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ESA's Experimental Wingless Space Plane IXV Ready For a Test Flight
hypnosec writes The European Space Agency has revealed its preparedness for the launch of its experimental "space plane" dubbed Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV). ESA's car-sized, wingless vessel is being tested for re-entry and could build a platform on which design of future reusable spacecraft are based. IXV will be launched on Vega flight VV04 at 13:00 GMT (14:00 CET) for a suborbital flight to test technologies and critical systems for Europe's future automated reentry systems from Kourou, French Guiana, 11 February 2015.
The last X-24s flew in the mid 70s as precursors to the Space Shuttle. I'm glad to have someone working on this kind of technology, even if both known vehicles are unmanned, and even if this one is tiny - only about 1/2 the length of the X-37 which is itself very tiny... it's just a test mule.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Yes. This was the kind of vehicle that Steve Austin crashed before he became the 6 million dollar man.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.