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Spaceplane
A spaceplane is a vehicle that can fly and glide like an aircraft
in Earth's atmosphere and maneuver like a spacecraft in outer
space.[1] To do so, spaceplanes must incorporate features of
both aircraft and spacecraft. Orbital spaceplanes tend to be
more similar to conventional spacecraft, while sub-orbital
spaceplanes tend to be more similar to fixed-wing aircraft. All
spaceplanes as of 2024 have been rocket-powered for takeoff
and climb, but have then landed as unpowered gliders.
Space Shuttle Discovery
Four types of spaceplanes have successfully launched to orbit,
reentered Earth's atmosphere, and landed: the U.S. Space
Shuttle, Russian Buran, U.S. X-37,[2] and the Chinese Shenlong. Another, Dream Chaser, is under
development in the U.S. As of 2024 all past and current orbital spaceplanes launch vertically; some
are carried as a payload in a conventional fairing, while the Space Shuttle used its own engines
with the assistance of boosters and an external tank. Orbital spaceflight takes place at high
velocities, with orbital kinetic energies typically greater than suborbital trajectories. This kinetic
energy is shed as heat during re-entry. Many more spaceplanes have been proposed, but none have
reached flight status.

At least two suborbital rocket-powered aircraft have been launched horizontally into sub-orbital
spaceflight from an airborne carrier aircraft before rocketing beyond the Kármán line: the X-15
and SpaceShipOne.[a]

Operational principles
Spaceplanes must operate in space, like traditional spacecraft,
but also must be capable of atmospheric flight, like an aircraft.
These requirements drive up the complexity, risk, dry mass,
and cost of spaceplane designs. The following sections will
draw heavily on the US Space Shuttle as the biggest, most
complex, most expensive, most flown, and only crewed orbital
spaceplane, but other designs have been successfully flown.

Launch to space Landing of Space Shuttle Atlantis, a

The flight trajectory required to reach orbit results in crewed orbital spaceplane
significant aerodynamic loads, vibrations, and accelerations, all
of which have to be withstood by the vehicle structure.

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If the launch vehicle suffers a catastrophic malfunction, a conventional capsule spacecraft is

propelled to safety by a launch escape system. The Space Shuttle was far too big and heavy for this
approach to be viable, resulting in a number of abort modes that may or may not have been
survivable. In any case, the Challenger disaster demonstrated that the Space Shuttle lacked
survivability on ascent.

Space environment
Once on-orbit, a spaceplane must be supplied with power by solar panels and batteries or fuel cells,
maneuvered in space, kept in thermal equilibrium, oriented, and communicated with. On-orbit
thermal and radiological environments impose additional stresses. This is in addition to
accomplishing the task the spaceplane was launched to complete, such as satellite deployment or
science experiments.

The Space Shuttle used dedicated engines to accomplish orbital maneuvers. These engines used
toxic hypergolic propellants that required special handling precautions. Various gases, including
helium for pressurization and nitrogen for life support, were stored under high pressure in
composite overwrapped pressure vessels.

Atmospheric reentry
Orbital spacecraft reentering the Earth's atmosphere must shed
significant velocity, resulting in extreme heating. For example, the
Space Shuttle thermal protection system (TPS) protects the orbiter's
interior structure from surface temperatures that reach as high as
1,650 °C (3,000 °F), well above the melting point of steel.[3]
Suborbital spaceplanes fly lower energy trajectories that do not put as
much stress on the spacecraft thermal protection system.

The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster was the direct result of a TPS
failure.

Aerodynamic flight and horizontal landing

Aerodynamic control surfaces must be actuated. Landing gear must be Buran spaceplane rear
included at the cost of additional mass. showing rocket engine
nozzles, attitude control
thrusters, aerodynamic
Air-breathing orbital spaceplane concept surfaces, and heat shielding

An air-breathing orbital spaceplane would have to fly what is known

as a 'depressed trajectory,' which places the vehicle in the high-altitude hypersonic flight regime of
the atmosphere for an extended period of time. This environment induces high dynamic pressure,

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high temperature, and high heat flow loads particularly upon the leading edge surfaces of the
spaceplane, requiring exterior surfaces to be constructed from advanced materials and/or use
active cooling.

