Suborbital Vehicles

What's Next ///

There are two broad classes of suborbital vehicles—horizontal takeoff/landing and vertical takeoff/landing. Significant advances were made on both fronts in 2010.In April, XCOR Aerospace announced that it had completed wind-tunnel testing on the Lynx vehicle. XCOR Aerospace is now ready to start constructing the Lynx in preparation for initial flight tests this year.Earlier in the year, Virgin Galactic's mother ship and SpaceShipTwo (which was rolled out in late 2009 ) had done "captive carry" test flights, in which the aircraft took off and landed while attached. But in early October they performed the first " drop test ," in which the latter flew on its own and glided safely to a landing in Mojave, California. This was a key first test of many that will eventually allow SpaceShipTwo to fly into space with several passengers.On the vertical-takeoff front, in late April, Masten Space Systems, which won the Lunar Landing Challenge at the end of 2009, achieved a historic first—the shutdown and relight of a rocket engine during a flight in which the vehicle was reliant on that engine for a safe landing. XCOR had previously demonstrated such a shutdown/relight and made it routine for rocket racing, but that was with a winged vehicle that could glide to a landing if the engine didn't restart. A restart failure for Masten would have meant the loss of the vehicle. This is a crucial capability for a vehicle that will be lofted into space, then shut down its engine upon re-entering the Earth's atmosphere and restart it to enable a safe landing. Armadillo Aerospace later demonstrated the same capability.Starting construction of the Lynx, more flight testing for SpaceShipTwo—including powered flight when the new hybrid rocket engine is ready—and flights into space for Masten and Armadillo, using new vehicles with supersonic aeroshells.