Game-Changing Innovation for European Launch Solutions
Funds up to three teams, EUR 5-7 million each, to push mid-maturity launcher propulsion breakthroughs like staged combustion, hybrid, aerospike or autophage engines toward flight readiness.
Award criteria, scoring and thresholds, along with the admissibility rules, eligible-country list and legal and financial set-up, are not detailed on this topic page — each is deferred to its own numbered section of the call document rather than spelled out here. The Commission defines a qualifying 'game-changing' innovation as a radical breakthrough that displaces existing practices and creates n…
Following on from a 2025 prize on the same theme, this call funds the next stage of development for radical launcher propulsion breakthroughs: staged combustion engines, hybrid propulsion, aerospike engines or autophage propulsion, along with their subsystems and materials. Proposals must start between TRL3 and TRL6 and target real qualification or first use in a launcher by 2035, with disruptive potential for Europe's access-to-space competitiveness and strategic autonomy.
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