Bristol Spaceplanes (BSP) is a

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aerospace Aerospace is a term used to collectively refer to the atmosphere and outer space. Aerospace activity is very diverse, with a multitude of commercial, industrial and military applications. Aerospace engineering consists of aeronautics and astr ...

company based in

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

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, who has designed a number of

spaceplane A spaceplane is a vehicle that can fly and glide like an aircraft in Earth's atmosphere and maneuver like a spacecraft in outer space. To do so, spaceplanes must incorporate features of both aircraft and spacecraft. Orbital spaceplanes te ...

s with

sub-orbital A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the atmosphere or surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched, so that it will not complete one orbital re ...

and orbital capabilities. The company's stated goal is "to realise low-cost access to space", primarily through reusable launch vehicles, claiming the cost of human space travel has the potential to be reduced by a factor of 1,000.

History

The company was founded in 1991 by David Ashford and has received three feasibility grants in 1993, 2003 and 2011 for the Ascender and Spacecab projects. A scaled down radio-controlled version of the Ascender spaceplane was successfully flown in 1998. In the early 2000s, Bristol Spaceplanes Limited was an unsuccessful entrant in the Ansari X-Prize competition to be the first private crewed spaceflight vehicle to launch and relaunch in a week, losing out to

Mojave Aerospace Ventures Mojave Aerospace Ventures (MAV) is a company founded by Paul Allen and Burt Rutan to handle the commercial spinoffs from the Tier One project. It owns the intellectual property arising from Tier One, and it is in turn owned by Allen (the majori ...

' Tier One combo of SpaceShipOne and WhiteKnightOne. In September 2014 the firm launched a crowdfunding campaign to aid in the development of Ascender, aiming to raise £150,000. In late 2014, the company was conducting bench testing of rocket engine designs for Ascender and is seeking funding to build a working model via crowdfunding. Throughout the lifetime of the company David Ashford has released a number of published books and papers based around the aerospace industry and the exploration of space.

Conceptual vehicles and spacecraft

Ascender

Ascender is a proposed small two-seater suborbital horizontal-takeoff, horizontal-landing (HTHL), jet- and

rocket-powered A rocket-powered aircraft or rocket plane is an aircraft that uses a rocket engine for propulsion, sometimes in addition to airbreathing jet engines. Rocket planes can achieve much higher speeds than similarly sized jet aircraft, but typicall ...

concept which is designed to be able to achieve altitudes of up to via a steep sub-orbital trajectory. This would allow it to be used for

space tourism Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism. During the period from 2001 to 2009, seven space tourists made eight s ...

activity as well as microgravity research during the two minutes of weightlessness. The vehicle would take off from a typical runway using its two turbofan jet engines and climb to cruising altitudes. It would then switch to its

hydrogen peroxide Hydrogen peroxide is a chemical compound with the formula . In its pure form, it is a very pale blue liquid that is slightly more viscous than water. It is used as an oxidizer, bleaching agent, and antiseptic, usually as a dilute solution (3%� ...

rocket engine and climb past and then would reenter the atmosphere and glide back to the runway it took off from, using its jet engines to maneuver. The majority of attention and energy of the company has been focused on the Ascender launcher due to its short-term feasibility compared to the other projects. It has been designed to not require any new materials or unproven components.

Spacecab

The Spacecab spaceplane design concept consists of a large crewed "carrier" aircraft with a smaller "orbiter" attached on top, both of which are derived from Ascender. The carrier would take off from an airstrip and use its turbofan engines to accelerate to mach 2 at which point it would switch over to its LOX/Kerosene rocket engines to accelerate to mach 4. The orbiter craft would then detach and accelerate to orbital speeds and altitudes using its LOX/LH2 rocket. It would be capable of delivering up to 750 kg to

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never mor ...

, and also transporting supplies and crew to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ( ...

, an increasingly important capability following the retirement of the

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program ...

. Spacecab can be thought of as the intermediate next step in development between Ascender and Spacebus, and like Ascender it does not require any new technology or materials and has been the subject of a 1994 feasibility study confirming this claim.

Spacebus

The Spacebus spaceplane concept is the largest, most ambitious, costly, and difficult project proposed by the company. It has a similar, but scaled-up design to Spacecab with a "carrier" craft accelerating up to mach 4 with

Ramjet A ramjet, or athodyd (aero thermodynamic duct), is a form of airbreathing jet engine that uses the forward motion of the engine to produce thrust. Since it produces no thrust when stationary (no ram air) ramjet-powered vehicles require an as ...

engines and then up to mach 6 with rocket engines. The smaller "orbiter" would then detach and accelerate into orbit with LOX/LH2 rocket engines with a payload of up to 5000 kg or 50 passengers. Despite requiring a new Ramjet design and significant developments with the heatshield, rocket engines, hydrogen fuel system, and transparencies, Spacebus is still claimed to be more feasible than other ongoing spaceplane projects.

References