Private Spacecraft Developer Settles on New Design

Published: Nov 23, 2005
Source: www.space.com



A private space firm with orbital aspirations has revamped its plans for a crew-carrying spacecraft.

Poway, California-based aerospace firm SpaceDev has a new design for its Dream Chaser vehicle and hopes to offer suborbital rides within two years, with orbital flights to follow.

Instead of deriving a spacecraft from NASA’s X-34 space plane concept, the firm has opted for a blunt-nosed lifting body approach to cut down on reentry heating stresses, SpaceDev chief Jim Benson said in a telephone interview. The plans stem from work SpaceDev performed with NASA’s Ames Research Center to study the use of hybrid rocket propulsion for spaceflight testbeds.

“Because of the X-34’s pointed nature and sharp edges, the high temperatures would meet the limits of our vehicle right at the ragged edge,” Benson said, adding that the new Dream Chaser design more closely resembles the Horizontal Landing-20 (HL-20) model studied by NASA’s Langley Research Center. “The HL-20 was a great little vehicle and it’s already designed.”continue..