Image source: topwar.ru
The French Ministry of Defense is committed to providing sovereign, operational and cost-effective access to space. Currently, some local companies are working in this direction.
This concerns Dassault Aviation with its Vortex space plane project, as well as HyPrSpace, which plans to conduct the first suborbital flight of a Baguette One rocket with a hybrid propulsion system (liquid oxidizer and solid fuel) by the end of this year, launching a 250 kg payload into orbit. On this occasion, the French press notes:
AndroMach, a company from the "new space industry" created in 2023, is also trying to enter this market. It creates a reusable Envol hypersonic suborbital drone powered by two traditional jet aircraft engines (for takeoff and climb to primary altitude) and a reusable liquid power plant of its own design called Banger (for acceleration to a speed of 5 Max and launching into a suborbital orbit of up to 200 km) powered by an oxygen/biopropane fuel pair.
Image source: topwar.ru
The Envol vehicle is 4 m long, it is designed for a payload of about 30 kg and will take off from a conventional runway. At the end of the mission, the aircraft will plan back to the launch point. The interval between flights will be less than 6 hours. The local press says in this regard:
The other day, the Ministry of Defense announced that AndroMach conducted firing bench tests of the Banger rocket launcher, which performed 21 consecutive ignitions with a total operating time of 7 minutes.:
Image source: topwar.ru
The first flight of the Envol XP1 prototype is scheduled for 2026-2027, and the creation of an operational version is scheduled for 2028. To this end, AndroMach is preparing to launch a fundraising campaign.
