Test Flight Of Space-Hopper Reusable Launch Vehicle

!splut writes: "A New Scientist article reports that Pheonix, the prototype of a new reusable space launch vehicle nicknamed the Space-Hopper, has been cleared for its first test flight. The vehicle is designed to take off horizontally and use a disposable booster to reach orbit, though the prototype will be dropped from a helicopter for the test flight. If the European Space Agency decides to continue development it could reduce the cost of launching small to medium-sized satellites, and could be ready by 2015." A better story is running at space.com.

Comments

Re:too bad....

[seanellis]

You will have noticed that, during the big press conference when the winning design for the X-33 was announced, that the audience was basically silent except for a collective intake of breath.

There was then much muttering about political pressure, pork barrels, etc. and the chosen X-33 design was finally dumped.

The X-33 concept that was apparently the favorite amongst the engineering community was the vertical take-off, vertical landing "DC-Y" concept. This was a evolution of the DC-X prototype which had already been demonstrated.
(see http://gargravarr.cc.utexas.edu/ssrt/images/ and http://members.aol.com/Nathan2go/X33.htm)

VTVL has a big advantage over HTHL designs - all the stresses are in virtuall the same direction all the time. You can therefore make a much lighter design - especially true in a single stage to orbit design.