Gruyere Space Program

[Yazata]

These guys are great!

Gruyere Space Program is a bunch of engineering students in Switzerland who have designed and built not only a very throttleable bipropellant liquid-fueled rocket engine, but also a small VTOL hopper complete with thrust vector control. The thing appears to be very professionally constructed. They say that they spent 250,000 CHF (Swiss Francs) on it ($289,000 US) (Yes, they have sponsors.)

And here they are flying it on its first test flight, which reached 105 meters altitude, moved 30m to the side, then returned to an impressively well controlled landing back on their pad.

https://x.com/GruyereSpace/status/1846951124705697873

This thing is already more advanced than anything else in Europe, including Arianespace! I guess these students figured that if the usual European suspects weren't going to do anything about matching SpaceX-style reusable rockets, they would just have to do it themselves! I love it! Europe needs a lot more of this kind of spirit!

(Yes, that's cheese attached to the landing leg...)

https://gruyerespaceprogram.ch/

Dr Z likes it

https://x.com/Dr_ThomasZ/status/1846994988069953703

They hope to make a New Space company out of it...

http://pave.space/

[Syne]

Was the cheese a makeshift balance or a crude way to estimate thrust heat to the landing legs?

[Yazata]

Was the cheese a makeshift balance or a crude way to estimate thrust heat to the landing legs?

I think that it was kind of a joke, a reference to the main thing that Gruyeres Switzerland is famous for, Gruyere cheese.

[Syne]

Ah, free advertisement.