In January 2014, the ISEF participants insisted on the importance of “fostering international cooperation for additional space exploration projects”. The partners of IRENA (International Re-Entry demoNstrator Action), including major space agencies involved in ISEF and ISECG, are convinced of the need for demonstrators in atmosphere entry/re-entry and of the potential for international cooperation in this area.
IRENA mainly aimed at:
• creating a cluster of European and international stakeholders to study two types of demonstrators aimed at developing entry/re-entry technologies and suitable for other enabling technologies
• jointly defining two technology demonstrator projects relevant for international cooperation
• contributing to a European position for ISEF and
• disseminating the results and preparing the next steps.
To achieve these objectives, IRENA built upon an international and complementary team: four major European and international space agencies (CNES, DLR, JAXA as well as NASA as an observer), the two European industry leaders in entry/re-entry and space exploration (Airbus Defence and Space, Thales Alenia Space) and a research institute expert in dissemination and exploitation (Demokritos). IRENA relied on a cooperative approach to jointly define the projects, for the feasibility and cost assessment studies and for the implementation assessment studies (governance, funding, international cooperation). Four workshops including one in Japan and one based on Concurrent Engineering were organised to support the work and disseminate the results of the project.
IRENA’s objectives have been chosen to explicitly meet the main work programme's requirements i.e. to be in line with ISEF recommendations, to involve international countries active in space exploration, to create a cluster around several demonstrator projects, to define these projects and discuss how to build them, to target enabling technologies and to include workshops and information events.
