"The project started with a preliminary work for the definition of high level requirements for the ALTAIR launch system, as well a a first choice of the mission associated target cost, taking into account a market analysis which will be updated throughout the project.
After this preliminary work, concluded by a Requirement Review, the project entered the multidisciplinary system design work, organized in three successive design loops. The objective of the first loop, which lasted 6 month, and was named ""First conceptual design loop"", was to obtain a first feasible design for the carrier+launcher Altair system and to get a first experience of joint design work between the different work packages. The goal of the second loop, lasting 14 month and named ""Preliminary Design Step 1"", is to obtain a preliminary design based on a more integrated multidisciplinary design optimization approach and refined models. This design loop includes interactions with the mission definition, market analysis and business model tasks. It has led to improved design for the carrier and the launcher and a mass reduction of about 33 % compared to the first conceptual design.
Finally, a third loop called ""Preliminary Design Step 2"" was performed ending in November 2018 in order to consolidate the design and work further on the reduction of costs.
At the end of this 3-year phase of the project, a detailed definition of the whole ALTAIR system (carrier, launcher & ground segment) has been obtained, along with a credible business model and a development roadmap. The ALTAIR reference mission is set to the launch of a 150 kg payload to a 600 km-altitude Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO), with a yearly launch rate of 30. The development roadmap includes different scenarios according to the initial investment.
The flight experiment program with the EOLE small-scale demonstrator has culminated with a successful final flight at CSG including the demonstration of the most critical flight phase of the mission: the launcher release sequence, performed fully automatically. This final flight, which took place on September 7th, 2019 at CSG, has successfully demonstrated critical technologies for air-launch: the GNC (Guidance, Navigation & Control) laws for the release maneuver, the release/separation mechanism and the innovative launcher avionics (that was aboard the inert rocket mock-up).
Communication about the Altair project led to:
- 13 papers and presentation in european and international conferences (IAC, EUCASS, IAASS, 4S, ERTS, ...)
- participation to european professionial and academic events (Paris Air Show, Barcelona Techno Week, Summer School of the Community of Ariane Cities, ...).
- several appearances in mainstream and professional media (Air & Cosmos, L'Express, Les Echos, ...)
- communication materials: brochure, posters, stickers and mission patches, communication video."
