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Fully autonomous vehicle
The self-propelled vehicle was flown last December from the same launch area — a test effort that is being done in partnership with UP Aerospace of Highlands Ranch, Colorado.
Simpson said the name of the project, as well as the craft's propulsion system remains under wraps at this time. The vehicle flown in December and now this month is 8 feet (2.4 meters) long with a wingspan of about 6 feet (1.8 meters), he noted.
Several new test objectives were involved in the vehicle's second flight, specifically in the arena of autonomous flight and avionics, Simpson said.
"This is a fully autonomous vehicle. We're working the autonomous liftoff, control and landing aspects of the vehicle," Simpson explained. When the craft departs its launch rail, there's no human in the loop, with the flight hardware sensing its environment, including winds, to guide itself on a pre-loaded trajectory to touchdown.
For this experimental launch, Spaceport America officials had prepared a dirt landing location. But once the rocket plane diverted from its intended path, Simpson said, it plopped down about one-half mile down range — within spaceport grounds.
"We have another vehicle that's nearly ready to go. We'll learn from Tuesday's flight and take corrective actions," Simpson said. "Although we didn't like the end result, we learned a lot and will crank that into the next flight and keep going – that's my message."
Flies like a rocket, lands like a plane
Simpson said that the vehicle flies like a rocket but lands like a plane. The roughly one-fifth scale rocket plane is being flown to evaluate techniques and procedures for responsiveness to quick launch, ease of operations, and low cost access to space.
Regarding the scaling up of the craft, Simpson said that he and his team want to take one more step by the end of next year. "The philosophy is to test a little, fly a little...and buy down the risk" in a venture to address the nation's needs for responsive, low-cost access to space, he said.
Ultimately, the autonomously controlled, sub-scale unpiloted space plane project is intended to lead to the fielding of a larger-scale system, one that lowers the price tag of lofting satellites into Earth orbit.
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