Astronautix.com- Mark Wade provides lots of material on many
RLV projects including those that never got past the
design stage, e.g. Dynosaur,
and those actually built, e.g. X-15.
Marcus Lindroos created this nicely organized
archive of materials describing many of the "future
launch vehicle" designs proposed from the early
years of the Space Age till the start of this
century. Includes categories:
Early American Reusable Launch Vehicle
Proposals (1963-67)
THE SPACE SHUTTLE -- From Dream to Reality
(1968-72)
THE 1970s -- Solar Power Satellites and
Advanced Launch Vehicles (1973-80
NASA "Shuttle II" Advanced Manned Launch
System studies (1978-89) 5. Military Spaceplanes
(1978-93)
FAA website was "upgraded" in 2007 and
most of the links to it were broken. You may, however,
be able to track down these and other reports via
their Reports
& Studies section.
History of Private/Commercial
Orbital RLV & Rocketplane Projects in US
Advent
Launch Services (Civilian Astronaut Corp) - planned
to take reservations for space tourism flights were
dropped in April 99 (62 people had put down deposits
but they needed 2000 to fund the vehicle.) Continues
as a vehicle development effort.
This organization has gone through several transformations
over the years:
In the 1990s it began as Pioneer Rocketplane
and it pursued a system that consisted of
a suborbital spaceplane that would be refueled
in flight and used for launching small comsats
via an unmanned second stage.
Founders included Mitch Burnside-Clapp,
Charles Lauer, and Robert Zurbrin. Only Lauer
lasted till the end of teh company
In early 2000s it changed into a company
focused on suborbital space tourism with a
vehicle called the Rocketplane XP based on
a modified Learjet airframe.
In 2006 the firm bought Kistler Aerospace
and won a COTS contract to demonstrate ISS
resupply with the K-1 vehicle.
The company divided itself into two parts:
Rocketplane-Kistler to develop the K-1 and
Rocketplane-Global to pursue the suborbital
tourism market with the XP.
In 2007 the company unveiled a totally new
design for the suborbital vehicle with an
airframe built from scratch rather than from
the Learjet.
The company's COTS contract was terminated
in late 2007 after the company failed to raise
$500M in private capital.
Rocketplane attempted to continue with a
suborbital vehicle program but could not raise
the money.
May 2010 - Company liquidated in Chapter
7 proceedings.
K-1 Expendable Upper Stage - for GEO, lunar
missions, etc.
Service Pallet - microgravity up to 15 days
NewSpace
2010: War Stories from the Entrepreneurial Frontier
- YouTube - In this panel discussion Debra
Lepore, who led Kistler for several years, describes
(starting around the 9 minute mark) some of the
history of the firm and how in 1999 they were
the first to come to an arrangement with NASA
for commercial resupply to the ISS.
Rotary shut down all of its projects by the
end of 2000. Gary Hudson left the company earlier
to work at HMX
and to pursue other interests. The Mojave facility
was closed after an auction of most of its contents.
Rights to the various technologies, e.g. composite
fuel tanks, that were developed by the company
were sold to XCOR, a company founded by several
former Rotary employees.
Insanely
Great? or Just Plain Insane? - Wired 4.05 - May.96
- this article was the first public airing of
the Roton concept. Note that the vehicle described
was much smaller than the vehicle built by Rotary.
The larger size was deemed necessary to serve
the comsat constellation market. However, Gary
Hudson says it turned out to be a big mistake
to go to a bigger vehicle. Made everything much
harder and marginal.
Space Access, LLC
(WaybackMachine.org
- last entry Feb.2004) - this company had a scramjet/rocket
combo design for the first stage vehicle that would
carry a rocket powered booster to take a payload to
orbit. The firm was run by well-respected people from
the hypersonics research field. They needed a multi-billion
dollar investment, however, to get it to fly.
Long articles in Aviation Week, March 30, 1998
and Popular Science, June 1999.
Space Access Space Transportation Architecture
study for NASA
t/Space
- Transformational Space - collaboration of several
companies proposed a low cost orbital/lunar building
block approach for ISS crew/cargo resupply. Won $6M
in study contracts with NASA. However, after failing
to win COTS contract, the effort was suspended. In
2010 they also put in a proposal for the commercial
crew program but also failed to receive a grant.
CXV - reusable capsule proposed
for the earth to LEO part of the CEV project. Rides
an air launched booster derived from the QuickReach
vehicle built by AirLaunch
LLC and developed under a DARPA Falcon project.
Truax
Engineering Multimedia Archive, Thomas Duffey
has collected a great number of articles and videos
dealing with the various rockets designed by Truax.
Benson Space Company
- Spinoff from SpaceDev
formed to develop a suborbital vehicle for space tourism
market. See SpaceDev/Dream
Chaser entry above in orbital projects. The project
was canceled when Jim Benson became seriously ill.
He later died in October 2008.
Orignally, the plan was to use the Dream
Chaser /HL-20 design but in 2007 they changed
to a new design.
The team developed a V2 derived vehicle for
the X-Prize competition but have not flown it
as of December 2006. They are now folded into
PlanetSpace
to combine the Canadian Arrow vehicle with the
Silver Dart lifting body and use the system for
both suborbital and orbital flights. See PlanetSpace
entry.
Explorer
- A Russian project partnering with Myasishchev
Design Bureau announced in 2006 that they would
develop this air launched vehicle. It would provide
pilot plus 4 passengers a ride to 100km.
As if May 1, 2008, the Explorer was still listed
as one of MDB's projects here
and here.
However, it has apparently been canceled.
Navaho
- X15B - Astronautix - discusses the proposal
of Harrison Storms of North American to use a
Navajo first stage booster to launch the X-15B,
high altitude version of the X-15.
M2-F2, M2-F3, HL-10, X-24A, and the X-24B
lifting body prototypes used the Reaction
Motors XLR-11 rocket engine, first used
on the X-1, later on the initial X-15
flights
Universal
Space Lines - DC-X - USL was founded by Pete
Conrad and several other people previously involved
with the DC-X project. The page includes a flight
video.
Orbital Space Plane (OSP)
- Canceled in favor of CEV program
This vehicle was to become the main goal of
NASA's space transportation development plans.
It would provide for crew return from the ISS
as of 2010 and carry out crew transfers to the
ISS by 2012. It will initially be launched atop
an EELV.
pdf
document - Johnson Space Center contains
the Space Act agreements between NASA and Rocketplane
Kistler (page 1) and between NASA and SpaceX
(page 54). It includes the terms of the contracts
(e.g. intellectual property rights), summaries
of the proposals, and a list of the milestones
for each company and how much each will be paid
as it achieves each milestone.
The following six teams passed the initial
selection announced on May.9th. A final cut
to 1 to 3 teams will be made in June 2006
before any funding will be provided:
Rocket
Interceptors and the SR53 - Nicholas Hill-
used De Havilland Spectre liquid propellant
rocket engine with 8,000lbs thrust. Used in
combination with a turbojet on the SR53. Two
prototypes were built, one lost on first flight.
Tech
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