ITP and Sener hope to capture the attention of the international rocket market valued at 340 million euros.

As part of the national aerospace sector strategy for the next decade, MERLIn (Efficient and Reusable Engine for International Launchers) stands out as one of the key projects in terms of future innovation. The project, promoted by ITP Aero and Sener, two partner companies of the Basque Innovation Agency, together with the startups Pangea Aerospace and Aenium Engineering, aims to develop a space propulsion system that promises to "strengthen a more competitive state industry," as the development of this technology offers several advantages over traditional rockets used in Europe and could replace models such as the Soyuz or Vega.

This initiative, presented at the Innobasque General Assembly held yesterday, aims, first, to manufacture and integrate the world's first ready-to-fly aerospike engine and, second, to test a demonstrator to validate the technology.

The engine, called ARCOS, will use aerospike technology for rocket propulsion, enabling it to be reused up to ten times, reducing costs and minimizing orbital waste in space, according to Daniel Hernández, head of the Aerodynamics section at ITP Aero, and Carlos Azcoitia, project manager at Sener Aeroespacial.

They are also more sustainable, since, to avoid the cooling problems that have previously hampered the development of these engines, they use cryogenic methane instead of kerosene, which generates lower levels of polluting emissions.

And last but not least, it should be noted that, by having multiple linked nozzles, there is a change in the architecture of these engines that improves their performance by between 10 and 15%, which represents a very significant leap in efficiency, he emphasized.

This is a disruptive system, opening the doors to the aerospace market for small and medium-sized rockets, weighing up to seven tons, valued at €340 million, according to Hernández. In 2023, the number of satellite launches was around 120, of which 20% were small and medium-sized satellites, which are the ones that fall within the scope of this engine. And the forecast is that this number will multiply by three or four, so by 2032 the market will be very attractive, with around 410 launches per year," according to calculations made by the head of ITP Aero.

They already have potential clients, including established companies and public entities such as the European Space Agency (ESA) and emerging national companies such as PLD Space and MGA - Maya Global Aviation. Furthermore, there are multiple companies currently undergoing training, primarily in the United States and France, that are also interested.

Given its potential, MERLIn has received a €11.6 million grant from the €70 million R&D Support Plan for Space Technologies awarded by CDTI Innovation and the Spanish Space Agency, through the Ministry of Science and the Ministry of Defense.

Thus, it is positioned as the second most important project in the Space Technology Plan (PTE) of the Aerospace PERTE, through which the Spanish Government seeks to "promote the competitiveness of the Spanish aerospace industry" with innovation in key technologies for the future of space exploration.

ITP Aero will lead the consortium and develop the engine's propulsion technologies. The engine will be developed by the startup Pangea Aerospace, which specializes in space propulsion, which will be responsible for manufacturing, from design to testing. Sener, for its part, will provide the engine's thrust vector control (TVC) system; and Aenium Engineering will contribute its expertise in advanced materials and additive manufacturing, key to engine cooling.