Nasa has selected Armadillo Aerospace and Masten Space Systems to perform test flights of their experimental space vehicles.
Under Nasa’s commercial reusable suborbital research programme (CruSR), the flights will demonstrate the capabilities of new vehicles to provide recoverable launch and testing of small payloads for near-space missions, between 65,000ft and 350,000ft from the earth’s atmosphere.
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The CruSR programme offers regular, frequent and predictable access to near-space at a reasonable cost with easy recovery of intact payloads.
Armadillo’s Super-Mod vehicle from Spaceport America in New Mexico will undergo three flights, with the first two flights at an altitude of about nine miles and the third to about 25 miles.
Masten Space Systems’ Xaero vehicle will make four flights from the Mojave Spaceport in California under the programme.
Two flights will reach an altitude of about three miles and two others to about 18 miles, with an engine shutdown during flight.
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By GlobalDataBoth launch vehicles will be modified to mount three antennas for the automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) payload to determine their position using global navigation satellite systems.
