ICARUS – Inflatable Heatshield

Inflatable Concept Aeroshell for the Recovery of a re-Usable launcher Stage

Based on the studies EFESTO-1 and EFESTO-2 funded by the EU programme Horizon 2020, ICARUS aims at the development and flight testing of an inflatable heat shield (also known as inflatable atmospheric decelerator) to recover rocket stages from space and prepare for Mars mission. The European ICARUS consortium is funded with €10 million by the European Commission under the Horizon Europe programme (grant nr. 101134997).

The test flight of the inflatable heat shield demonstrator planned in 2027 will be the key element of the project to further develop Europe’s capabilities to recover rocket stages from space. If successful, the system could also protect precious cargo during re-entry and descent to Earth and could eventually be used for Mars missions. DLR MORABA is responsible for the planning and conduction of the flight experiment, as well as the integration of the ICARUS payload. The Supersonic and Hypersonic Technologies Department of the Institute of Aerodynamics and Flow Technology will perform in-flight measurements and is responsible for the health monitoring system.

ICARUS consists of three phases. During the first phase, the consortium will complete the mission and system design along with on-the-ground maturation of key technologies. During the second phase, it will carry out a flight test on board of a Red Kite / Red Kite two-stage sounding rocket with a meaningful-scale demonstrator of an inflatable heat shield in hypersonic conditions. Integrated in the payload, the demonstrator will have an approximate diameter of 50cm and when inflated the shield will measure about 3m diameter. Depending on the application, a commercial full-scale version could have a diameter of 10m diameter when inflated. The third phase consists of post-flight analysis of data and information collected during the mission: this will allow engineers to understand the behavior of the spacecraft, to evaluate the performance of the technologies on board of it, and to verify the capabilities of the simulation models to predict both.  

The consortium consists of the following partners:

• Deimos, responsible for programmatic management and systems engineering and integration
• German Aerospace Centre (DLR-MORABA and DLR AS-HYP), responsible for flight test, launch campaign execution, and the vehicle’s health monitoring system
• Italian Aerospace Research Centre (CIRA), responsible for the vehicle’s thermal protection system
• French Aerospace Research Centre (ONERA), responsible the vehicle’s aeroshape definition and pre- and post-flight characterisation
• Pangaia Grado Zero (Italy), contributing to the development of innovative health monitoring sensors
• Politecnico di Torino (Italy), responsible for dissemination and communication
• Atmos Space Cargo (Germany), responsible for the inflatable structure
• HDES Service & Engineering (The Netherlands), responsible for the inflation system
• Demcon Advanced Mechatronics (The Netherlands), contributing to the development of innovative health monitoring sensors