The European Space Agency should formally approve this summer the construction of an Italian-led demonstrator that will launch into space on a rocket, fly back to Earth like an airplane and parachute into the Pacific Ocean, according to the mission's project manager.
The Intermediate Experimental Vehicle is on track to blast off on a Vega rocket in late 2013, speed around the Earth at a peak altitude of nearly 300 miles, then drop from space and fly back to Earth with the help of aerodynamic flaps and a parachute. Giorgio Tumino, the IXV project manager at ESA, said the craft passed its final critical design review in May.
Senior ESA officials are now firming up the spacecraft's cost before signing a contract with Thales Alenia Space of Italy to build the vehicle.
Formal approval for the contract signature should come from an industry planning committee meeting at the end of June, Tumino said in an interview.
"We are in quite an advanced stage of the program," Tumino said. "It's not paper, but it's reality. There is an internal European process for the approval of all the activities. We should be able to sign the actual contract by the end of this month."
Sandrine Bielecki, a Thales spokesperson, said the company signed an agreement to be the IXV's prime contractor in 2009. Individual contracts for design work and hardware production are handled separately.
After ESA and Thales sign a final production contract, there is a 27-month schedule planned to manufacture parts, build the spacecraft and test it before shipping the vehicle to the launch site in Kourou French Guiana.
The total cost of the mission is about 100 million euros, or about $143 million.
I hope the funding will get ensured for this, while I like runway landing, such a lifting body is much better in all other aspects.
