Astronaute Club Européen

French space tourism association

The Astronaute Club Européen or ACE, is a French association created on December 3, 2005 (decree of the Journal Officiel n°20050049), by Jean-Pierre Haigneré (cosmonaut), Laurent Gathier (director of space activities of Dassault Aviation and space pioneer) and Alain Dupas (Physicist, head of mission at CNES); and whose headquarters are located in the rooms of the Aéroclub de France in Paris.^{[citation needed]}

Presentation

Its role is to promote space tourism and sub-orbital spaceflight in Europe and to pilot the development of private parabolic and suborbital flights, and to make them available to the general public. With this purpose, the association is promoting the design and development of the suborbital crewed spacecraft (VEHRA-SH).

Since it has been created, the ACE has participated in :^{[citation needed]}

the publication of space books;
the organisation of conferences;
many events (conferences, congresses, etc.);
the proposal of study topics to European universities.

The VSH project

The VSH project is part of the Aerospace Student Challenge, which allows teams of European students, through collaborative work, to participate in the development of the project by addressing various aspects of the VSH system: propulsion, avionics, flight simulation but also maintenance, management, legal aspects, etc. while complying to the overall technical framework of the VSH. The name stands for VEHRA (Véhicule Hypersonique Réutilisable Aéroporté) Suborbital Habité, or Suborbital Manned ARHV (Airborne Reusable Hypersonic Vehicle), and the vehicle will be launched from a commercial aircraft, which will reach Mach 3.5 and an altitude of 100 km, the limits of space.^{[citation needed]}

This VSH will be developed in close association^{[citation needed]} with aeronautical and space companies:

Dassault Aviation;
SAFRAN;
THALES.

External links

(in English and French) The web site of the aerospace student challenge
(in French) Biography of Jean-Pierre Haigneré on the CNES web site Archived 2008-04-06 at the Wayback Machine
(in English) Presentation of the VEHRA-VSH project (Acrobat Reader format)
(in French) Video of an initial design of VEHRA by Dassault
(in French and English) Model of VEHRA by Serge Gracieux

Space tourism

Organizations

Active	Axiom Space Bigelow Aerospace Blue Origin Airbus D&S Mojave Aerospace Ventures Orbital Technologies PDAS Redwire Sierra Nevada Corporation Space Adventures The Spaceship Company SpaceX #dearMoon project Virgin Galactic CAS Space ARCA Association of Autonomous Astronauts Astronaute Club Européen Commercial Spaceflight Federation Copenhagen Suborbitals Space Frontier Foundation Space Tourism Society
Defunct	Armadillo Aerospace Canadian Arrow Golden Spike Company MirCorp Orion Span PlanetSpace RocketShip Tours Space Island Group (Space Island Project) XCOR Aerospace

Active

Defunct

Armadillo Aerospace
Canadian Arrow
Golden Spike Company
MirCorp
Orion Span
PlanetSpace
RocketShip Tours
Space Island Group (Space Island Project)
XCOR Aerospace

Vehicles

Current
- Soyuz
- Dragon 2
- New Shepard
- SpaceShipTwo
Future

Living in space

Space competitions

Space tourists

Past	Dennis Tito Mark Shuttleworth Gregory Olsen Anousheh Ansari Charles Simonyi Richard Garriott Guy Laliberté Oliver Daemen Jared Isaacman Sian Proctor Hayley Arceneaux Christopher Sembroski Yusaku Maezawa Yozo Hirano Larry Connor Mark Pathy Eytan Stibbe John Shoffner

Space tourism
missions

Past	Inspiration4 Blue Origin NS-16 Blue Origin NS-18 Blue Origin NS-19 Blue Origin NS-20 Blue Origin NS-21 Blue Origin NS-22 Galactic 02 Galactic 03 Galactic 04 Galactic 05 Galactic 06 Axiom-1 Axiom-2
Planned	Polaris Dawn dearMoon