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NASA started the Space Shuttle design process in 1968, with the vision of creating a fully reusable spaceplane using a crewed fly-back booster. This concept proved expensive and complex, therefore the design was scaled back to reusable solid rocket boosters and an expendable external tank .
Unlike the design that eventually emerged, the DC-3 was a fully reusable launch vehicle two-stage-to-orbit spaceplane design with a small payload capacity of about 12,000 lb (5,400 kg) and limited maneuverability. Its inherent strengths were good low-speed handling during landing, and a low-risk development that was relatively immune to changes ...
The X-37 lands automatically upon returning from orbit and is the third reusable spacecraft to have such a capability, after the Soviet Buran shuttle [53] and the U.S. space shuttle, which had automatic landing capability by the mid-1990s, but never tested it. [54]
The Starship is planned to replace all existing SpaceX launch and space vehicles after the mid-2020s: Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and the Dragon spacecraft, aimed initially at the Earth-orbit launch market but with capability to support long-duration spaceflight in the cislunar and Mars mission environments. [161] Both stages will be fully reusable.
After the release of the Space Shuttle Task Group report, many aerospace engineers favored the Class III, fully reusable design because of perceived savings in hardware costs. Max Faget , a NASA engineer who had worked to design the Mercury capsule, patented a design for a two-stage fully recoverable system with a straight-winged orbiter ...
Resembling a miniature NASA space shuttle with the windows blacked out, the reusable and fully autonomous X-37B has been known to carry out research on concepts such as relaying solar energy from ...
Original North American Rockwell Shuttle delta wing design, 1969: fully reusable, with a flyback crewed booster Maxime Faget's DC-3 concept employed conventional straight wings. During the early shuttle studies, there was a debate over the optimal shuttle design that best-balanced capability, development cost, and operational cost.
Snagging the descending 23-story-tall Super Heavy booster with the mechazilla arms represented an unprecedented milestone in SpaceX's drive to develop fully reusable, quickly re-launchable rockets ...