The Student Aerospace Challenge, initiated by Dassault Aviation in 2006, is a competition for higher education students on the topic of manned suborbital vehicles.
Every year, several work packages covering numerous aspects of this type of vehicle (flying qualities, propulsion, legal aspects, layout, etc.) are offered.
In 2018, 16 teams made it to the finals. This year confirmed the trend of an all-European Challenge with students from Bulgarian, Greek, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese and British universities, alongside eight teams representing French schools.
On the occasion of the 11th Suborbital Day organized on June 20, 2018 at Le Bourget Air and Space Museum, the five best projects were awarded prizes by the European Space Agency (ESA), the European Astronaut Club, ArianeGroup, Dassault Aviation and the Air and Space Museum.
The Dassault Aviation Award was presented to the DATA team from Delft University in the Netherlands, in the presence of French ESA astronaut, Léopold Eyharts. This team studied the optimization of the trajectory of a manned suborbital vehicle.