Swiss Space Systems
aerospace company in Switzerland
Swiss Space Systems (S3) was a company that planned to provide orbital launches of small satellites and crewed sub-orbital spaceflights. The company was based in Payerne in western Switzerland, near Payerne Air Base, where it planned to build a spaceport in 2015. Suborbital spaceplanes were to be launched from an Airbus A300, giving the spacecraft more initial speed and altitude than if it were launched from the ground. The spacecraft, in turn, would release a disposable third stage.
As of March 2013, the company planned to charge CHF 10 million (US$10.5 million) per launch, using uncrewed suborbital spaceplanes that could carry satellites weighing up to 250 kilograms (550 lb). Costs were expected to be reduced by the reusable nature of the spaceplane and launch facilities, and by lower fuel consumption than conventional systems.
In 2013, S3 also hoped to develop a crewed version of its suborbital spaceplane to provide supersonic intercontinental flights to paying customers. According to CEO Pascal Jaussi: "Far from wishing to launch into the space tourism market, we want rather to establish a new mode of air travel based on our satellite launch model that will allow spaceports on different continents to be reached in an hour."
As of March 2013, project partners included the European Space Agency, Dassault Aviation and the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics.
According to Swiss public broadcasting, Swiss Space Systems became heavily indebted. In 2016, Swiss Space Systems asked to delay bankruptcy procedures as new funds from Singapore bank Axios Credit were expected.
The public source identifies “Swiss Space Systems” as aerospace company in Switzerland. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Swiss, Space and Systems.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Swiss Space Systems”, the useful work is to connect “aerospace company in Switzerland” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7658911. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2015, 2013 and 2016.
Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Swiss Space Systems”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Swiss Space Systems primary sources, Swiss Space Systems archive and Swiss research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Swiss Space Systems”?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Swiss Space Systems” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.