Polish space tech company SpaceForest has confirmed that it performed a test flight of its suborbital Perun launch system on 21 June.
The rocket was launched from the Polish Air Force Central Training Ground in Ustka. The flight had initially been planned for June 19 but was postponed due to adverse weather conditions. On June 20, a warning was detected in one of the modules of the rocket further delaying the flight. However, after replacing the module, the rocket was ready for launch on June 21.
According to SpaceForest, it had originally targeted a 50-kilometre altitude target for the flight. However, at 22 kilometres an anomaly was detected and the flight was terminated by the launch director. As the Flight Termination System used by SpaceForest for Perun does not result in the destruction of the vehicle, the company was able to recover it from the waters of the Baltic Sea following the splashdown.
Despite the difficulties, the company was satisfied with the results of the flight.
“We tested more than we wanted, not necessarily just what we wanted,” SpaceForest sales and marketing director Marcin Sarnowski said in a statement to gp24.pl. “Then [the rocket] landed under parachutes and we recovered the payload and the tank. We also tested the security and recovery system.”
SpaceForest is now shifting focus to a high-altitude test using the recovered vehicle which the company hopes to conduct later this year.
Perun is a single-stage guided suborbital launch vehicle powered by a hybrid rocket engine and launched from a mobile platform. The vehicle stands at 11.5 metres with a diameter of 0.45 metres and a lift-off mass of 970 kilograms. The rocket is capable of carrying payloads of up to 50 kilograms. The maximum altitude the vehicle is capable of achieving is 150 kilometres.
Perun isn’t the only launch project SpaceForest is working on, though. The company is also part of the team developing the reusable Themis booster demonstrator for ESA. The company is developing the rocket’s Green Flip Control System (GFCS) which is an auxiliary rocket engine responsible for performing the “flip” maneuver before the stage returns to Earth. SpaceForest won the contract as part of the SALTO project which is being led by ArianeGroup. The project received €39 million in funding from the European Commission in July 2022.
