2008

December 23, 2008 - RAMNICU VALCEA
Haas, ARCA's orbital rocket launcher unveiled today. A series of media events, scheduled for next year, will be announched in short time. Download 3.1Mb brochure. Photo gallery.

December 23, 2008 - RAMNICU VALCEA
Stabilo-ELL engine on test stand. Stabilo-ELL will be launched using hybrid engine technology instead of monopropellant technology. Photo gallery.

December 23, 2008 - RAMNICU VALCEA
"As I promised in May, we intended to launch STABILO-ELL vehicle in autumn of 2008. There were several events that forced us to delay the launch.

First, we are switching from monopropellant to hybrid propulsion. Inevitable, this lead to delays. The hybrid propulsion is the one that we are using for the Google Lunar X Prize Competition. STABILO was designed to become the ELE’s first stage and we planed to use hybrid propulsion for this launch.
Second, when we were about to start the propulsion tests, a personal health problem prevented me to work within the team. The tests were put on hold. I wasn’t available for about three months.
Finally, the team focused on the Haas orbital rocket launcher and on our governmental programs.
The team resumed the work on the Stabilo-ELL suborbital vehicle two month ago, after my return. We rescheduled the Stabilo-ELL launch for the begining of 2009. We hope to avoid further delays. For this end of the year I just hope that you will enjoy the Haas vehicle. We wish you Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!" - Dumitru Popescu, ARCA Team Leader

November 10, 2008 – RAMNICU VALCEA
ARCA received an important support from AGI. The software developer company offered the STK computer program to ARCA to help the team to simulate, plan and analyze the ELE mission. AGI is a Google Lunar X Prize Preffered Partner.

November 8, 2008 - RAMNICU VALCEA
Propulsion tests for HP/HDPE hybrid rocket thruster for the ELE vehicle. Thrust 3.5kgf. Max. engine run: 84 sec. Video here.

September 20, 2008 - RAMNICU VALCEA
The preparations for Mission 4 flight took longer than expected. This situation was encountered mainly because the team worked on 6 different projects:
- The STABILO-ELL suborbital vehicle
- The ELE vehicle for the Google Lunar X Prize
- The HAAS orbital launcher
- The BASMATES, VECSS and PAMMDAV governmental programs.
Mission4-ELL is delayed, but the vehicle will be launched as soon as we will finish the work.
The progresses that we have made until now are substantial and we anticipate a fascinating end of year.

June 14, 2008 - Euronews
ARCA featured on Euronews on "Space". The video is available here:

May 20, 2008 - Strasbourg
Dumitru Popescu, Peter Diamandis and William Pomerantz about ARCA's STABILO, ELL and ELE.

May 20, 2008 - Strasbourg
We are pleased to announce the first Google Lunar X Prize space flight. The European Lunar Lander (ELL), ARCA’s lunar vehicle for this competition, will make the flight.
For this flight ARCA is partner with Pablo De Leon and Associates Company a former major Ansari X Prize competitor.
ELL will be carried in space, at an altitude of 100 km, by the STABILO booster rocket that has been in development for two years and has completed a series of successful flights.
The tests are in progress and the flight called Mission4-ELL will be launched in the next three months.
The STABILO rocket will be lifted up to an altitude of 18 km by the world largest Montgolfier solar balloon. At that height the STABILO rocket engine will be ignited and will take ELL to space. The STABILO and ELL will land on the sea.
Once in space, ELL will execute several avionics systems tests, take measurements, photos, and transmit live video to Earth.

Visit this photo gallery from the Google Lunar X Prize Team Summit in Strasbourg. You can see moments from the Mission4-ELL announcement as well as the European Lunar Explorer (ELE) 1:1 scale unveiled.

Interesting videos from the Team Summit will be soon available on this website.

May 16, 2008 – Rm. Valcea
The European Lunar Explorer (ELE) 1:1 scale model will be officially presented in Strasbourg at the International Space University (ISU), on May 20 th, during the Google Lunar X Prize Team Summit. The model will include the Lunar Injection stage (E-1), the Lunar braking stage (E-2) and the European Lunar Lander (ELL) stage (E-3). Five ARCA team members will be there to discuss with the public and press. During the press conference at ISU, an important announcement will be made. Follow this site for more information during the next days.

March 5 , 2008 - Rm. Valcea
Dumitru Popescu - GLXP Team Announcement at Google Headquarters.

February 22, 2008 - Mountain View, CA
Pictures from the GLXP Teams Announcement at Google Headquarters.

February 21, 2008 - Mountain View, CA
We are announcing our participation to the Google Lunar X Prize Competition (GLXP). The main objective of GLXP is: "To safely land a robot on the surface of the Moon, travel 500 meters over the lunar surface, and send images and data back to the Earth." The prize is $30 million $. For more information go to: googlelunarxprize.org
Our proposed project is called HAAS-ELE and has three main sections:
- Carrier Balloon - Solar Montgolfier balloon designed to transport the rocket and the probe into stratosphere.
- HAAS - innovative air-launched, 3 stages orbital rocket
- ELE - The European Lunar Explorer - lunar probe

Play the above video

January 21, 2008 - BUCHAREST
ARCA featured on "ZOOM", No.14.

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