Within Turkey’s National Space Program, the young engineering team behind TURKUZAYSAN has unveiled a prototype of a vertical lunar landing test vehicle at Teknopark Ankara. The project grew out of their victory in the TEKNOFEST Vertical Landing Rocket Competition.
Purpose: a real-world testbed for lunar landers
Founder Emre Aklan explains that the vehicle is designed as a field test platform to support the Lunar Research Program. Instead of relying only on lab setups, the team will run repeated outdoor flight campaigns to validate:
- guidance algorithms,
- control and navigation subsystems,
- different propulsion systems
for future lunar landers. These subsystems are mounted on the vehicle, which then performs free flights. According to Aklan, they plan on 100–300 flights, using the results to increase the success probability of an eventual Moon landing.
Technical design
The test vehicle uses a liquid-fueled propulsion system and has a modular architecture, allowing different engines and propulsion configurations to be swapped in. Maneuverability is achieved through:
- a reaction control system (RCS),
- thrust vector control on the main engine.
The overall concept is tailored to lunar surface conditions and lunar lander requirements.
Aklan notes that including theoretical work, the project took over 3 years, with about 1 year for physical manufacturing. The vehicle is fully domestic, built primarily with local manufacturers and components; assembly and integration were carried out entirely by the TURKUZAYSAN team.
From competition team to space startup
The roots of the project lie in ATAUNI ROCKET TEAM V from Atatürk University, which won the first Vertical Landing Rocket Competition at TEKNOFEST in 2022 and kept that success in later years. The same young entrepreneurs later founded TURKUZAYSAN, winning first place in the 2025 TUSAŞ Hangar Campus Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program with this project.
Now based in Teknopark Ankara in the İvedik Organized Industrial Zone, TURKUZAYSAN aims to become an active technology contributor to Turkey’s Lunar Research Program and the broader National Space Program.
Source: AA Bilim-Teknoloji
