Gabriele De Zaiacomo, Irene Pontijas Fuentes, Federico Trovarelli, Giovanni Medici, Cristina Recupero
DOI Number XXX-YYY-ZZZ
Conference Number HiSST-2022-188
The ESA Space Rider program aims at providing Europe with an affordable, independent, reusable endto-end integrated space transportation system, for routine access and return from low orbit. It will be
used to transport payloads for an array of applications, orbit altitudes and inclinations. The Space Rider
is composed of an expendable AVUM Orbital Module (AOM) and of a reusable Reentry Module (RM),
which is designed to be flown multiple times. For the RM this translates into the need for a flexible and
robust system, able to cope with a wide range of flight conditions, in compliance to stringent safety
constraints in case of failure. This is a critical additional challenge for Europe, beyond the current state
of the art in re-entry technology represented by the successful flight of the ESA IXV (Intermediate
eXperimental Vehicle) on February, 11th, 2015.
This paper presents the current status of the Space Rider Mission and the Mission Engineering results
achieved by DEIMOS Space at the Critical Design Review (CDR). The Mission Engineering is a design
process that includes multiple activities in support to the mission and system design: from aerodynamics
and flying qualities aspects to End-to-End (de-orbiting to touchdown) reference trajectories
optimization, analysis of the vehicle flight capabilities during entry and under parafoil, assessment of
the mission performance through Monte Carlo simulation campaigns, and visibility and safety analyses
during all phases of the return mission.