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Our Work

Strategic Goals

The strategic goals of the Center for Space and Aviation are aligned with the government council decision on space as a cantonal flagship (RRB-2024-372) with economically sustainable impact, and 2.) the synthesis report from the federal government, canton, and municipalities about the area development of Dübendorf Airfield (2021), which laid the framework for the cantonal council decision of November 28, 2022, on the Zurich Innovation Park. These decisions have long time horizons spanning decades.
The goals are:
  • Access to the Space Economy for research institutions and industry
  • Driving research, technology, and innovation
  • Focus on the low-Earth orbit (LEO) economy
  • Partnerships between science and industry

These strategic goals will be implemented as follows:

  1. 1
    Establishment of a Civil Research Flight Facility at the Dübendorf airfield as a central hub for research and development in aviation and space and as the nucleus for a commercial trade and logistics hub.
  2. 2
    Establishment of multidisciplinary training and continuing education in the field of "Space"
  3. 3
    Innovative research in aviation and space for society and the economy
  4. 4
    Partnerships with the global space industry and the New Space Stations

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Civil Research Flight Facility

  • Establishment of a Civil Research Flight Facility at the Dübendorf airfield as a central hub for research and development in aviation and space and as the nucleus for a commercial trade and logistics hub:
  • Swiss Parabolic Flight Program with research aircraft such as Airbus A310 (Novespace, France), Cessna Citation II (NLR, Netherlands), and other aircraft
  • Research flights with small aircraft (e.g., for earth and atmospheric observation)
  • Research flights in the field of Green Aviation (e.g., in the EU project DYN-MARS, Dynamic Management of Aircraft Configuration and Route Structures)
  • Flight tests for instruments, components, or subsystems for space travel, aerospace applications, space manufacturing and R&D
  • Research flights on the field of human performance in aviation
  • In a forthcoming expansion phase, the Civil Research Flight Facility of the Center could collaborate with companies responsible for the New Space Stations and conduct comprehensive research and testing program for those technologies, applications, and processes later used orbitally on the New Space Stations (e.g., production devices and machines, bioreactors, instruments for control and quality assurance, manual processes in microgravity).