Copenhagen Suborbitals

Copenhagen Suborbitals is a Danish non-profit, all-volunteer amateur space programme founded on 1 May 2008 by Kristian von Bengtson and Peter Madsen, with the stated goal of launching one of its own members into space on a crewed suborbital flight above 100 km altitude using self-funded, home-built rockets. The organisation operates from a workshop and test facility at Refshaleøen in Copenhagen harbour and is funded almost entirely by its Copenhagen Suborbitals Support (CSS) donor club, supplemented by one-off donations, merchandise sales and consultancy work, rather than by venture capital or government contracts.

Since its first launch attempt, the HEAT-1X Tycho Brahe booster in 2011 (which reached only 2.8 km before a parachute failure), the group has flown a series of increasingly capable sounding rockets, including Smaragd, Sapphire, Nexø I (2016) and Nexø II, which reached roughly 6.5 km in August 2018 using the group's own BPM-5 bipropellant engine.

As of late 2024 the organisation had around 60 active volunteers, led by chairman Jørgen Skyt, and was developing the larger Spica rocket and a pressurised crew capsule, alongside continued engine testing (including the BPM-17 test engine), toward its long-stated but still unmet goal of a crewed flight. Copenhagen Suborbitals remains active and continues to publish regular progress updates on its ongoing hardware development.