As reported by Space.com: The European Space Agency (ESA) plans to launch an experimental space
plane this Wednesday to test out technologies needed for vehicles to
survive the return to Earth from space.
The unmanned space plane, called the Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle
(IXV), is slated to blast off Wednesday (Feb. 11) at 8 a.m. EST (1300
GMT) from French Guiana. Its suborbital flight will last 100 minutes.
But first, the reusable spacecraft must separate from the rocket by
itself while out of contact with Earth. (You can watch the IXV liftoff live here on Space.com, courtesy of ESA.)
"The crucial moments will certainly be those after the blackout phase …
The signal from the vehicle after this phase will be an important
sign," Giorgio Tumino, ESA's project manager for IXV, told Space.com via
email.
"The telemetry reception after the blackout will be an important
contribution to the mission's success," Tumino added. "An important
moment after that will also be the correct deployment of the parachute,
since several missions worldwide failed this phase."
If everything goes according to plan, the 16.4-foot-long (5 meters) IXV space plane will
detach autonomously from its Vega rocket at an altitude of roughly 200
miles (320 kilometers). It will soar as high as 280 miles (450 km) and
then come back to Earth for a parachute-assisted splashdown in the
Pacific Ocean.
Space planes are not a new concept for ESA. In the 1980s, the agency
was developing a small space-shuttle-like craft called Hermes to bring
up to three astronauts into space at a time.
Hermes managers added safety precautions, such as ejection seats, to the vehicle's design after NASA's Challenger space shuttle exploded
during launch in January 1986, ESA officials have said. But the added
cost and complication eventually led to the Hermes program's
cancellation in 1992.
"[IXV] is a completely new program, although it builds also on
technological work done during the Hermes period," Tumino said. "An
example is the thermal protection system, whose first elements were
developed in the frame of the Hermes program."
Re-entry study could be useful for multiple applications, he added.
Some possibilities include missions returning from other planets, or
creating reusable rocket stages.
ESA aims to follow the IXV mission with another unmanned space-plane
project called PRIDE (Program for Reusable In-Orbit Demonstrator for
Europe), which would deploy satellites in orbit before returning to
Earth for a runway landing.
ESA is also studying re-entry of one of its International Space Station
cargo vehicles that is expected to return from space Feb. 27, bearing a
load of trash. The Automated Transfer Vehicle-5, which is named after
the late Belgian astronomer and physicist Georges Lemaitre, harbors
internal sensors to track the vehicle's behavior during re-entry, when
it is designed to break apart and burn up.
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