Our team
The HADES Team is composed of 4 Mechanical Engineering students from HEPIA in Geneva and 4 Electronics Students from HEIA-FR in Fribourg.
We also have the support from our Professors and several institutes and competency centres (HEIA’s PCB manufacturing laboratory, HEPIA’s Large Wind Tunnel, …).
Moreover we have several educational, federal and commercial partners, such as the Swiss Space Center and ThalesAlenia Space.
Our experiment
Our experiment aims at studying the dynamic stability of an atmospheric re-entry capsule.
In the vicinity of transonic and subsonic flight phases, some spacecrafts are known to show a rather unstable behaviour. If this instability is not constrained, it can lead to high amplitude oscillations which can even result in the loss of the spacecraft.
The HADES experiment aims to demonstrate that an active stabilisation system is a viable solution to damp any oscillation that might occur during re-entry. Real flight profile will be compared with predictions, both accounting and not accounting for the active mass control.
The REXUS/BEXUS Programme
For the past decade, the German (DLR) and Swedish (SNSA) space agencies have given the opportunity to university students to carry out scientific experiments on sounding rockets and balloons, the REXUS/BEXUS programme. This bilateral agreement has been made available to students from other European countries through a collaboration between the Swedish Space Agency and the European Space Agency (ESA).
Our 500 kg rocket, RX27, will launch from the Esrange Space Centre in Kiruna, Northern Sweden in March 2020. The rocket will accelerate to 20 G and reach a speed of 4300 km/h, before getting as far as 100 km high. The payload will then fall back to Earth with a parachute.
The REXUS / BEXUS Programme Organisers
Our Partners
