An automobile-sized prototype space plane is ready for an around-the-world test flight to demonstrate technologies to fly on a future orbital space plane, reusable rocket stages, and interplanetary sample return probes.
The $170 million Intermediate Experimental Vehicle is set for launch aboard a Vega rocket from the Guiana Space Center, a European-run space base on the northern coast of South America.
Its flight will last 102 minutes from takeoff to splashdown. The lifting body spacecraft will reach a maximum altitude of about 260 miles on an arcing suborbital trajectory before slamming back into Earth’s atmosphere at 7.5 kilometers per second, or about 16,800 mph.
The IXV will use two electrically-actuated flaps and rocket thrusters control its descent. GPS navigation will help guide the demonstrator toward a parachute-assisted splashdown in the equatorial Pacific Ocean nearly 3,000 miles west of Colombia.
The timeline below highlights major events during the mission.
Back on Earth after a whirlwind journey 20,000 miles around the world, an experimental re-entry demonstrator is on the way to Europe for post-flight inspections aimed at gathering design inputs for future reusable space vehicles.
Engineers have put the finishing touches on a prototype spaceship representing a leap in European space technology, aiming for liftoff Feb. 11 for a flight 260 miles into space and back to Earth for a pinpoint splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
A European re-entry demonstrator launched aboard a solid-fueled Vega rocket at 1340 GMT (8:40 a.m. EST) from French Guiana, kicking off a whirlwind 102-minute around-the-world test flight to validate technologies that could be used on future reusable launchers and spaceships.