PlanetSpace was a privately funded Chicago-based rocket and space travel project founded by Geoff Sheerin, CEO of the Canadian Arrow corporation.

[3] Geoff Sheerin, President of Canadian Arrow and Dr. Chirinjeev Kathuria, two entrepreneurs with a love of space, joined forces to create PLANETSPACE in the spring of 2005.

Geoff Sheerin proudly announced, "We have found our Paul Allen", presenting the newly formed company PlanetSpace and his new partner Dr.Chirinjeev Kathuria.

RSC Energia launched the first satellite (Sputnik), sent the first man to orbit the Earth (Yuri Gagarin) and built the Mir Space Station.

The vehicle was planned to launch vertically from the ground, on a sub-orbital trajectory, and return to Earth via parachutes and make a water landing, similar to the splashdowns of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo spacecraft.

[5] NASA based its Martin Marietta X-24B test aircraft on the FDL-7 lifting body, and valued the added range and stability of the sleek, sharp-nosed design.

[6] In early 2008 PlanetSpace proposed the Athena III launch vehicle, a 2.8-million-pound-thrust ISS resupply rocket, to NASA under the phase 2 rebid of the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program.