Orbital spaceplanes

Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth
orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the
U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as
part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program name
was Space Transportation System (STS), taken from the 1969
plan led by U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew for a system of
reusable spacecraft where it was the only item funded for
development.[4]: 163–166 [5][6]

The first (STS-1) of four orbital test flights occurred in 1981,

leading to operational flights (STS-5) beginning in 1982. Five
complete Space Shuttle orbiter vehicles were built and flown on
a total of 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. They launched from
the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. Operational
missions launched numerous satellites, interplanetary probes,
and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), conducted science
experiments in orbit, participated in the Shuttle-Mir program
with Russia, and participated in the construction and servicing Discovery lifts off at the start of the
of the International Space Station (ISS). The Space Shuttle STS-120 mission.
fleet's total mission time was 1,323 days.[7]

Space Shuttle components include the Orbiter Vehicle (OV) with three clustered Rocketdyne RS-25
main engines, a pair of recoverable solid rocket boosters (SRBs), and the expendable external tank
(ET) containing liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. The Space Shuttle was launched vertically, like
a conventional rocket, with the two SRBs operating in parallel with the orbiter's three main
engines, which were fueled from the ET. The SRBs were jettisoned before the vehicle reached orbit,
while the main engines continued to operate, and the ET was jettisoned after main engine cutoff
and just before orbit insertion, which used the orbiter's two Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS)
engines. At the conclusion of the mission, the orbiter fired its OMS to deorbit and reenter the
atmosphere. The orbiter was protected during reentry by its thermal protection system tiles, and it
glided as a spaceplane to a runway landing, usually to the Shuttle Landing Facility at KSC, Florida,
or to Rogers Dry Lake in Edwards Air Force Base, California. If the landing occurred at Edwards,
the orbiter was flown back to the KSC atop the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), a specially modified
Boeing 747 designed to carry the shuttle above it.

The first orbiter, Enterprise, was built in 1976 and used in Approach and Landing Tests (ALT), but
had no orbital capability. Four fully operational orbiters were initially built: Columbia, Challenger,
Discovery, and Atlantis. Of these, two were lost in mission accidents: Challenger in 1986 and
Columbia in 2003, with a total of 14 astronauts killed. A fifth operational (and sixth in total)
orbiter, Endeavour, was built in 1991 to replace Challenger. The three surviving operational
vehicles were retired from service following Atlantis 's final flight on July 21, 2011. The U.S. relied
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on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to transport astronauts to the ISS from the last Shuttle flight until
the launch of the Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission in May 2020.[8]

Buran
The Buran programme (Russian: Буран, IPA: [bʊˈran],
"Snowstorm", "Blizzard"), also known as the "VKK Space
Orbiter programme" (Russian: ВКК «Воздушно-
Космический Корабль», lit. 'Air and Space Ship'),[9] was a
Soviet and later Russian reusable spacecraft project that began
in 1974 at the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute in Moscow
and was formally suspended in 1993.[10] In addition to being
the designation for the whole Soviet/Russian reusable
spacecraft project, Buran was also the name given to orbiter The Antonov An-225 Mriya carrying
1K, which completed one uncrewed spaceflight in 1988 and was a Buran orbiter in 1989.

the only Soviet reusable spacecraft to be launched into space.

The Buran-class orbiters used the expendable Energia rocket as a launch vehicle.

The Buran programme was started by the Soviet Union as a response to the United States Space
Shuttle program[11] and benefited from extensive espionage undertaken by the KGB of the
unclassified US Space Shuttle program,[12] resulting in many superficial and functional similarities
between American and Soviet Shuttle designs.[13] Although the Buran class was similar in
appearance to NASA's Space Shuttle orbiter, and could similarly operate as a re-entry spaceplane,
its final internal and functional design was different. For example, the main engines during launch
were on the Energia rocket and were not taken into orbit by the spacecraft. Smaller rocket engines
on the craft's body provided propulsion in orbit and de-orbital burns, similar to the Space Shuttle's
OMS pods. Unlike the Space Shuttle whose first orbital spaceflight was accomplished in April 1981,
Buran, whose first and only spaceflight occurred in November 1988, had a capability of flying
uncrewed missions, as well as performing fully automated landings. The project was the largest
and the most expensive in the history of Soviet space exploration.[10]

X-37
The Boeing X-37, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), is a reusable robotic spacecraft. It
is boosted into space by a launch vehicle, then re-enters Earth's atmosphere and lands as a
spaceplane. The X-37 is operated by the Department of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, in
collaboration with United States Space Force,[14] for orbital spaceflight missions intended to
demonstrate reusable space technologies. It is a 120-percent-scaled derivative of the earlier Boeing
X-40. The X-37 began as a NASA project in 1999, before being transferred to the United States
Department of Defense in 2004. Until 2019, the program was managed by Air Force Space
Command.[15]

