Silver Dart (spacecraft)

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".

In February 2007 NASA announced plans to provide PlanetSpace with requirements and specifications to provide crew and cargo flights using the Silver Dart to the International Space Station under the terms of the National Aeronautics and Space Act.

Design

The Silver Dart is based on the US Airforce Flight Dynamics Laboratory FDL-7 program, a lifting body design. In the orbital configuration, the Silver Dart will be launched on top of a single NOVA rocket which is basically 10 Canadian Arrow rocket engines clustered together. A suborbital configuration using a single rocket engine for point to point travel is also being considered. 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.

PlanetSpace have indicated that initial demonstration flights are to begin in December 2009.

Launch Facilities

The Silver Dart will be launched from a 300 acre launch site to be constructed on Cape Breton Island by 2009. [http://space.com/news/060821_planetspace_capebreton.html]

External links

* [http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/051215_planetspace_silverdart.html Space Tourism Firm Unveils Orbital Spacecraft Concept]
* [http://www.space.com/news/070201_nasa_spaceact.html NASA Signs Support Agreements With Two Private Spaceflight Firms]
* [http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/070214_techwed_planetspace.html The Ultimate Glide: PlanetSpace's Suborbital Travel Plan]