The Dean of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at TUKE, Prof. Jozef Živčák, welcomed students of the faculty – members of the HARTS (Hybrid Atmospheric Re-entry Thermal Shield) team – at the dean’s office. The students presented their project carried out within the REXUS/BEXUS programme and shared their experiences from the Esrange Space Center in Sweden, located beyond the Arctic Circle.

Esrange is one of the key international centers for space research and rocket technology testing. It serves as a launch site for sounding rockets and high-altitude balloons, with future plans including its use for orbital launch vehicles.

The HARTS team was formed through close collaboration among students from TUKE faculties (Faculty of Aeronautics, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, and Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics) and focuses on the development of a thermal protection system for re-entry modules. The experiment also included modifications to the ejection mechanism used to deploy a freely falling unit – in this case, the thermal shield module.

The REXUS/BEXUS programme, conducted under the auspices of DLR, Rymdstyrelsen, and ESA, enables student teams to test their own experiments on rockets and balloons. The HARTS team was successfully selected for the programme and, as the first Slovak team, progressed through all selection phases to the final launch of their experiment at the Swedish space center.

Working on the project provided team members with valuable experience and new insights into the development of thermal protection systems and the future of space research. The students also shared their journey through a lecture for their peers, presenting the entire process – from the formation of the team to the successful rocket launch.

Members of the HARTS team from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering: Barbora Stupavská, Bc. Emanuel Ungero, Sebastián Hudák and Martin Konečný.

We thank them for their dedication, independence, and for representing the faculty and the university at an international level.