Canadian Arrow test flights announced!

Very cool vid , things are getting closer now!


Iain

Actually, I'm trying to sort out how big things are ... what's that structure thing (center, lower half) that the flames put into silhuoette (briefly), is it some sort of ladder?

DKH

Hmmm......... it kinda looks triangular in shape, fairly big maybe....might be a ladder or stand of somesort, is too hard to tell..


Iain

theirs seemed like the most no-nonsense approach. 50 years old technology.
I'm surprised they haven't gotten to flight status yet.Maybe if they hadn't spent all that money on 'spacesuits' and helmets....

I understand that there are quite a few high powered hobby rocket fans who have tried to get small unmanned payloads in space. If an X-Prize candidate has hardware but doesn't want to put a human in it--perhaps their payload--instead of a human--would consist of one of the high powered rockets--Bumper-WAC style.

You might be able to get a small object in orbit--ahead of Musk in this way.

Now this is a cool idea.

Seems like the Canadian Arrow team have designs on orbital flights from this article.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Conten ... =News/News

Nothing on their website though, which I notice hasn't had to many updates lately.

In between I read it in the article "Space Tourism Firm Unveils Orbital Spacecraft Concept" ( www.space.com/missionlaunches/051215_pl ... rdart.html ) too.

Might there be a connection to the partnership with ARCA?

Not only that the SilverDart has small wings - the project might require an amount of capital that equals the joint capital of the two teams together plus revenues they get by their suborbital vehicles/flights. They could do joint development but seperated production.



Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

Cool design, reminds me of the old National Aerospace Plane which is rather interesting.

I had expected that they might have done some paper studies on a orbital solution but i had expected a logical extension of the Arrow ie clustered engines, ballastic flight profile much like what SpaceX did in scaling up to the F9-S9.

Instead, we have the Silver Dart. Will this be a towed launched design or with jet engines? Thermal issues? It is cool granted, but a winged design happens to be the most difficult.

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/05 ... rdart.html

hmm.... some of my questions answered, more questions raised. If the image is to scale, then it is a pretty cramped 8 persons.




Space Tourism Firm Unveils Orbital Spacecraft Concept
By Tariq Malik
Staff Writer
posted: 15 December 2005
8:00 a.m. ET


A space tourism group developing a suborbital rocket ship is now talking aim at orbital trips with a new spacecraft that doubles as a hypersonic glider.



Canada’s London, Ontario-based firm PlanetSpace unveiled designs for its Silver Dart spacecraft, an eight-person vehicle derived from experimental aircraft studies in the 1970s, Thursday with hopes of carrying fare-paying passengers into orbit and resupplying the International Space Station (ISS).



“The Silver Dart is the DC-3 of the space industry,â€

Any details on the booster vehicle? It looks to me like it would need a big stack similar to SpaceDev's concept that first went with X-34 and then the Lifting Body/upper-stage combo.

It's really hard for me to take this announcement seriously. I can't even imagine how much money they would need to develop such a complex vehicle. (And a booster, too!) People who have actually built and flown real hardware have taken a lot longer and have spent a lot more money. Rutan is still working on a suborbital vehicle, and his company is the only one so far to actually fly something into space. Musk has spent, what, about $100 million just to develop a small, simple booster that is not man-rated. And he hasn't even flown one yet (but I've got my fingers crossed). I wish PlanetSpace luck but they better have really deep pockets.

I do not understand why so many teams and space companies have a tendancy to announce their "next big project" before completing their first craft. If I was the cynical sort then I would think that maybe the initial project was in difficulties and they were trying to find excuses why nothing has happened or to justify an unexpected delay. If I were the very cynical sort then I would start to think that the original project was never going to fly in the first place.

Lucky I'm not then isn't it?

I had expected better of Canadian Arrow because they had started to produce actual hardware, but the lack of updates on their website and no news of the team to speak off makes me start to wonder.

It's to get investment isn't it - to show their funders that they're serious and not just airy-fairy like the rest of them.

Answer: Read This!


From Alan Boyle’s Article at MSNBC.com



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10473484/



Skeptics might say that PlanetSpace is already biting off more than it can chew:

So why take on the Silver Dart? Two recent developments are behind the shift, Sheerin said.

Sheerin said he has been working undercover on the glider design over the past four years with aerospace expert Paul Czsyz — who was part of the original FDL-7 project in the late 1950s and early 1960s and is now a professor emeritus at St. Louis University.

PlanetSpace had planned to take the wraps off Czsyz's work in 2008, after the Canadian Arrow started service. But then NASA announced that it would open up the market for crew and cargo transport to and from the international space station, with proposals due next February. Moreover, Czsyz and a co-author recently finished writing a book that touted the advantages of the FDL-7, "Future Spacecraft Propulsion Systems," with publication also scheduled in February.

"He was about to tell the world what a great vehicle was never built," Sheerin said. "It's good for the industry to see this. It's good for this fledgling space industry, and I think you'll find some of the big aerospace companies will partner with the smaller companies to go after this as well."

That's why PlanetSpace has eased back on development of the Canadian Arrow and is focusing on submitting a Silver Dart proposal to NASA by February.