spacetoday.net: t/Space drop tests booster models

Posted: Wed, Jun 15, 2005, 8:22 AM ET (1222 GMT)
t/Space booster drop test (t/Space)

Transformational Space Corp. (t/Space) announced Tuesday that it has successfully completed a series of drop tests of a scale model of a booster that the company proposes to use to launch manned spacecraft into orbit. The three drop tests, carried out by t/Space and its partner, Scaled Composites between May 24 and June 14, involved a 23-percent scale model of the booster, carried aloft and then released from underneath Scaled's Proteus aircraft. The tests successfully demonstrated a release technique that allows the booster to tilt to the vertical after release and fire its engines while behind the carrier aircraft, a system t/Space says is safer than horizontally air-launched vehicles like Pegasus and SpaceShipOne, and eliminates the need for wings. t/Space has proposed using a full-sized version of the booster to a launch the Crew Transfer Vehicle (CXV), a four-person spacecraft that the company has offered to develop for NASA to fulfill the needs of the Vision for Space Exploration.