ESA tests parachutes and guidance system for its proposed Space Rider reusable mini-shuttle
Click for original image.
The European Space Agency (ESA) revealed today that it has completed drop tests from a helicopter of an engineering vehicle of its proposed Space Rider reusable mini-shuttle — similar in concept to the U.S. military’s X-37B — testing the spacecraft’s parachutes and re-entry guidance system.
The drop-test campaign had two objectives: the qualification of the parachutes used to slow the spacecraft during descent, and to test the software that controls the parafoil, guiding the Space Rider’s reentry module to its precise landing site. Space Rider models were dropped from a CH-47 Chinook Italian Army helicopter from altitudes ranging from 1 to 2.5 km, at the Italian military’s training and experimentation area Salto di Quirra.
The press release provides no movie of any of the drop tests, and the images it provides are almost all taken from very far away, making it impossible to see in detail what the engineering vehicle looks like. Only one picture clearly shows it, and that is what I have posted to the right. This is not a model of a spacecraft, but a square box carrying the parachutes and sensors.
Note also that ESA was doing similar drop tests last summer of a similar model. Apparently they aren’t yet ready to test the real thing.
This X-37B copy was first tested by ESA in 2015 and by 2017 the agency was promising it would be flying commercially by 2025. A decade later and they have not yet begun testing a full scale spacecraft. In addition, ESA has established some very complex rules about who can use it commercially, rules so complex I predict few will be interested.
Europe might be trying to adopt capitalism and freedom as its model, but in many ways it behaves as if it hasn’t the foggiest idea what it is doing.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Click for original image.
The European Space Agency (ESA) revealed today that it has completed drop tests from a helicopter of an engineering vehicle of its proposed Space Rider reusable mini-shuttle — similar in concept to the U.S. military’s X-37B — testing the spacecraft’s parachutes and re-entry guidance system.
The drop-test campaign had two objectives: the qualification of the parachutes used to slow the spacecraft during descent, and to test the software that controls the parafoil, guiding the Space Rider’s reentry module to its precise landing site. Space Rider models were dropped from a CH-47 Chinook Italian Army helicopter from altitudes ranging from 1 to 2.5 km, at the Italian military’s training and experimentation area Salto di Quirra.
The press release provides no movie of any of the drop tests, and the images it provides are almost all taken from very far away, making it impossible to see in detail what the engineering vehicle looks like. Only one picture clearly shows it, and that is what I have posted to the right. This is not a model of a spacecraft, but a square box carrying the parachutes and sensors.
Note also that ESA was doing similar drop tests last summer of a similar model. Apparently they aren’t yet ready to test the real thing.
This X-37B copy was first tested by ESA in 2015 and by 2017 the agency was promising it would be flying commercially by 2025. A decade later and they have not yet begun testing a full scale spacecraft. In addition, ESA has established some very complex rules about who can use it commercially, rules so complex I predict few will be interested.
Europe might be trying to adopt capitalism and freedom as its model, but in many ways it behaves as if it hasn’t the foggiest idea what it is doing.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
That thing doesn’t deserve to be called a shuttle.
Such ASSET/PRIME designs are little more than chisel nose, flat warheads.
I must be the only one who is hearing about a steerable parafoil for reentry for the first time. Not as elegant as landing on a runway but sounds better than 1960’s splashdown. Seems like a cost effective way to land precisely. Last to know again.
China and India already have a X-37 analogue. What’s Europe’s problem, jump on the bandwagon already.
John: A bit of history: The man who invented the first hang glider, Francis Rogallo, worked for the N.A.C.A and then NASA (after the agency transformed). In the mid-1960s he proposed using his design to control the return of the Gemini capsule that I think was going to be used for the military’s Manned Orbital Laboratory (MOL). MOL was never flown, but I think its later designs rejected Rogallo’s idea.
They have this paraglider on display in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center (west of Dulles Airport).
https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/wing-rogallo-paraglider-gemini/nasm_A19710831000
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/paraglider-nasa-almost-could-have-used-didnt-bring-astronauts-back-earth-180972106/
See this article also:
How To Fly Without A Plane
The smaller the craft–the more wing-loading…one of the reasons getting the TPS for X-37 was a problem:
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20040086536
As you can see MSFC’s contribution is rather more significant than believed.
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20040086536/downloads/20040086536.pdf
Folks in the Maker world are having a go at shuttle design:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c-kXHJ_qEo
The orbiter they came up with has a less roomy tail than Buran–itself slimmer than STS’ Columbia style orbiters.
Then I remembered the concept of “staged re-entry.”
https://spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com/2017/02/
I looked at the side view drawing–and wondered if that might be scaled up to a great size.
The lifting body would hold only methalox tanks, Raptor engines, and TPS.
An orbiter atop this no longer needs much of a heat shield (emergency only ablatives), and isn’t as much of an eggshell.
With better TPS, the orbiter might return separately—tankage and engines returning as one lifting body.
Thoughts?