![\"Avio](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Avio-Wins-ESA-Contract-to-Develop-Reusable-Rocket-Upper-Stage.webp.webp\")
Credit: Avio \/ ESA<\/p>\n Credit: Avio \/ ESA<\/p>\n
The European Space Agency has awarded Italian rocket builder Avio a \u20ac40 million contract to design a reusable rocket stage demonstrator.<\/p>\n
ESA first published a call for the Phase 1 development<\/a> of a reusable rocket upper stage in March 2024. This initial phase focused on the \u201cidentification of the technology-maturation needs for the reusable upper stage demonstration.\u201d While the agency did not release any information about the companies involved in Phase 1, it appears that the phase lasted approximately 12 months, culminating in ESA\u2019s publication of the Phase 2 call in May 2025<\/a>. According to the call, this second phase would include activities \u201cup to a critical design milestone.\u201d<\/p>\n On 29 September, ESA announced that it had awarded a \u20ac40 million contract to Avio for Phase 2 of the project\u2019s development. Over the next 24 months, the Italian company will complete the demonstrator mission\u2019s \u201csystem requirements and technological solutions, ending with a preliminary design for both the flight and ground segments.\u201d This scope of work appears to fall short of reaching a critical design milestone, as outlined in the original call.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are capitalising on progress made in advanced liquid propulsion, reentry, recoverability , and reusability technologies, complementing ongoing efforts to de-risk demonstrations of reusable lower stages, supporting different possible scenarios, including evolutions of the Vega family of rockets , as well as other newly defined fully reusable launch systems in Europe,\u201d said ESA\u2019s Chief Technical Advisor for Space Transportation Giorgio Tumino.<\/p>\n While few specifics have been disclosed about the Avio proposal, an accompanying graphic appears to depict the first stage as a P120C solid-fuel booster, which serves as the first stage of the company\u2019s Vega C rocket. If the first stage is indeed a P120C booster and the upper stage is to scale, the completed demonstrator will likely stand at approximately 36.5 metres tall.<\/p>\n The reusable upper stage depicted in the graphic bears a resemblance, at least in appearance, to that of SpaceX\u2019s Starship, suggesting propulsive recovery. In its 29 September press release, Avio stated that it will draw on its expertise with methalox liquid propulsion systems for the project, likely indicating that the stage will be powered by an array of the company\u2019s MR10 rocket engines, which are being developed for the upper stage of its future Vega E rocket.<\/p>\n In addition to its experience with liquid propulsion systems, Avio\u2019s release stated that it would also utilise \u201cknowledge acquired through the Space Rider re-entry vehicle programme.\u201d Avio is, however, not involved in that side of the Space Rider programme. The company is the prime contractor for the service module<\/a>, which it is developing on the platform of a Vega C upper stage. The service module, however, does not reenter the atmosphere. Thales Alenia Space is leading work on the Space Rider re-entry module with contributions from Beyond Gravity, CIRA, SENER, GMV, Frentech, SABCA, ArianeGroup, and CIMSA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Avio \/ ESA The European Space Agency has awarded Italian rocket builder Avio a \u20ac40 million contract…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[33075,22245,79,193],"class_list":["post-189891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-avio","tag-european-space-agency","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}