Robotic mini-shuttle
June 14, 2011
The European Space Agency could launch a new unmanned, robotic miniature space shuttle by 2020, presuming that upcoming planning meetings, which begin this month, approve the project.
The new, as-yet-unnamed shuttle, would be the next version of ESA's Intermediate Experimental Vehicle (IXV), which is slated to enter space in 2013, according to Giorgio Turmino, the IXV's project manager.
"The objectives might be robotic servicing of space infrastructures with a re-flyable system of limited sizes (to limit cost on both the launcher and the spacecraft sides)," Tumino said in an e-mail to Deutsche Welle.
This new craft would likely be the European answer to an American space drone, known as the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, which has flown two space missions since last year.
Budget of 'millions, not billions'
However, Turmino added that it was still too soon to share many details of the new project, including how much it will cost the 18 member-state ESA.
"The idea is to have a prototype representative of an operational system, built and flown after the IXV," he noted. "The budget should be affordable for ESA member states, based on millions not billions."
By comparison, ESA said in an internal newsletter article published in 2006 that the budget for the IXV project was 55 million euros ($80 million), although the BBC reported in 2009 that the IXV's budget was 130 million euros.
The American space shuttle program is schedule to fly its final mission in early July 2011, which will tie all future re-entry spacecraft - which ferry personnel and equipment to the International Space Station - to the Russian space program until 2013.
The IXV, and its planned descendant, would launch from the Guiana Space Center, in Kourou, French Guiana, in South America. Both craft will be designed to survey the Earth from space, as well as potentially repair satellites while in orbit.
"The IXV project objectives are the design, development, manufacturing, and on-ground and in-flight verification of an autonomous European lifting and aerodynamically controlled re-entry system," ESA said on the official IXV web page.
Author: Cyrus Farivar
Editor: Nathan Witkop