Even as the
private spaceflight firm PlanetSpace,
Inc. aims for orbital space shots, the Chicago-based company is also
drawing up plans for a suborbital Earth
transit system.
The firm's
planned Silver
Dart space plane, currently targeted at providing NASA crew and cargo
services to the International
Space Station (ISS), could be equipped with a suborbital rocket engine for
point-to-point flights on the Earth, PlanetSpace CEO Geoff Sheerin told SPACE.com
[image].
"This is
the killer application for space industry," Sheerin said. "You've got a destination
already."
PlanetSpace
officials are planning to make their first Silver Dart demonstration launch by
December 2009 [image].
"The initial
tests of that Dart are suborbital," Sheerin said. "We're talking about an initial
test flight that might go 5,000 miles (8,046 kilometers) down range, so
with the Dart you can glide quite a ways."
Point-to-point
aboard Silver Dart
PlanetSpace's
Silver Dart spacecraft calls for a metal lifting body frame based on the U.S.
Air Force's Flight Dynamics Laboratory-7 (FDL-7) and NASA's X-24B test aircraft.
The spacecraft is designed to fly at hypersonic speeds of up to Mach 22, launch
atop either an orbital NOVA booster [image]
or suborbital rocket, and make a runaway landing [image].
PlanetSpace's
planned suborbital Silver Dart booster is reminiscent of NASA's Little Joe rocket
used during tests of the space agency's Mercury
spacecraft launch escape system [image].
It's the
Silver Dart's potential glide range, more than 25,000 miles (40,233 kilometers)
at hypersonic speeds, which lend it to point-to-point flights around Earth,
Sheerin said.
"A flight from
New York to Paris in 20 minutes is not out of the question using that system,"
Sheerin said, adding that it is the longer, 16-hour flights where Silver Dart
could excel. "The best uses for this vehicle are places where it might take a
jet a long haul."
Sheerin
said PlanetSpace is studying plans for an initial five-vehicle fleet of Silver
Dart spacecraft, each capable of making eight-passenger or unmanned cargo trips
into suborbital or orbital space. Versatility, he added, is the goal.
"If they're
not flying to orbit, then I'd like to fly them point-to-point and if they're not
flying point-to-point than I'd like to be flying them on short jaunts into
space on space tourist flights," Sheerin said. "They're flight rate will be
very high."
PlanetSpace
plans to launch spacecraft from Cape Breton
in Nova Scotia [image],
and also has an agreement with NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center for
technical support in spacecraft and booster development.
Laying
the foundation
Earlier
this month, NASA announced plans to support
PlanetSpace's orbital space plane efforts by supplying specifications and
advice, but no funding, for potential crew and cargo transport services to and
from the ISS once the agency's shuttle fleet is retired in 2010.
The U.S.
space agency also agreed to similar deal with Reston, Virginia's Transformational
Space (t/Space), while two other firms - Oklahoma's Rocketplane
Kistler and California-based Space
Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) - are sharing the space agency's initial $500 million
Commercial Orbital Transportation System (COTS) investment.
"We don't
have any agreements with them to do demonstrations to the space station," Alan Lindenmoyer,
manager of NASA's Commercial Crew and Cargo Program Office at the Johnson Space
Center, told SPACE.com of the COTS contenders and other firms.
A
subsequent COTS bid for ISS services will be open to all capable parties,
Lindenmoyer added.
"Our belief
is that once we're able to satisfy NASA's requirements for going to the International
Space Station, then all the other requirements for passengers and crew would
also be satisfied," Sheerin said.
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