wümme close to Bremen, ...   read more

Flight campaign with three demonstrators

On 6th and 7th of October POLARIS conducted a successful 2-day flight testing campaign at Rotenburg Airport (EDXQ). For the first time, POLARIS had 3 vehicles at the airport within one campaign. Two vehicles were in the air, while the third one conducted...   read more

Operation license for Bundeswehr demonstrator obtained
Under a contract awarded in March of this year, POLARIS is manufacturing a scaled demonstrator of its Aurora spaceplane for the German Bundeswehr. POLARIS has now received the operation license for the demonstrator “ATHENA”. The licensing process...   read more

POLARIS moves to new company site
By end of June, POLARIS finalized its move to a new company site within Bremen. The new facilities are much larger than the previous facilities, and offer approximately 400 square meters office space, plus 550 square meters workshop space. This is already the second move of the company within less than 12 months.

POLARIS joins NATO Hypersonics Working Group
POLARIS is joining the hypersonics working group at NATO’s Science and Technology Organization (NATO STO). The working group covers various defense and offense related hypersonics topics. POLARIS will lead the group activities on the newly created topic “hypersonic aircraft”.

Pre-Series-A invest secured 
POLARIS Raumflugzeuge has secured a significant Pre-Series-A investment from the newly created investment company “Polaris Space Ventures” (PSV). This important investment enables us to enlarge our personnel staff, as well as company facilities, and to prepare the company for rapid upscaling. PSV was founded in late 2021 under the leadership of New Space Entrepreneur Matthias Spott, together with his business partners Steffen Herfurth and Diederik Kelder.

Bundeswehr contract for spaceplane demonstrator
The German Bundeswehr has awarded POLARIS a contract to build and flight-test a scaled demonstrator of its Aurora space launch and hypersonic system. The contract is based on the preparatory project RDRS, successfully executed in 2021. ...   read more

ALEDA rollout
Last Thursday, the spaceplane subscale validation platform ALEDA performed its rollout and first taxiing tests. The first flights will be executed in the coming weeks. ALEDA is a subscale version of the Aurora spaceplane currently in development at POLARIS, and has a length of 3.5 m. In order to maximize performance, the Aurora spaceplane is designed to operate in a relaxed/negative stability mode, supported by modern flight control systems. The subscale platform ALEDA was built to validate the flight characteristics for the spaceplane configuration during take-off, landing and cruise-flight.

ESA-funded project consortium investigates reusable upper-stages
The ESA-funded project “Rocket Handbrake” was launched on 1st of October with the objective to investigate and design reusable upper-stage options for future European launchers. Reusable upper-stages are a key technology to enable 100% reusability of launch vehicles. The project is led by DLR Institute of Aerodynamics and Flow Technology (Cologne), with Elecnor DEIMOS (Spain) and POLARIS as project partners.
POLARIS is responsible for the design of the vehicle structures including wings and aerodynamic-surfaces, as well as for the design of the reentry thermal protection system. Furthermore, POLARIS will support the vehicle configuration definition process.

POLARIS receives first Bundeswehr contract

This week, POLARIS was awarded a contract by the Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces) to investigate the application of the Aurora spaceplane for reconnaissance missions. The project RDRS (Rapid Deployable Reconnaissance System) is scheduled for a duration of 4 months and funded with approximately 250 000 Euros.

Maiden flight of demonstrator and technology testbed STELLA

In early April, the 2.5 m long subscale configuration demonstrator and technology testbed STELLA performed its first flight. STELLA reproduces the shape of the later Aurora launch vehicle and is propelled by kerosene-fed turbojet engines. Main purpose is the evaluation of the take-off and landing as well as subsonic flight characteristics of the Aurora configuration. STELLA is the result of a cooperation between POLARIS and the City University of Applied Sciences Bremen (HSB).