Such tests are very dangerous

Mar 2, 2010 08:59 GMT  ·  By

Scientists at the Italian Center for Aerospace Research (CIRA), in Capua, announce that they are planning to conduct a series of very dangerous maneuvers in the near future, using a new space plane that they designed. The spacecraft is unmanned, and experts at the Center say that they want to test and see if it can maneuver through the scorching temperatures of atmospheric reentry, while traveling at Mach 1.2, faster than the speed of sound. If the conclusions are satisfactory, then this type of futuristic spacecraft could become very common in the future, Space reports.

The international space industry is currently aiming at developing hypersonic space planes that could take off from Earth-based runways, and reach the orbit without breaking a sweat. They also need to design vehicles that can reenter the atmosphere with no danger to their crews or passengers, or to the precious cargo they would carry. But, in order for this vision to become reality, a lot of groundwork needs to be laid by trial-and-error, experts say. This is precisely what the CIRA team is trying to accomplish, with its new design called Pollux. The unmanned vehicle could fly as soon as this month.

“We want to fly while re-entering, and we want to reduce the logical gap between aeronautics and space,” CIRA Space Programs leader and USV (Unmanned Space Vehicles) Program Manager Gennaro Russo says. The new vehicle is built to take into account test results obtained from its “younger brother,” the Castor prototype vehicle. The craft, which features no engines, managed to successfully fly at altitudes ranging from ten to 16 kilometers while reaching a speed of Mach 1.08. This is just above the speed of sound, but the results are very helpful for designing Pollux.

During the new experiments, CIRA experts say that the Pollux vehicle will be taken to an altitude of 24 kilometers, via a stratospheric balloon. Once this height is reached, the unmanned space plane will be dropped, and it will then begin to perform a host of programmed maneuvers. It is scheduled to perform a nose-up, an angle-of-attack, and a two-bank turn maneuver, before finally deploying its parachutes, and landing safely. All of this needs to be performed as it falls from 24 to five kilometers. At the second altitude, it needs to deploy its parachutes, so that it has enough time to decrease its descent speed.

“Being able to handle the flight and not simply the drop along a re-entry trajectory, you will be able to select the landing spaceport regardless of the weather conditions during the re-entry,” Russo says.