Demonstrating flight sequences for reusability

ESA has helped Romania’s National Institute for Aerospace Research, INCAS, to perform vertical takeoff, short hovering and landing manoeuvres using a small-scale flight demonstrator. 

This 60 kg platform with landing legs is called the demonstrator technology vehicle (DTV). Its turbo jet 0.9 kN-class engine provides the power to carry payloads totalling 20 kg.

INCAS carried out the tests in Bucharest in July 2020. Manoeuvres lasted ten seconds to a couple of minutes to prove several technology building blocks for the recovery of a rocket stage for the purpose of reusability.