Soheil_Esy
Fazanavard فضانورد
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2015
- Messages
- 744
- Reaction score
- 19
- Points
- 18
2013-01-26
DLR is a German aerospace agency that specializes in complex flight systems. In 2007, the agency designed a concept for a hypersonic airliner capable of flying 50 passengers from Europe to Australia in just 90 minutes. The plans were shelved at the time, but now, and nearly ten years later, the company is revisiting the concept and laying out a roadmap to make it real.
"A new kind of high-speed transport based on a two-stage Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) has been proposed by DLR under the name SpaceLiner," the company said in a statement.
Described as a suborbital, hypersonic, winged passenger jet, the idea is now being fully investigated by the DLR’s Space Launcher System Analysis (SART).
"We want to come up with a development road map," Martin Sippel, leader of the SpaceLiner SART told Aviation Week. "We need a mission definition and this year, we will do that in Phase A."
The idea involves two stages, the first consisting of a 9-engine powered rocket. The rocket engine will be powered by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, making it environmentally friendly as well as effective. Propelling the passenger orbiter, the rocket would be capable of reaching 20 times the speed of sound in less than 10 minutes.
Sketch of the SpaceLiner with passenger stage on top and booster stage at bottom position.
The SpaceLiner would be able to reach an altitude of 50 miles in about eight minutes, reaching the Earth’s upper atmosphere. At that point, the second stage of the concept begins after the rocket detaches from the passenger orbiter. The SpaceLiner will then continue on an unpowered gliding journey, at over 15,000 mph, before it descends to its final destination.
DLR also plans to reuse the rocket stage of the SpaceLiner, by sending it back to Earth after it launches the passenger orbiter. This could potentially include having an aircraft fly out to the rocket, latch onto it, and tow it back to Earth.
"The vision is seductive," a DLR statement said. "Boarding in Europe, sit back, and already 90 minutes at the other end of the world to get out again in Australia."
Indeed, if DLR is successful in transforming this vision to reality, a trip from London to Sydney would take about one-tenth of the travel time on a regular passenger aircraft. Passengers can also travel from Europe to North America is just one hour.
DLR plans to test the first prototypes of the design by 2035, with the goal of entering the aircraft into service in the 2040s. Sippel expects that if the project is successful, the SpaceLiners could make 15 flights a day.
Sketch of the SpaceLiner with passenger stage on top and booster stage at bottom position.
Artist's impression of the 'SpaceLiner', capable of reaching 24 times the speed of sound and travelling from London to Sydney in 90 minutes, could be with us by 2050. It is expected to have a capacity for 50 passengers
The SpaceLiner would take approximately eight minutes to climb to an altitude of 50 miles where it reach the earth's upper atmosphere before breaking off from the liquid oxygen and hydrogen-fuelled rocket
Map shows proposed SpaceLiner journey routes. London to New York would take approximately one hour
The Spaceliner would likely require an isolated launch site and careful route planning to keep sonic booms from negatively affecting residential areas. Here is an artist's impression of it launching from Australian desert
Once the SpaceLiner detaches from the rocket, the plan would be for an aircraft to fly out and latch on to the rocket mid-air before towing it towards an airfield where it could glide in to land
One of the stumbling blocks experienced by the design team is the exact shape of the SpaceLiner. Its shape has to tolerate the extreme heat created by gliding at such high speeds through the Earth's upper atmosphere
The glide back down will be a moment for passsengers to catch a glimpse of more familiar territory beyond the windows. Ticket prices would not be cheap and could cost several hundred thousand pounds
Touchdown. A 90 minute journey time from Australia to London would change air travel as we know it
http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/tech1840.html
Video – To Australia in 90 minutes at hypersonic speed
20. February 2013
The revolutionary SpaceLiner concept offers a unique vision for a high-speed passenger transportation system of the future by seamlessly spanning the boundaries between aviation and spaceflight. Currently under design at the German Aerospace Center, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), the ultra-fast hypersonic spaceplane is designed to transport 50 passengers from Australia to Europe in an unprecedented 90 minutes.
The concept is based on a two-stage, fully reusable system – a passenger orbiter and a booster stage with an environmentally friendly rocket propulsion system fuelled by liquid hydrogen and oxygen. The engines will accelerate the SpaceLiner to more than 20 times the speed of sound in less than 10 minutes. Then, upon booster separation and from an altitude of about 80 kilometers, the passenger stage will glide down in a state of unpowered flight to land at its designated destination.
In this video, project manager Martin Sippel and his Australian Monash University PhD candidate, Olga Trivailo from the DLR Institute of Space Systems in Bremen, introduce the SpaceLiner and answer the most important questions about this visionary and cutting edge project.
Video: SpaceLiner with Martin Sippel and Olga Trivailo
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xcy-gA0tfbY"]SpaceLiner - to Australia in 90 minutes at hypersonic speed - YouTube[/ame]
After the initial burn, the reusable booster stage will separate from the orbiter, in which there will be a capsule with a capacity of 50 passengers.
Project manager Martin Sippel
http://www.dlr.de/blogs/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-5921/9755_read-615/
