d to carry four passengers 100 km into space, where they will experience three minutes or more of weightlessness during the 90 minute trip.
The Astrium space jet will take off and land conventionally from a standard airport using its jet engines. At about 12 km altitude, a rocket engine takes over to boost the vehicle's altitude to approximately 100 km. After atmospheric re-entry, the jet engines are again restarted for landing.
BSC Spaceship is a VTHL suboribtal space tourism vehicle proposed by the Benson Space Company ( BSC). The design is partly inspired by, and is an amalgam of, a number of NASA and Air Force vehicles including the X-2 and X-15.
The BSC Spaceship is powered by hybrid rocket motors sourced by SpaceDev, and will launch vertically to an minimum altitude of 65 miles. The vehicle is designed to allow for lowered G-forces on re-entry, and features a cabin of large, spread-out windows for improved views of Earth and space.
Armadillo Aerospace is a research and development team headed and funded by computer games entrepreneur John Carmack. The Texas-based team has already developed small manned and unmanned atmospheric test landers powered by hydrogen peroxide rockets. Armadillo Aerospace is now competing for the X-Prize with what it believes to be the simplest possible design.
The rocket, dubbed Black Armadillo, is powered by four hydrogen peroxide engines feeding from a 1000 gallon composite fuel tank. A computer takes attitude measurements from gyroscopes and uses those measurements to throttle the engines 200 times per second, stabilizing the craft. The pilot can also steer the rocket via joystick.
The pilot and two passengers sit with their backs to the nosecone. This unusual position is taken to ensure that the occupants encounter reentry deceleration on their backs as the vehicle reenters the atmosphere nose first. Ascent acceleration is considered by Armadillo Aerospace to be mild enough to permit the unorthodox seating arrangement.
The rocket lifts off vertically, and at burnout coasts up to 100 km (62.5 miles). The rocket makes a nose-first reentry, with foam insulation protecting the aluminum nose section from reentry heating. A drogue chute frees the main parachute, and landing is cushioned by an expendable aluminum nose cap that compresses on touchdown.
Another approach to the problem of achieving HTOL from Kelly Space & Technology - towing the vehicle like a glider at take off in order to save using fuel in the early part of the flight, thereby starting at high altitude with full propellant tanks. It should be possible to get this to work - like in-air re-fuelling and two-stage HTOL. Which will end up with the lowest operating costs? Time will tell!
The SpaceClipper SC-1 is a suborbital reusable VTOL spaceplane proposed by SpaceClipper International, designed to carry up to ten passengers and two flight crew to an altitude of 140 km and back. Although it descends horizontally, it takes off and lands vertically.
The SC-1 features shield doors which protect the craft during ascent and descent, but open to allow views of space and Earth for the four minutes that the vehicle is weightless at the top of its trajectory.
A follow-on fully orbital spaceplane dubbed SC-2 is also proposed, building on the experience gained in developing and operating the SC-1.
Xerus is a two-person reusable spaceplane proposed by XCOR Aerospace, which takes off and lands like a conventional aircraft. It is capable of climbing suborbitally to 100km using a cluster of reusable rocket engines developed by XCOR to use non-toxic propellants. After a short period of weightless free fall the vehicle then re-enters the atmosphere. While the primary market for Xerus is space tourism, the vehicle is also being targeted at microsatellite delivery and suborbital science payloads.
XCOR's Lynx, announced in March of 2008, is a follow-on design based on Xerus. Like Xerus, Lynx is a two-person suborbital spaceplane designed for the space tourism market but also aimed at science and research applications.
XCOR's primary business is the 