ARIS TURNS STUDENT AMBITION INTO SPACE HARDWARE

At Switzerland Innovation Park Zurich, ARIS gives students hands-on experience in rockets, satellites, robotics and propulsion, turning academic knowledge into flight hardware and space technology projects.

«The ETH Hangar at Switzerland Innovation Park Zurich gives ARIS the space and environment we need to turn ambitious student ideas into real hardware. It allows our teams to build, test, learn from failures and connect with the wider aerospace and engineering ecosystem.»

Jared Krause

President, ARIS

Founded in 2017 by students at ETH Zurich, ARIS - Academic Spaceflight Initiative Switzerland - has grown into one of Switzerland's largest and most active student-led space and engineering initiatives. Today, it brings together a broad community of students from ETH Zurich, UZH and several universities of applied sciences. Its purpose is clear: to give students the opportunity to apply academic knowledge to real engineering challenges in space technology - from rockets and CubeSats to robotics, propulsion and exploratory research projects.

ARIS is structured around complementary project formats that combine ambition with continuity. Long-term flagship initiatives, competition teams and exploratory project labs give students the chance to take responsibility early, transfer knowledge between teams and develop complex systems that would be difficult to realise in a purely classroom-based environment. This makes ARIS not only a student association, but a practical learning platform for future engineers, founders and space professionals.

At Switzerland Innovation Park Zurich in Dübendorf, ARIS works from the ETH Hangar, an environment designed for hardtech, testing and industry-academia collaboration. For ARIS, the Hangar is more than a workshop: it is where student teams design, manufacture, test and iterate complex systems while connecting with aerospace, robotics, mobility and advanced manufacturing expertise. The park provides the kind of setting that student-led space projects need to move from ideas and simulations to integrated hardware.

The results show how quickly student-led innovation can mature when talent, infrastructure and collaboration come together. ARIS has developed guided recovery systems, rockets, CubeSat technologies, robotics platforms and advanced propulsion concepts. In March 2025, ALICE became the first ARIS technology demonstrator to reach orbit, launched on SpaceX Transporter-13 to test electronics for the future SAGE CubeSat. From first prototypes to flight hardware, ARIS shows how Switzerland's innovation ecosystem can help students build the skills, confidence and networks needed to shape the future of space technology.

Key Facts

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    members - one of Switzerland's largest student-led space and engineering initiatives

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    first ARIS hardware in orbit with ALICE launched in March as a technology demonstrator for SAGE

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