A new Swiss company builds a suborbital shuttle to launch small satellites

Swiss Space Systems was inaugurated in Payerne on 13 March 2013 in the presence of cantonal and local authority representatives, and dignitaries and diplomatic representatives of eight countries. They had come together to celebrate the birth of this new company, which aims to develop and build suborbital shuttles in order to launch small satellites with a maximum weight of 250kg.
 
The objective is to be able to carry out the first test flights by 2017 --_ an ambitious timetable, but as the founder and CEO of S3, Pascal Jaussi, said: "Our launch programme benefits from the input of technologies previously developed and certified through original partnerships between major players in the aerospace sector such as the European Space Agency (ESA), Dassault Aviation, the Von Karman Institute and Sonaca". These technological inputs from the Hermès and X--_38 programs will allow S3 to save time that would otherwise be spent on research and development, enabling it to reach its 2017 target and reduce production costs at the same time, since the budget will be CHF 250 m. This sum would have been several billions if the work had had to start from nothing.
 
The Swiss Space Systems launch model uses an Airbus A300, an aircraft already certified for zero gravity flights, to take the shuttle up to 10,000m on its back; the shuttle will then be launched from there. The shuttle--_drone will take care of the next part of the ascent up to an altitude of 80km, the height at which the upper stage will be launched in order to put the satellites into orbit. Once this operation has been completed, the shuttle will return to earth by gliding towards its launch airport.
 
Swiss Space Systems will be able to offer satellite launches for CHF 10 m, or approximately four times less than current market prices.  
 
The development of this company, which has 25 employees at present (but the number should at least double before the end of the year), will be a source of local jobs and indirect economic benefits in the region of Payerne. The Spaceport planned for the Payerne Aéropole by 2015 is estimated to cost CHF 50 m.