An X-37 first flew during a drop test in 2006; its first orbital mission was launched in April 2010
on an Atlas V rocket, and returned to Earth in December 2010. Subsequent flights gradually
extended the mission duration, reaching 780 days in orbit for the fifth mission, the first to launch
on a Falcon 9 rocket. The sixth mission launched on an Atlas V on 17 May 2020 and concluded on
12 November 2022, reaching a total of 908 days in orbit.[16] The seventh mission launched on 28
December 2023 on a Falcon Heavy rocket, entering a highly elliptical high Earth orbit.[17][18]

Reusable experimental spacecraft

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Shenlong (simplified Chinese: 神龙; traditional Chinese: 神龍;

pinyin: shén lóng; lit. 'divine dragon'), also known as the
Chinese reusable experimental spacecraft (Chinese: 可重复使用
试验航天器; pinyin: Kěchóngfùshǐyòng shìyàn hángtiānqì; lit.
'Reusable Experimental Spacecraft') is a Chinese reusable
uncrewed spaceplane.[19] According to media reports, the
spacecraft is launched into Earth orbit in a vertical
configuration while enclosed within the payload fairings of a
rocket like a traditional satellite, but it returns to Earth via
autonomous runway landing. Only a few pictures have
appeared since it was revealed in late 2007.[20] It embarked
upon its initial orbital mission on 4 September
2020.[21][22][23][24] In the absence of any official descriptions
of the spacecraft or photographic depictions thereof, some
observers have speculated that the spacecraft may resemble the
X-37B spaceplane of the United States in both form and
function.[25][26]

Suborbital rocket planes

Two piloted suborbital
rocket-powered aircraft
have reached space: the
North American X-15 and
SpaceShipOne; a third, The sixth X-37B mission with a
SpaceShipTwo, has crossed Service module placed inside its
payload fairing
the US-defined boundary of
space but has not reached
An X-15 in flight
the higher internationally recognised boundary. None of these
crafts were capable of entering orbit, and all were first lifted to
high altitude by a carrier aircraft.

On 7 December 2009, Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic unveiled SpaceShipTwo, along with
its atmospheric mothership "Eve". On 13 December 2018, SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity successfully
crossed the US-defined boundary of space (although it has not reached space using the
internationally recognised definition of this boundary, which lies at a higher altitude than the US
boundary). SpaceShipThree is the new spacecraft of Virgin Galactic, launched on 30 March 2021.
It is also known as VSS Imagine.[27] On 11 July 2021 VSS Unity completed its first fully crewed
mission including Sir Richard Branson.

The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-105 was an atmospheric prototype of an intended orbital spaceplane,

with the suborbital BOR-4 subscale heat shield test vehicle successfully reentering the atmosphere
before program cancellation. HYFLEX was a miniaturized suborbital demonstrator launched in
1996, flying to 110 km altitude, achieving hypersonic flight, and successfully reentering the
atmosphere.[28][29]

History of unflown concepts

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Various types of spaceplanes have been suggested since the

early twentieth century. Notable early designs include a
spaceplane equipped with wings made of combustible alloys
that it would burn during its ascent, and the Silbervogel
bomber concept. World War II Germany and the postwar US
considered winged versions of the V-2 rocket, and in the 1950s
and '60s winged rocket designs inspired science fiction artists,
filmmakers, and the general public.[30][31]

United States (1950s–2010s)

The U.S. Air Force invested some effort in a paper study of a
United States Gemini tested the use
variety of spaceplane projects under their Aerospaceplane of a Rogallo wing rather than a
efforts of the late 1950s, but later reduced the scope of the parachute. August 1964.
project. The result, the Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar, was to have
been the first orbital spaceplane, but was canceled in the early
1960s[32][33] in lieu of NASA's Project Gemini and the U.S. Air Force's crewed spaceflight program.

In 1961, NASA originally planned to have the Gemini spacecraft land on a runway[34] with a
Rogallo wing airfoil, rather than an ocean landing under parachutes. The test vehicle became
known as the Paraglider Research Vehicle. Development work on both parachutes and the
paraglider began in 1963.[35] By December 1963, the parachute was ready to undergo full-scale
deployment testing, while the paraglider had run into technical difficulties.[35] Though attempts to
revive the paraglider concept persisted within NASA and North American Aviation, in 1964
development was definitively discontinued due to the expense of overcoming the technical
hurdles.[36]

The Space Shuttle underwent many variations during its

conceptual design phase. Some early concepts are illustrated.

