DLR Renews Plan For Suborbital Space Plane

[Flyaway]

According to the article the idea has been knocking around for a while in different forms. At the development cost given I cannot see it becoming a reality any time soon.

German space researchers reboot effort to launch hypersonic space plane

The Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), Germany's aerospace research center, has renewed decade-old plans for a suborbital passenger space plane that could fly from Europe to Australia in under 90 minutes. The rocket-powered SpaceLiner, originally conceptualized as a 50-passenger hypersonic airliner, has now been given new urgency and direction with a roadmap for flights within the next 20 years, SpaceLiner project lead Martin Sippel told Aviation Week at last month's American Institute of Aerodynamics and Astronautics' Space Planes and Hypersonics Conference in Glasgow. Sippel spoke at the conference, presenting on SpaceLiner's technical progress and the program's mission definition—which now includes potentially delivering satellites and other payloads to space.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/08/german-space-researchers-reboot-effort-to-launch-hypersonic-space-plane/

 

[Riverghost]

lovely 'concept' - but i think getting any further than that is going to be problematic. Serial production of 2000 rocket engines a year? Flyback booster - WITH mid air capture? & have it all tested within the next 15 years?! and at the end of the day, what does it even achieve? you cant use it to assist satellites to orbit, deploy any meaningful payload to orbit. all of that for a $33 billion development cost.

 

[blackstar]

lovely 'concept' - but i think getting any further than that is going to be problematic. Serial production of 2000 rocket engines a year? Flyback booster - WITH mid air capture? & have it all tested within the next 15 years?! and at the end of the day, what does it even achieve? you cant use it to assist satellites to orbit, deploy any meaningful payload to orbit. all of that for a $33 billion development cost.

One thing that concerns me about SpaceX is the large number of rocket engines that they need to produce if they achieve their planned flight rates. Now I've heard people claim that they are mechanically simpler than internal combustion engines and thus should be easy to produce at high rates. But the inspection and testing for auto engines is relatively straightforward and not very intensive. The engine runs at the right RPM, then you install it in the car.

 

[Hobbes]

When you look at quality control requirements, I suspect rocket engines are comparable to jet engines. Rocket enginess have fewer parts than jets. Jets can be built at a rate of thousands per year, so that doesn't seem to be an unattainable goal for rocket engines.