16th of October
TEDxBucharest 2009

Dumitru Popescu

Engineer, President and Co-founder of the Romanian Association for Aeronautics and Cosmonautics (ARCA)

Dumitru Popescu takes Romania into an unprecedented spatial program: he's launching in space the first Romanian satellite.

Dumitru managed to get Romania in an amazing worldwide position in aerospace field, being widely appreciated and recognized at an international level. He led ARCA(Romanian Association for Cosmonautics and Aeronautics) in the most prestigious competition in astronautics: the Ansari X Prize, a $10 million contest to build a privately funded manned spacecraft that reaches a sub-orbit of 100 km twice in two weeks.

In 2006, Dumitru coordinated the design and building of Stabilo sub-orbital innovative manned spacecraft. This vehicle was launched into the stratosphere in 2006 and 2007. World largest solar balloons were built at ARCA in order to lift Stabilo above the Earth dense atmosphere during these flights.

Since 2007, Dumitru is seeking out new ingenious possibilities of sending a robot to the Moon for the Google Lunar X Prize. This is a $30 million competition for the first privately funded team to send a robot to the Moon, travel 500 meters and transmit video, images and data back to the Earth.

Part of this project- Google Lunar X Prize, ARCA will be launching in space the first Romanian Satellite. A reason of pride for us: Helen is the first space rocket designed and built in Romania.

Website: www.dumitrupopescu.com