"Designers unveil mad spaceship concept that will definitely never fly" would be a more accurate headline, though it's a fun idea.
The concept pairs the winged, reusable booster stage from DLR’s long-running SpaceLiner project with an expendable upper stage designed to maximize payload. It burns liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, which is a more efficient combination than the methane and oxygen that power Starship’s Raptor engines, and its booster does not land the way Starship’s does.Instead of descending tail-first on a column of rocket fire, the SpaceLiner booster glides back through the atmosphere on wings, before being captured in mid-air by a large subsonic aircraft. It is a recovery method that sounds almost science fictional, but one that DLR researchers argue has distinct advantages: the booster needs no fuel reserved for landing burns, which means more of every kilogram of propellant goes towards actually reaching orbit.
In comparison, Starship is more than three times heavier than the RLV C5 at launch. A significant portion of that mass is the cost of full reusability: heat shield tiles, landing fuel, structural reinforcements, the wings. Of every ton Starship sends to orbit, only around 40% is payload however the RLV C5, with its simpler partially reusable approach, manages to put 74% of its mass-to-orbit into useful payload. What it lacks in raw capacity, it gains in efficiency.
Europe Just Unveiled a Serious Rival to SpaceX’s Starship
A DLR analysis suggests Starship may define the future of heavy launch, but Europe could pursue a smaller, more efficient partially reusable path of its own.Vincent L (SciTechDaily)
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