 suborbital VTOL RLV from Masten Space Systems, designed for scientific and educational payloads.
daVinci is a reusable vertical takeoff and landing vehicle designed to carry three people into space and back. It does not take off from the ground, however. Instead, a piloted hot air balloon lifts the vehicle to an altitude of 40,000 ft. Twin LOX/kerosene engines then ignite with the vehicle suspended at a 60 degree attitude, and daVinci detaches from underneath the balloon before assuming vertical orientation and climbing to 130,000 ft. The engines then cut out and daVinci continues to rise without thrust to an eventual height of 120 km before descending back into the atmosphere, after approximately three minutes of weightlessness.
Reentry and landing is achieved by deploying first an inflated shuttlecock for stability and then a protective inflated cone to shield the engines and cushion the landing. A parachute is deployed at 10,000 ft, slowing daVinci to 4 m/s on contact with the ground.
An interesting feature of the vehicle is the use of external cameras to track the vehicle both on the way up and on reentry.
The Cosmopolis XXI is a two-stage sub-oribtal spacecraft proposed by the Cosmopolis XXI Suborbital Corporation and Myasishchev Design Bureau ( MDB) designed for sub-orbital space tourism. It is an X-Prize contender.
The first stage carrier is the M-55X "Geophysika", which will climb to a 17km altitude before ascending at a steep angle to 20km where the second stage Cosmopolis XXI (or C-21) disengages and separates.
The C-21 second stage is a rocket powered lifting body RLV capable of carrying a pilot and two passengers to a peak altitude of roughly 100km (62 miles). Once the rocket engine burns out the crew compartment separates from it, after which it will enters free-fall for a few minutes before descending and re-entering the atmosphere. Descent is achieved though the deployment of aerodynamic control surfaces, followed by a landing divided into an initial glide-phase and a final parachute-assisted touch down.
Proposed by Star-Raker Associates, Star-Raker is a single stage to orbit horizontal take off and landing ( SSTO HTOL) vehicle intended to launch payloads of upto 50,000 lbs and 200,000 lbs in its standard and largest configurations, with an esitmated cost of $100/lb of payload to LEO.
Low altitude engines comprise of ten supersonic multi-cycle airbreather ramjets, based on current existing technology, that lift the vehicle to 100,000ft at a speed of Mach 6 from take off at a conventional commercial airport, at which point rocket propulsion takes over. The aeroshell is a tri-delta form with Whitcomb airfoil lifting sections that provide a high volume for LOX/LH storage, the conical fuel tanks imparting increased strength and resiliance to the wing sections in normal flight and volumetric properties of comparable efficiency to normal rocket fueltanks when ballistic.
A smaller potential X-Prize contender with a payload of 10,000lbs also exists.
Kitten is a suborbital resuable vehicle taking three people, 1 pilot and two passengers, proposed by the Cerulean Freight Forwarding Company. Designed to attain an altitude of around 235km, the expected flight time is 45 minutes, of which 6 are in zero G. The craft is powered by novel ceramic composite engines with a fuel mixture of either Propane/Lox or Methane Lox.
As well as being a potential X Prize contender, an expendable second stage named 'mitten' is also planned, to enable Kitten to launch microsatellites to LEO. CFFC intend to market Kitten as a kit for assembly as well as sold as a completed vehicle.
Two larger versions of the vehicle are also proposed for the future: Calico, a short stay LEO vehicle capable of carrying 9 people or 2 tonnes of payload, and Angora, a much large vehicle capable of sustaining 40 people in LEO for up to two weeks, aimed at the space tourism market. Both these larger vehicles are designed to use a metallic wire mesh parafoil to assist in reentry.
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SCS is a fully recoverable fully reusable piloted passeng