The Rockwell X-30 National Aero-Space Plane (NASP), begun

in the 1980s, was an attempt to build a scramjet vehicle capable
of operating like an aircraft and achieving orbit like the shuttle.
Introduced to the public in 1986, the concept was intended to
reach Mach 25, enabling flights between Dulles Airport to
Tokyo in two hours, while also being capable of low Earth
orbit.[37] Six critical technologies were identified, three relating
to the propulsion system, which would consist of a hydrogen-
fueled scramjet.[37]

The NASP program became the Hypersonic Systems

Technology Program (HySTP) in late 1994. HySTP was United States STS concepts, circa
designed to transfer the accomplishments made in hypersonic 1970s
flight into a technology development program. On 27 January
1995 the Air Force terminated participation in (HySTP).[37]

In 1994, a USAF captain proposed an F-16 sized single-stage-to-orbit peroxide/kerosene

spaceplane called "Black Horse".[38] It was to take off almost empty and undergo aerial refueling
before rocketing to orbit.[39]

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The Lockheed Martin X-33 was a 1/3 scale prototype made as

part of an attempt by NASA to build a SSTO hydrogen-fuelled
spaceplane VentureStar that failed when the hydrogen tank
design could not be constructed as intended.

On 5 March 2006, Aviation Week & Space Technology

published a story purporting to be the "outing" of a highly
classified U.S. military two-stage-to-orbit spaceplane system
with the code name Blackstar.[40]
Illustration of NASP taking off
In 2011, Boeing proposed the X-37C, a 165 to 180 percent scale
X-37B built to carry up to six passengers to low Earth orbit.
The spaceplane was also intended to carry cargo, with both upmass and downmass capacity.[41]

Soviet Union (1960s–1991)

The Soviet reusable spacecraft programme has its roots in the late 1950s, at the very beginning of
the space age. The idea of Soviet reusable space flight is very old, though it was neither continuous
nor consistently organized. Before Buran, no project of the programme reached operational status.

The first step toward a reusable Soviet spacecraft was the 1954 Burya, a high-altitude prototype jet
aircraft/cruise missile. Several test flights were made before it was cancelled by order of the
Central Committee. The Burya had the goal of delivering a nuclear payload, presumably to the
United States, and then returning to base. The Burya programme was cancelled by the USSR in
favor of a decision to develop ICBMs instead. The next iteration of a reusable spacecraft was the
Zvezda design, which also reached a prototype stage. Decades later, another project with the same
name would be used as a service module for the International Space Station. After Zvezda, there
was a hiatus in reusable projects until Buran.

The Buran orbital vehicle programme was developed in response to the U.S. Space Shuttle
program, which raised considerable concerns among the Soviet military and especially Defense
Minister Dmitry Ustinov. An authoritative chronicler of the Soviet and later Russian space
programme, the academic Boris Chertok, recounts how the programme came into being.[42]
According to Chertok, after the U.S. developed its Space Shuttle program, the Soviet military
became suspicious that it could be used for military purposes, due to its enormous payload, several
times that of previous U.S. launch vehicles. Officially, the Buran orbital vehicle was designed for
the delivery to orbit and return to Earth of spacecraft, cosmonauts, and supplies. Both Chertok and
Gleb Lozino-Lozinskiy (General Designer and General Director of NPO Molniya) suggest that from
the beginning, the programme was military in nature; however, the exact military capabilities, or
intended capabilities, of the Buran programme remain classified.

Like its American counterpart, the Buran orbital vehicle, when in transit from its landing sites back
to the launch complex, was transported on the back of a large jet aeroplane – the Antonov An-225
Mriya transport aircraft, which was designed in part for this task and was the largest aircraft in the
world to fly multiple times.[43] Before the Mriya was ready (after the Buran had flown), the
Myasishchev VM-T Atlant, a variant on the Soviet Myasishchev M-4 Molot (Hammer) bomber
(NATO code: Bison), fulfilled the same role.
The Soviet Union first considered a preliminary design of rocket-launch small spaceplane Lapotok
in early 1960s. The Spiral airspace system with small orbital spaceplane and rocket as second stage
was developed in the 1960s–1980s. Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-105 was a crewed test vehicle to

