Dumitru Popescu

Dumitru Popescu (born: January 2, 1977) in Râmnicu Vâlcea is an experimental designer of aircraft for private spaceflight and president of Cosmonautics and Aeronautics Romanian Association (ARCA).

In 1997 he studied at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest – Aerospace Engineering. In 1998, together with a group of students, he created ARCA, which has created rockets such as the Demonstrator 2 and 2B, the Orizont, and the Stabilo.

Popescu represents the ARCA team in major X Prize Foundation (XPF) events: ARCA's 2003 and 2007 participation in the X Prize Competition the X Prize Teams Meeting (2004), X Prize Gala (2004) and X Prize Cup (2005, 2006). In 2004 Dumitru was designer and coordinated the launch of Demonstrator 2B rocket from Cape Midia Air Force Launch Base. Demonstrator 2B was the world's first rocket equipped with completely reusable composite materials and a monopropellant rocket engine, ever to fly. Dumitru was designer for ARCA's X Prize class vehicle Stabilo and coordinated the Mission 1 and 2 flights as well as all ground tests of this vehicle. During the ARCA's Google Lunar X Prize program Dumitru will be the team leader as well as the propulsion engineer.

Dumitru Popescu appeared in two cinema movies, Space Tourists by Christian Frei and Spirit and will appear in Helen filmed by ARCA.