New re-entry Vehicle

Italy has come up with a new re-entry vehicle designed to fly suborbital trajectories. Unlike most space projects the program is fully funded, 100m Euros so it stands a a good chance of actually being built. It is designed to be launched on ESA's new small booster Vega.

The craft is not man rated but it appears to be an analogue of the German pheonix craft.

What is a little dissappointing is it is not due to fly until 2010, while I find it encouraging that Europe is starting to show a lot more interest in space over the last couple of years I dont understand why things are always due to fly 5 years from now.

What with the CEV, Kliper and now USV-X all due to fly in in 2010 its going to get a bit crowded up there.

http://www.flightinternational.com/Arti ... ncept.html

Sounds great. I think some of our astronauts wouldn't mind having a little company up there.

Rather, what does this mean to the other ESA programs? Re: Phoenix, Kliper co-operation etc etc. There is a danger of overstretching and losing focus.

It looks like just another re-entry experiment, like the Japanese HYFLEX. Might not get anywhere, like HOPE-X.

Reading the article the project is being run and financed by the Italian government and although the craft will be designed to launch on Vega so ESA will be involved, I dont see why it should have any impact on whatever else is doing. I guess ESA will not be much more than a launch provider.

I believe that Pheonix is also a separate enterprise paid for and run by private industry, principly EADS. Again ESA will have some involvement but it should be only peritheral.

Neither of the above projects should impact Kliper if ESA decide to cooperate with the Russians.

It is interesting to see that individual European countries are willing to fund quite high profile space projects outright rather than working through ESA and its other members. Is this a sign that there is some frustration with ESA's progress or performance in some areas of space technology or is it a sign of national interests coming to the fore and countries wishing to take sole advantage of new craft should they prove profitable?

NOTE: this thread has now been moved to the new (and more appropriate) European Space Activities forum.

It is a lot like Boeing's OSP concept. I was interested in the article on page 54 of the NOV 14, 2005 AV Week which showed pictures of edged tiles. The Sharp Edge Flight Experiment (Shefex). The parachute failed, but the concept itself is a great advance.