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explore low-speed handling and landing.[44]

Russia
In the early 2000s the orbital 'cosmoplane' (Russian:
космоплан) was proposed by Russia's Institute of Applied
Mechanics as a passenger transport. According to researchers,
it could take about 20 minutes to fly from Moscow to Paris,
MiG-105 crewed aerodynamics test
using hydrogen and oxygen-fueled engines.[45][46]
vehicle

United Kingdom
The Multi-Unit Space Transport And Recovery Device
(MUSTARD) was a concept explored by the British Aircraft
Corporation (BAC) around 1968 for launching payloads
weighing as much as 2,300 kg (5,000 lb) into orbit. It was
never constructed.[47]

In the 1980s, British Aerospace began development of HOTOL,

An artist's depiction of HOTOL
an SSTO spaceplane powered by a revolutionary SABRE air-
breathing rocket engine, but the project was canceled due to
technical and financial uncertainties.[48] The inventor of SABRE set up Reaction Engines to
develop SABRE and proposed a twin-engined SSTO spaceplane called Skylon.[49] One NASA
analysis showed possible issues with the hot rocket exhaust plumes causing heating of the tail
structure at high Mach numbers.[50] although the CEO of Skylon Enterprises Ltd has claimed that
reviews by NASA were "quite positive".[51]

Bristol Spaceplanes has undertaken design and prototyping of three potential spaceplanes since its
founding by David Ashford in 1991. The European Space Agency has endorsed these designs on
several occasions.[52]

European Space Agency (1985–present)

France worked on the Hermes crewed spaceplane launched by Ariane rocket in the late 20th
century, and proposed in January 1985 to go through with Hermes development under the
auspices of the ESA.[53]

In the 1980s, West Germany funded design work on the MBB Sänger II with the Hypersonic
Technology Program. Development continued on MBB/Deutsche Aerospace Sänger II/HORUS
until the late 1980s when it was canceled. Germany went on to participate in the Ariane rocket,
Columbus space station and Hermes spaceplane of ESA, Spacelab of ESA-NASA and Deutschland
missions (non-U.S. funded Space Shuttle flights with Spacelab). The Sänger II had predicted cost
savings of up to 30 percent over expendable rockets.[54][55]

Hopper was one of several proposals for a European reusable launch vehicle (RLV) planned to
cheaply ferry satellites into orbit by 2015.[56] One of those was 'Phoenix', a German project which
is a one-seventh scale model of the Hopper concept vehicle.[57] The suborbital Hopper was a

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Future European Space Transportation Investigations Programme system study design[58] A test
project, the Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV), has demonstrated lifting reentry
technologies and will be extended under the PRIDE programme.[59]

Japan
HOPE was a Japanese experimental spaceplane project designed by a partnership between NASDA
and NAL (both now part of JAXA), started in the 1980s. It was positioned for most of its lifetime as
one of the main Japanese contributions to the International Space Station, the other being the
Japanese Experiment Module. The project was eventually cancelled in 2003, by which point test
flights of a sub-scale testbed had flown successfully.

India
AVATAR (Aerobic Vehicle for Hypersonic Aerospace Transportation; Sanskrit: अवतार) was a
concept study for an uncrewed single-stage reusable spaceplane capable of horizontal takeoff and
landing, presented to India's Defence Research and Development Organisation. The mission
concept was for low cost military and commercial satellite launches.[60][61][62]

Current development programs

China
Shenlong (Chinese: 神 龙 ; pinyin: shén lóng; lit. 'divine dragon') is a proposed Chinese robotic
spaceplane that is similar to the Boeing X-37.[63] Only a few images have been released since late
2007.[64][65][66]

European Union
A test project, the Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV), has demonstrated lifting reentry
technologies and will be extended under the PRIDE programme.[59] The FAST20XX Future High-
Altitude High Speed Transport 20XX aims to establish sound technological foundations for the
introduction of advanced concepts in suborbital high-speed transportation with air-launch-to-orbit
ALPHA vehicle.[67]

The Daimler-Chrysler Aerospace RLV is a small reusable spaceplane prototype for the ESA Future
Launchers Preparatory Programme/FLTP program. SpaceLiner is the most recent project.

