Low Cost High Thrust Propulsion For European Strategic Space Launchers - Technologies Maturation Including Ground System Tests
HORIZON Research and Innovation Actions
Basic Information
- Identifier
- HORIZON-CL4-2023-SPACE-01-21
- Programme
- STRATEGIC AUTONOMY IN DEVELOPING, DEPLOYING AND USING GLOBAL SPACE-BASED INFRASTRUCTURES, SERVICES, APPLICATIONS AND DATA 2023
- Programme Period
- 2021 - 2027
- Status
- Closed (31094503)
- Opening Date
- December 22, 2022
- Deadline
- March 28, 2023
- Deadline Model
- single-stage
- Budget
- €23,100,000
- Min Grant Amount
- €4,000,000
- Max Grant Amount
- €10,000,000
- Expected Number of Grants
- 4
- Keywords
- HORIZON-CL4-2023-SPACE-01-21HORIZON-CL4-2023-SPACE-01Launch propulsion systemsLaunch vehiclesLaunchers
Description
Expected Outcome:
Projects are expected to contribute to the following outcomes:
Contribution to the overarching objective of launch cost/price reduction by 50% by 2030 (with respect to A6/VegaC cost/price 2021 economic conditions), for the benefit of EU Space programmes implementation and going towards reinforcing Europe‘s independent capacity to access to space.
- Innovation acceleration of enabling technologies (maturing, prototyping, on ground tests)
- Selection of most promising technologies for cost-reduction possibilities in the current European launchers
- Cost reduction investigation and demonstration.
These outcomes will contribute to enhance Europe's open strategic autonomy and sector competitiveness, in line with the Expected Impact of the destination.
Scope:
Cost reduction and improving flexibility of European launch systems are the main challenges in order to foster European industry competitiveness on the global market.
The propulsion systems represent a significant part of launch system costs. It is necessary to mature new or optimised low cost effective (lower number of parts, better operability), high performance (high thrust to weight ratio, high specific impulse) and green propulsion concepts, technologies and propellants for high thrust engines.
The activities should address:
- Maturation of enabling technologies, building blocks, tools and processes including maintenance/overhaul and safety, up to TRL5/6 and subsystem tests including prototyping and integrated ground tests at subsystems level by 2025;
- Demonstration of the above technologies by subsystems and engine on-ground demonstration tests by 2026 to reach TRL 7.
The matured technologies, building blocks, tools and processes should be applicable to strategic launchers able to launch EU Space Programme components, with the objective of enabling operational capacities by 2030 and preferably earlier for current launch solutions. The tests should be appropriate to this objective.
The proposed activities must also support Europe's non-dependence objective and include the assessment of costs reduction investigations and test results towards the overarching objective mentioned in the expected outcomes.
The activities will address one or several of the following areas:
- low-cost propulsion,
- throttlability,
- HMS - Health Monitoring Systems,
- controllers taking advantage of AI,
- reduced number of parts with extensive application of Additive manufacturing, or new composite technologies,
- maintenance/overhaul,
- associated fluidics.
The activities should include as many as technologies possible in each area to maximise the number of matured technologies to be submitted to integrated tests at subsystem level and integration of subsystem (all technologies together) for engine firing tests by 2026.
All the activities should be complementary and coherent with the ESA on-going or future activities in particular those decided at the last ESA Ministerial held in November 2019 and planned to be decided at the ESA Ministerial planned in November 2022.
Proposals should provide all IPR dependencies and dependencies with other on-going activities, and detail the implementation, the reporting and the organisational as well as steering measures that will be taken to ensure that the proposed activities can be implemented and can achieve all the expected outcomes within the project schedule and budget.
In this topic the integration of the gender dimension (sex and gender analysis) in research and innovation content is not a mandatory requirement.
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Activities are expected to achieve TRL 7 by the end of the project – The reference TRL definition is the ISO 16290:2013 applicable to the space sector.
Destination & Scope
Eligibility & Conditions
General conditions
The page limit of the application is 70 pages.
2. Eligible countries: described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes
A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects. See the information in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide.
If projects use satellite-based earth observation, positioning, navigation and/or related timing data and services, beneficiaries must make use of Copernicus and/or Galileo/EGNOS (other data and services may additionally be used).
In order to achieve the expected outcomes, and safeguard the Union’s strategic assets, interests, autonomy, and security, it is important to avoid a situation of technological dependency on a non-EU source, in a global context that requires the EU to take action to build on its strengths, and to carefully assess and address any strategic weaknesses, vulnerabilities and high-risk dependencies which put at risk the attainment of its ambitions. For this reason, participation is limited to legal entities established in Member States, Norway, Iceland and the United Kingdom. The eligibility of entities established in the United Kingdom to participate is conditional upon the following: (i) the United Kingdom is associated to Horizon Europe, and (ii) the United Kingdom’s equivalent space calls are published and open to the EU entities on a reciprocal basis.” Both conditions must be fulfilled on the date of the opening of this topic for submission.
