Silver Dart (space craft)
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Silver Dart is a proposed eight-person lifting body orbital spacecraft announced by PlanetSpace. The company intends to compete for contracts for cargo and crew flights to the International Space Station (ISS) under the NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. It is named after the first airplane to fly in what was then the British Empire - the Silver Dart.
[edit] Design
In a press release the company said the Silver Dart is based on the US Airforce Flight Dynamics Laboratory FDL-7 program, a lifting body design, will be launched on top of about 10 Canadian Arrow rocket engines. It is capable of stable hypersonic atmospheric flight at speeds up to Mach 22, and will glide to earth like the Space Shuttle.
NASA's X-24B test aircraft is also based on the FDL-7 lifting body.
The ship will use a metal skin that will be more resistant to weather conditions than the Space Shuttle according to Paul Cyzsz, an engineer with the FDL-7 program now with PlanetSpace.
[edit] Launch Facilities
The Silver Dart will be launched from a 300 acre launch site to be constructed on Cape Breton Island by 2009.[1]
[edit] External Links
Space Tourism Firm Unveils Orbital Spacecraft Concept
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