The Space Rider (Space Reusable Integrated Demonstrator for Europe Return) is a planned
uncrewed orbital lifting body spaceplane aiming to provide the European Space Agency (ESA) with
affordable and routine access to space.[68][69][70] Contracts for construction of the vehicle and
ground infrastructure were signed in December 2020.[71] Its maiden flight is currently scheduled
for the third quarter of 2025.[72]

Development of Space Rider is being led by the Italian Programme for Reusable In-orbit
Demonstrator in Europe (PRIDE programme) in collaboration with ESA, and is the continuation
of the Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV) experience,[73][74] launched on 11 February 2015.
The cost of this phase, not including the launcher, is at least US$36.7 million.[75] At the ESA

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Ministerial Council held in Seville in November 2019, the development of the Space Rider was
subscribed by the participating member states with an allocation of €195.73 million.[76]

India
As of 2012, the Indian Space Research Organisation is developing a launch system named the
Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV). It is India's first step towards realizing a two-stage-to-orbit
reusable launch system. A space plane serves as the second stage. The plane is expected to have
air-breathing scramjet engines as well as rocket engines. Tests with miniature spaceplanes and a
working scramjet have been conducted by ISRO in 2016.[77] In April 2023, India successfully
conducted an autonomous landing mission of a scaled-down prototype of the spaceplane.[78] The
RLV prototype was dropped from a Chinook helicopter at an altitude of 4.5 kms and was made to
autonomously glide down to a purpose-built runway at the Chitradurga Aeronautical Test Range,
Karnataka.[79]

Japan
As of 2018, Japan is developing the Winged Reusable Sounding rocket (WIRES), which if
successful, may be used as a recoverable first-stage or as a crewed sub-orbital spaceplane.[80]

United States
Dream Chaser is an American reusable lifting-body spaceplane
developed by Sierra Space. Originally intended as a crewed
vehicle, the Dream Chaser Space System is set to be produced
after the Dream Chaser Cargo System cargo variant is
operational. The crewed variant is planned to carry up to seven
people and cargo to and from low Earth orbit.[81] Sierra plans
to manufacture a fleet of the spaceplane.[82]

The Dream Chaser was originally started in 2004 as a project of

Dream Chaser flight test vehicle in
SpaceDev, a company that was later acquired by the Sierra
2013
Nevada Corporation (SNC) in 2008.[83] In April 2021 the
project was taken over by the Sierra Space Corporation (SSC),
spun off from the Sierra Nevada Corporation as its own fully independent company.

The cargo Dream Chaser is designed to resupply the International Space Station with both
pressurized and unpressurized cargo. It is intended to be launched vertically on the Vulcan
Centaur rocket[84] and autonomously land horizontally on conventional runways.[85] A proposed
version to be operated by European Space Agency (ESA) would launch on an Arianespace vehicle.

The Dream Chaser concept and design is a descendant of NASA's HL-20 Personnel Launch
System.

International
The Dawn Mk-II Aurora is a suborbital spaceplane being developed by Dawn Aerospace to
demonstrate multiple suborbital flights per day. Dawn is based in the Netherlands and New
Zealand, and is working closely with the American CAA. On December 9, 2020, the Civil Aviation
Authority of New Zealand, working alongside the New Zealand Space Agency, issued a license

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allowing the vehicle to fly from a conventional airport.[86] On August 25, 2021, the first test-flight
campaign of five successful flights using surrogate jet engines was announced.[87] As of August 15,
2022, 35 test flights have been complete, validating the vehicles aerodynamics, avionics, rapid
deployment and various piloting modes.[88] A qualified 2.5 kN.s pump-fed HTP/kerosene engine is
being installed for high-performance high-altitude flights. Dawn Aerospace previously
demonstrated multiple low-altitude rocket-powered flights per day on their Mk-I vehicle.[89]

See also
Ansari X Prize
List of crewed spacecraft
List of space launch system designs

Notes
a. In 2018, SpaceShipTwo passed the US definition of space of 80km, but not the 100km Kármán
line.

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n-orient-express.html). The New York Times. Retrieved 21 October 2014.
2. Piesing, Mark (22 January 2021). "Spaceplanes: The return of the reusable spacecraft?" (http
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BBC. Retrieved 15 February 2021.
3. "Orbiter Thermal Protection System" (https://web.archive.org/web/20060909094330/http://www
-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/nasafact/tps.htm). NASA/Kennedy Space Center. 1989. Archived
from the original (https://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/nasafact/tps.htm) on 9 September
2006.
4. Williamson, Ray (1999). "Developing the Space Shuttle" (https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4407/vol
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11/21/24, 12:34 AM Spaceplane - Wikipedia

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External links

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