For the duly justified and exceptional reasons listed in the paragraph above, in order to guarantee the protection of the strategic interests of the Union and its Member States, entities established in an eligible country listed above, but which are directly or indirectly controlled by a non-eligible country or by a non-eligible country entity, may not participate in the action unless it can be demonstrated, by means of guarantees provided by their eligible country of establishment, that their participation to the action would not negatively impact the Union’s strategic, assets, interests, autonomy, or security. The guarantees shall in particular substantiate that, for the purpose of the action, measures are in place to ensure that:
a) control over the applicant legal entity is not exercised in a manner that restrains or restricts its ability to carry out the action and to deliver results, that imposes restrictions concerning its infrastructure, facilities, assets, resources, intellectual property or know-how needed for the purpose of the action, or that undermines its capabilities and standards necessary to carry out the action;
b) access by a non-eligible country or by a non-eligible country entity to to sensitive information relating to the action is prevented; and the employees or other persons involved in the action have a national security clearance issued by an eligible country, where appropriate;
c) ownership of the intellectual property arising from, and the results of, the action remain within the recipient during and after completion of the action, are not subject to control or restrictions by non-eligible countries or non-eligible country entity, and are not exported outside the eligible countries, nor is access to them from outside the eligible countries granted, without the approval of the eligible country in which the legal entity is established.
3. Other eligibility conditions: described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes
4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion: described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes
The granting authority can fund a maximum of one project.
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Award criteria, scoring and thresholds are described in Annex D of the Work Programme General Annexes
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Submission and evaluation processes are described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes and the Online Manual
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Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement: described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes
6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants: described in Annex G of the Work Programme General Annexes
Specific conditions
7. Specific conditions: described in the [specific topic of the Work Programme]
Documents
Call documents:
Standard application form — call-specific application form is available in the Submission System
Standard application form (HE RIA, IA)
Standard evaluation form — will be used with the necessary adaptations
Standard evaluation form (HE RIA, IA)
MGA
Declaration of ownership and control
A compulsory questionnaire on the declaration of ownership and control is to be filled by all project participants as part of the application. All declarations must be assembled by the coordinator and uploaded in a single file in the portal submission system. For additional information on the assessment of ownership and control process and on the guarantees please consult the draft guidance for participation in restricted calls.
Additional documents:
HE Main Work Programme 2023–2024 – 1. General Introduction
HE Main Work Programme 2023–2024 – 7. Digital, Industry and Space
HE Main Work Programme 2023–2024 – 13. General Annexes
HE Framework Programme and Rules for Participation Regulation 2021/695
HE Specific Programme Decision 2021/764
Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment
EU Grants AGA — Annotated Model Grant Agreement
Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual
Frequently Asked Questions About Low Cost High Thrust Propulsion For European Strategic Space Launchers - Technologies Maturation Including Ground System Tests
Support & Resources
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Horizon Europe Programme Guide contains the detailed guidance to the structure, budget and political priorities of Horizon Europe.
Funding & Tenders Portal FAQ – find the answers to most frequently asked questions on submission of proposals, evaluation and grant management.
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Latest Updates
An overview of the HORIZON-CL4-2023-SPACE-01 evaluation results (Flash Call Info) is now available under the link.
Call HORIZON-CL4-2023-SPACE-01 has closed on the 28/03/2023.
142 proposals have been submitted.
The breakdown per topic is:
• HORIZON-CL4-2023-SPACE-01-11: 11 proposals
• HORIZON-CL4-2023-SPACE-01-12: 38 proposals
• HORIZON-CL4-2023-SPACE-01-13: 1 proposal
• HORIZON-CL4-2023-SPACE-01-21: 1 proposal
• HORIZON-CL4-2023-SPACE-01-22: 17 proposals
• HORIZON-CL4-2023-SPACE-01-23: 4 proposals
• HORIZON-CL4-2023-SPACE-01-31: 4 proposals
• HORIZON-CL4-2023-SPACE-01-32: 5 proposals
• HORIZON-CL4-2023-SPACE-01-33: 0 proposals
• HORIZON-CL4-2023-SPACE-01-34: 3 proposals
• HORIZON-CL4-2023-SPACE-01-62: 7 proposals
• HORIZON-CL4-2023-SPACE-01-63: 1 proposal
• HORIZON-CL4-2023-SPACE-01-71: 37 proposals
• HORIZON-CL4-2023-SPACE-01-72: 13 proposals
Evaluation results are expected to be communicated in the 2nd half of July 2023.