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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ARCAspace | 2/8 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARCAspace | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T12:56:53.489424+00:00 | kb-cron |
ARCA organized a public presentation of their Orizont spaceplane in front of the Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest. Because of financial problems encountered with the construction of Orizont, ARCA decided to suspend its development and instead design a new, much smaller rocket called Stabilo. It was designed to be launched from a stratospheric solar balloon and carry one person into space. Design and construction of large scale polyethylene balloons started and on December 2, 2006, at Onesti, Bacau, the crew capsule of Stabilo rocket was lifted to an altitude of 14,700 m. The capsule was safely recovered that evening. The event was transmitted live on several Romanian TV stations. On 27 September 2007, the entire Stabilo rocket (crew capsule + rocket booster) was lifted to an altitude of 12,000 m using the largest solar balloon constructed until that date. The mission was launched from Cape Midia Air Force Base, and the rocket was recovered from the Black Sea surface by Romanian Navy divers. At this moment ARCA proved its ability to conduct large-scale operations and to coordinate military institutions like the Romanian Navy and the Romanian Air Force. In 2007 ARCA won two governmental contracts with the Research Ministry for a suborbital rocket and a solar balloon. The Romanian Space Agency, the University of Bucharest and other Romanian institutions were subcontractors to ARCA for these projects. In early 2008 ARCA joined the Google Lunar X Prize competition and designed the Haas orbital launcher. Their lunar rover was named European Lunar Lander and used a monopropellant rocket engine for landing and hovering. Haas was a three-stage orbital rocket powered by hybrid engines using a bitumen-based fuel and hydrogen peroxide as oxidizer. It was supposed to be launched from 18,000 m carried by the largest solar balloon ever constructed, having a volume of 2 million cubic meters. For the Haas rocket, they created a three-stage much smaller demonstrator called Helen that was intended to test technologies and operation. The Helen rocket was intentionally not aerodynamically stabilized, being intended to use a technique based on the pendulum rocket fallacy. The Romanian bank BRD – Groupe Société Générale awarded ARCA a 300,000 euro sponsorship for their activities. Romanian cosmonaut Dumitru Prunariu highly praised ARCA's achievements and noted their ability to efficiently utilize private funds. In 2009 ARCA performed a series of engine tests using the Stabilo rocket engine in order to validate the design for the Helen rocket. The first attempt to launch the Helen rocket took place on November 14, 2009. Romanian Naval Forces participated with the NSSL 281 Constanta ship, the Venus divers ship, the Fulgerul fast boat and two other fast craft boats. For this mission, ARCA constructed a massive 150,000 cubic meter solar balloon, approximately five times as large as their previous balloon. After the balloon began inflating, the mission crew discovered that the balloon inflation arms were wrapped around the lower part of the balloon. Inflation was halted and the crew attempted to unwrap the arms. Three hours later the arms were repositioned and inflation was ready to resume but the sun was already nearing the horizon, and heating the solar balloon was no longer possible. The decision was made to cancel the mission. ARCA decided to redesign the Helen rocket to use two stages and a helium balloon instead. They named the rocket Helen 2. On April 27, 2010, they performed an avionics test for the European Lunar Lander payload to be lifted by the Helen 2 rocket, using a hot air balloon that lifted three ARCA members to 5,200 m altitude. On August 4, 2010, a new attempt to launch the rocket was made, but a construction error in the helium balloon caused it to rupture and the mission was aborted. A new helium balloon was manufactured designed to carry only the second stage of Helen 2 rocket. On October 1, 2010, the rocket performed a successful flight to an altitude of 38,700 m reaching a maximum velocity of 2320 km/h. Upon atmospheric reentry the rocket capsule parachute failed to deploy and the capsule was lost at sea, but the data was transmitted to the mission control center on the 281 Constanta ship and to the Romanian Air Traffic Services Administration.
=== 2011–2013: IAR-111 aircraft, Executor engine and Haas rocket family ===