Hopper (spacecraft)

Each of these concept vehicles consisted of a reusable winged booster, which was paired with an expendable upper stage, to deliver a payload in geostationary transfer orbit.

[5] Aerodynamically, the HTO Hopper configuration features a rounded delta planform wing at a 60-degree leading edge sweep, which was matched with a central vertical stabilizer and a flat-bottomed underside for the purpose of maximizing the spacecraft's performance during hypersonic flight.

[6] It featured a relatively traditional slender missile-like body but differed in the presence of a small delta wing at a 45-degree leading edge sweep and a central vertical stabilizer arrangement.

In terms of its structure, the VTO Hopper possessed a circular cross section complete with a loft fillet on the underside of the craft which functioned to accommodate both the wings and body flap; it also featured a booster which was designed to carry the payload upon the nose of the fuselage.

[7] The HTO Hopper was adopted for further development work under another ESA initiative in the form of the FESTIP (Future European Space Transportation Investigations Programme) system design study.

[3] An EADS spokesperson stated that a reusable launch vehicle like Hopper could halve the cost of sending a satellite into orbit, which reportedly had been determined to be around US$15,000 per kilogram of payload in 2004.

It was intended that the spacecraft would land at a predetermined island facility in the Atlantic Ocean, after which it would have been transported back to French Guiana by ship for further flights.

[citation needed] The Phoenix RLV launcher, the prototype of the Hopper launcher, was announced by DASA in June 1999[9] to be developed and produced as a portion of the wider ASTRA program of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), a €40 million project founded by the German Federal Government, EADS' Astrium subsidiary and the state of Bremen.

[8] The fuselage interior was occupied by various avionics and onboard systems, providing navigation, data transfer, energy supply, and artificial intelligence functions to allow it to automatically perform its data-gathering mission.

More specifically, the Phoenix explored various methods of performing automatic landings that would not involve any human intervention; guidance was provided by multiple means of navigation, including GPS satellites, radar and laser altimeters, and various pressure and speed sensors.

[12] In the long term, if successful and viable, the landing technology tested on Phoenix was to be incorporated into a follow-on re-usable vehicle, which was to be named Socrates.