DocM Posted August 19, 2015 Share Posted August 19, 2015 (edited) ISTM a job for REL's SABRE or SIMITAR engines and A2 single stage airframe rather than rehashing the US's Blackstar military program. New Road Map For DLRs Suborbital SpaceLiner A decade after DLR first unveiled the suborbital SpaceLiner concept, the German aerospace research agency is mapping out an ambitious development road map to help define mission goals and stimulate potential industry and government funding for a flying prototype. Conceived as a winged, hypersonic airliner capable of carrying 50 passengers from Europe to Australia in 90 min., the rocket-powered system incorporates a flyback booster and other dual-use technologies that could also be applied to architectures for launching payloads into low Earth orbit. To serve a potentially larger market, DLR has also outlined a 100-seat version capable of 1-hr. intercontinental and transpacific missions. Now we want to come up with a development road map, says Martin Sippel, leader of the SpaceLiner project at DLRs Space Launcher Systems Analysis group in Bremen, Germany. Speaking to Aviation Week at the American Institute of Aerodynamics and Astronautics Space Planes and Hypersonics Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, he added, we need a mission definition and this year we will do that in Phase A. The goal is to focus on firm time lines that would help define future funding and investment requirements for a flight vehicle in the mid-2030s, the development of which would also reduce the cost of space launch by stimulating large production runs of reusable rocket engines and booster vehicles. The point-to-point passenger market already exists and is growing. We have several hundred million passengers traveling intercontinental distances each year and we think space should have a tiny portion of that, says Sippel. But even if the share will only be 0.2% why should we do it? From a space perspective thats a potentially huge impact. We could increase hundredfold the number of launches and, as it is a reusable vehicle designed for between 150 and 300 flights, you have serial production of engines. If you have 11 engines per vehicle then you would build 2,000 engines per year or so. Thats a huge production run, and that was the motivation.>>Having evolved the SpaceLiner over several configurations of propellant combinations, staging, aerodynamic shaping, and structures, DLR believes the latest SpaceLiner 7-2 configuration is a good jumping-off point for the start of outline development. The booster has now grown to more than 82 meters (270 ft.) in length and has a cranked delta wing with a 36-meter span and a thicker trailing edge, while the passenger stage will be around 65 meters long and is configured with a sharp delta wing with a span of 33 meters.> Unobscured Vision 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draggendrop Veteran Posted August 19, 2015 Veteran Share Posted August 19, 2015 It's nice to see articles like this one, being published more often now.....similar to decades ago when the covers of "Popular X" always had a "future of tomorrow" idea. SpaceX, Blue origin,and a host of others have given this a kick start. These are concepts...put out there like a fishing lure to see what bites and what is warranted and cost effective.....we follow down the road such as......... AVRO Arrow Concorde sst TU-144 sst Maglev rail Space Shuttle and Buran Spaceship Two All futuristic idea's.......but all come down to viability...the economics of the venture. Will the cost of a seat be reasonable for trans continental travel...or will space tourism be able to justify the seat cost.....the only way to find out is to throw out idea's like this company is doing and see where it goes.......we may be in for a surprise.... Cheers....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts