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Space Science

European Space Shuttle Prototype Lands Safely In Sweden 284

Posted by timothy from the that's-just-swedish-law dept.
This Nick Is Taken writes "Yahoo! News reports the successful test of a German designed prototype of the European space shuttle, Phoenix , taking place in the north of Sweden, moving the first all European mission into space one step closer."
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European Space Shuttle Prototype Lands Safely In Sweden More

European Space Shuttle Prototype Lands Safely In Sweden

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  • Where have we heard that name before? (Score:5, Funny)

    by infonick ( 679715 ) * on Sunday May 09, 2004 @05:13PM (#9101826) Homepage
    This prototype space shuttle (named Phoenix), is expected to replace the current shuttles in use in two years time.

    *time passes*

    The prototype space shuttle expected to replace the current fleet owned by ESA will no longer be realeased under the name Phoenix, but instead will be released under the name Firebird. The recent name change was due to another project already underway by the Russian Space Agency. Both decided the name change would be best to avoid confusion between the two projects.

    *time passes*

    ESA's new prototype shuttle was again recently re-dubbed Firefox (formerly Firebird, formerly Phoenix) to avoid confusion with a NASA program that had started up some months earlier...

    *time passes*

    ESA's prototype shuttle program is being braced for yet another name change. This time a Linux web browser project made claim to the name Firefox. The development team for the new shuttle is beginning to wonder weather a name for the project is nessesary.
    • ESA's new prototype shuttle was again recently re-dubbed Firefox (formerly Firebird, formerly Phoenix) to avoid confusion with a NASA program that had started up some months earlier...

      ... and receives a hefty lawsuit from Craig Thomas [geocities.com] and MiG [thinkinrussian.org]. Lovers of red pandas [reptiles.org] everywhere remain baffled, but the Mozilla project team see very little for potential in confusing a web browser with a space shuttle, and so choose to say nothing.
    • *ROTFL*

      Best comment so far on slashdot.

      BTW. In risk of being redundant..

      Is Phoenix a good name for a craft. Isn't that the name of a specific bird that burns up? ;-)

  • Whoa! Where did this come from? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by JessLeah ( 625838 ) * on Sunday May 09, 2004 @05:15PM (#9101838)
    I've never even heard of a European space shuttle. The American one, yes. The old Soviet one (Buran), yes. But European? Hot damn, this is great news!

    Background info please? (Other than that Wikipedia article)

    (On second thought-- wow, does this mean Zefram Cochrane is going to be the first pilot?)

  • not that impresive (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mirror_dude ( 775745 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @05:17PM (#9101849) Homepage
    They flew the dam thing up in a helicopter and it managed to navigate its way back using GPS.
    Correct me if I'm wrong, the only new thing they did was add the word "space" in front of allready existing technology (not that I have anything against that, marketing is very important for success); but I dont think this really deserves front page slashdot treatment.
    Then again I could be completely of base.

    • Re:not that impresive (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Lispy ( 136512 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @05:29PM (#9101896) Homepage
      Well, this in a very early state. I can remember that EADS [eads.com] has been planning on a reentry vehicle for years so this will turn into a shuttle sometime, it's a really big company and the project is funded by european governments. This test might not look too spectacular in itself but it shows that they are finally making reallife tests of their concept and probably they were just testing a small part of the shuttles tech. Most of the stuff you need for a shuttle can be tried and approved on the ground I assume. But the landing system should need some testflights and this is what you were seeing.

    • Re:not that impresive (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hey! ( 33014 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @06:12PM (#9102100) Homepage Journal
      Correct me if I'm wrong, the only new thing they did was add the word "space" in front of allready existing technology (not that I have anything against that, marketing is very important for success); but I dont think this really deserves front page slashdot treatment.

      The thing they did that was new was to meet a milestone in the quest to have the first reusable space vehicle of the twenty-first century.

      How cool is that?

    • I think the impressive thing is that it is beginning to actually take form. While not a technological feat, it means that the project at least has a chance now.

  • Why not just call up Rutan? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by l0ungeb0y ( 442022 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @05:18PM (#9101850) Homepage Journal
    From the article:

    "... but project managers concede a full-size version won't be ready for more than a decade."


    Considering they're already 20 years behind our shuttle,
    why copy from our old tech? Personally, I'd think they'd be better to look at Burt Rutans X-prize project and asking themselves if their old school Arian/Shuttle vehicle approach is really the right way to go, especially if it's going to be a 30 year old solution by the time it launches (if ever).

    Seems to me the ESA is missing a great opportunity to innovate and relying on "tried and proven" rather than pushing the envelope of space exploration.

    • Re:Why not just call up Rutan? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 09, 2004 @05:29PM (#9101894)
      Considering it's claimed to be "affordable" it doesn't sound like copying from old US tech. The US space shuttle costs half a billion dollars per launch...

      • Have you ever heard a contractor or purchasing government ever claim something was not affordable? I think the parent poster had an interesting idea though - if a private company thinks it can produce and use a albeit smaller spacecraft profitably, they probably have some ideas worth looking at.

      • The big question is, why stick with the winged vehicle? Even on a scaled-down crew-only vehicle, the extra cost of maintaining wings and lofting their weight doesn't really seem to come back.

      • affordable (Score:4, Insightful)

        by dpilot ( 134227 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @07:10PM (#9102382) Homepage Journal
        As much as everyone likes to dis the US shuttle as being expensive, it's the most affordable reusable VTHL SSTO vehicle in the world. Obviously it's also the ONLY such vehicle, but IMHO that's a bad side-effect of Star Trek and Star Wars, where we begin to think the task of getting into orbit is *easy* and any unfettered entrepreneur could do it, and it's obviously NASA's jealousy stopping them through regulatory means.

        Ain't so. Getting into orbit is HARD. From a kinetic energy standpoint, it's 25X harder than the X-Prize, which probably will finally get awarded this year. That 25X is over an order of magnitude, and by the time you take compounding difficulties, it's probably more like 2 orders of magnitude harder than the X-Prize.

        After all, this IS rocket science.
        • Are you saying it's better to do things the hard way?
          • No. I'm saying that getting to orbit is HARD. There is no easy way. I'm sure that there are ways easier than the Shuttle, and it's easy to arm-chair quarterback the job NASA has done.

            But at the end of the day, not many people have access to orbit, and IMHO few of us really appreciate the difficulty of the task.

    • Re:Why not just call up Rutan? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Ironsides ( 739422 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @06:07PM (#9102076) Homepage Journal
      Considering they're already 20 years behind our shuttle

      And considering our shuttle was obsolete before the Enterprise even had it's test landing, that will mean this thing will be obsolete by 40 years or more when it launches in 11 to 16 years.

      Why can't they just work on a 100% completely reusable Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO) Verticle Takeoff and Landing (VTOL)? It could land anywhere that is flat enough and take off again if it still had sufficient fuel. No need for long specialized runways that are longer and more costly than an airport. Hell, with the right setup, you could land it in the Sahara desert. Or even a helicopter pad, assuming the asphalt doesn't melt too much.
      • The fact that the US Shuttle is obsolete doesn't mean that the concept of a reentry vehicle that lands like an airplane is obsolete. Hopefully the EADS engineers will learn from both the successes (contrary to popular myth, the Shuttle does do some things right) and failures of the Shuttle and Buran programs, and produce such a vehicle that lives up to the promise of the idea.

      • Re:Why not just call up Rutan? (Score:4, Funny)

        by MrEd ( 60684 ) <<tonedog> <at> <hailmail.net>> on Sunday May 09, 2004 @06:30PM (#9102195)
        Why can't they just work on a 100% completely reusable Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO) Verticle Takeoff and Landing (VTOL)?


        Only if it has a pony. I want a pony.

      • Re:Why not just call up Rutan? (Score:5, Informative)

        by NOLAChief ( 646613 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @09:33PM (#9103069)
        Why can't they just work on a 100% completely reusable Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO) Verticle Takeoff and Landing (VTOL)?

        My boss used to work on Lockheed's end of the X-33 development process. He told me that SSTO is pretty much a pipe dream at this point because of difficulties in maintaining such large fuel tanks for launch and reentry. Any fuel tank will have several hundred pounds of residual propellant that have to be dealt with. The propellant will cyclically boil and condense inside the tank during orbits, inducing thermal stresses on the tank as well as constantly varying its pressure; same with any residual heat from reentry. Maintaining control over such issues is difficult. Extra insulation, for example, creates a weight penalty that could be more usefully put toward payload.

        I see a lot of people on here complaining that the shuttle is inefficient because it takes up extra equipment (in the form of flight control surfaces) that it doesn't need for the majority of the flight. The same logic follows with fuel tanks for a SSTO scheme. This is why anymore, most follow-on vehicle schemes require at least two stages to reach orbit.

        • How about making all the fuel tanks disposable, just like the big hydrogen tank on the current shuttle is? Yeah, that means building a new tank, but building a new feul tank for each launch should (in theory) be a heck of a lot cheaper than making a new vehicle for each launch.

          Yeah, it's a big problem that the vehicle contains deadweight that isn't needed after liftoff. (Likftoff requires big bulky equipment, but orbital maneuvering and the de-orbit burn only need a small fraction of that kind of power.).
      • Why can't they just work on a 100% completely reusable Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO) Verticle Takeoff and Landing (VTOL)?

        Am I missing something? Why would you even want a verticle landing? That's such a waste of resources. It's much easyer to bleed kinetic energy through flight then to work against it 100%.

        • Consider the terminal velocity (from air friction) of a falling ball. That's only about 300 miles per hour. Consider the speed of the space shuttle when it's in its relatively low orbit, that's about 17,000 miles per hour.

          So even without designing an areodynamic smooth body to fly nicely, even a simple sphere could use the atmosphere's friction to bleed off everything but the last one 1/5333 of its speed.

          After that, the difference between using rockets or using wings doesn't matter as much. The first 9

    • Re:Why not just call up Rutan? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Long-EZ ( 755920 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @10:06PM (#9103230)

      Burt already said that the X-Prize design from Scaled Composites would not be a good choice for an orbital vehicle. The design doesn't adapt well to high velocity reentry. The SpaceShipOne is optimized for the X-Prize suborbital mission with low velocity reentry.

      However, I think it would be a GREAT idea to call Scaled Composites and ask Burt to design and build a reusable spacecraft with orbital capabilities. Scaled's reputation is unmatched in the aerospace industry. You want it, they build it. It's almost always a matter of faster, better, cheaper - pick any two. Scaled Composites has managed to consistently deliver all three at the same time.

      From the zoomed out view, the US shuttle design is not a bad concept. However, in many areas, NASA's design-by-commitee approach engineered them into corners. They did a great job of surmounting the resulting nearly insurmountable technical problems. Of course, they spent enormous amounts of money and time overcoming problems that a simpler and more clever design would have avoided.

      In aviation, simpler is usually lighter which allows more payload. More importantly, the reduced complexity results in less stuff to break and a design that's easier to fully test, so it's safer and more reliable.

      I respect the hard working people at NASA, and they deserve credit for their accomplishments. But having a government bureaucracy running a space program is invariably the most expensive path to space. The shuttle cost about a billion dollars for each launch. That's WAY too much. And their "smaller-faster-cheaper" unmanned program in the 1990s resulted in a high failure rate that was regarded as a poor return on the investment. They're now back to fewer unmanned missions with more attention to detail on each. So far, the results seem very good, but it's not cheap.

      It's past time for entrepreneurial access to space, both manned and unmanned. The X-Prize is an excellent first step. It'll be exciting to see the commercial space industry grow, just as our grandparents saw the aviation industry grow in the period from 1930 to 1970. If we projected the commercialization of space onto the commercial aviation timeline, we're around 1926.

      Scaled will win the X-Prize this year, probably this summer. Stay tuned. This is going to be very cool.

  • Space Shuttle Prototype? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BJZQ8 ( 644168 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @05:19PM (#9101852) Homepage Journal
    I dunno if this is so much as a prototype as a test bed or demonstrator...I mean, if it was a prototype it would be something near the real thing...and this certainly isn't anywhere near their final product. Good that somebody's aiming high though...
  • "...of a German designed prototype of the European space shuttle, Phoenix"

    Ooo neat! How long before warp drive is tested?

  • Holy... (Score:2, Funny)

    by pagaman ( 729335 )
    Holy f**k, we have a space shuttle (well ok program).

    When the fluff did that happen :)

    Tomorrow I'll be waking up & finding out we are on Mars!

    • Re:Holy... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Sygiinu ( 226801 )
      Actually, ESA has a roadmap and a program already in place for the manned exploration of mars - and did long before it was announced NASA might be going. I applied to a well known UK university to work on the program for my PhD.

      You can find out about the Aurora project here [esa.int].

      • Re:Holy... (Score:3, Informative)

        by VanillaCoke420 ( 662576 )
        According to the roadmap, ESA wants to land on the moon in 2024 and on mars around 2030. If they're going to pull that off we have to manage manned spaceflight at all, first. I hope the Phoenix will be part of that.
      • A PhD in what? Political Science? English (Creative Writing)? The technology exits for a Mars Mission. Even if we are talking ion drives and small nuclear reactors for engines/power a lot of this research has been done by NASA and is sitting on a shelf. Now if you can figure out something like "suspended animation" or a way to prevent bone density loss on the 6+ month trip (each way) that would be quite some PhD research. Or finding out a way to cheaply extract minerals or make Mars have an atmosphere. I'm
        • Now if you can figure out something like "suspended animation" or a way to prevent bone density loss on the 6+ month trip (each way)

          It is not a challenge. First of all, humans can stay in zero-G for at least a year if they follow the exercise program. Also, it is trivial to spin the spacecraft.

          Or finding out a way to cheaply extract minerals

          I am sure there are many chemists with just the right knowledge. We already know what type of minerals are there.

          make Mars have an atmosphere

          Aside from use of

  • Ugh @ the photo (Score:5, Funny)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @05:32PM (#9101908) Homepage Journal
    Anybody see the photo of that thing? Check out the needle on the front of it. Does it land like a lawn dart?

    • Re:Ugh @ the photo (Score:3, Informative)

      by NeuroManson ( 214835 )
      Take a looksee at good 'ol Enterprise sometime. That glider demonstration featured a needlenose as well.

      Presumably it was for measuring air speeds, etc, or at least gave the test pilot a reference point for lining up the runway (since the nose drops off a touch from the cockpit windows, you need a solid reference point to guide yourself in by).

      • Re:Ugh @ the photo (Score:4, Interesting)

        by rv8 ( 661242 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @09:29PM (#9103051) Homepage

        Yup, that would definitely be a boom for the air data system and angle of attack and sideslip probes. It is a very standard thing to see on flight test vehicles. You need to get that stuff well away from the rest of the aircraft so they are not affected by the flow field around the vehicle. After a bunch of flight testing you figure out how the flow field affects the accuracy of the production air data and angle of attack probes, which are mounted on the vehicle itself. So the production vehicle doesn't need the nose boom. But it is needed until they have enough data to calibrate the production probes.

        Clear as mud?

  • what?? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    and i thought the first all european space program was the russian space program....
    • Since Russia is not entirely located in Europe, but also in Asia, the Russian space program was euro-asian.
    • Both the US and Soviet space programmes were bootstrapped on rocket science captured from Nazi Germany after WW2. German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun became one of the pioneers of the US space programme.

      One could say that rocketry was a pan-European endeavour, having been developed in Germany and tested in England.

  • Hate to be a grammar nazi, but... (Score:5, Informative)

    by NeuroManson ( 214835 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @05:39PM (#9101937) Homepage
    "moving the first all European mission into space one step closer."

    Should read as "All European manned mission".

    The ESA's been doing space missions for what, over 10 years now? Satellites, probes, etc.
    • The ESA's been doing space missions for what, over 10 years now?

      Very true. The ESA was formed in 1975/1976, so it is almost 30 years old.

      Before the formation, the member states had various space programs of their own, and there were already various technology sharing programs - before ESA there was ESRO (European Space Research Organization), which was formed in 1964, as per an agreement in 1962.

  • Weird... (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    As far as I know, there has only been one shuttle project, named Hermes, but that has been abandonned at least 10 years ago.
    Wonder where that comes from.

  • Space Shuttle Prototype Lands Safely In Sweden (Score:4, Funny)

    by Gallowsgod ( 766508 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @05:46PM (#9101971)
    From the article:
    The next step likely will be to drop the prototype from higher altitudes, with the help of a high-altitude balloon

    And the next step after that should be to send one of those Opportunity rovers to explore the surface of Sweden and see if they can find any water
    • "And the next step after that should be to send one of those Opportunity rovers to explore the surface of Sweden and see if they can find any water "

      Finding water in the Vodka Belt? You must be joking!
      And anyway, when you find water, good luck finding a Swede who wants to drink that stuff!

      Disclaimer: have several wonderful Swedish friends, and the conclusion of any get-together is "I'm not as think you drunk I am". Wonderful, how they hold their liquor.

  • Excuse me but... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Malicious ( 567158 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @05:50PM (#9101989)
    Is it really a good idea to name your new Space Shuttle after a Mythical Bird which is well know for bursting into flame?
    • The name isn't that bad. The bird always got reborn from his ashes. Let's hope that if one of these shuttles ever has a serieus accident, they follow the birds example and build a new one instead a burrowing the project.

    • Re:Excuse me but... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Gallowsgod ( 766508 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @06:21PM (#9102149)
      Totally offtopic, but when it comes to mythology I just can't help it.

      The phoenix bird did not burst into flames. It was a bird which was considered immortal. As its end approached, it set fire to its nest, was consumed by the flames and was reborn from the ashes.

      There are Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Egyptian, and Native American versions of the phoenix bird
    • But what about the Phoenix BIOS people, I'm sure they're going to be pissed ;)

  • Interesting... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 09, 2004 @06:00PM (#9102026)
    OK guys now this is getting funny... Since the last attempt in the 80's by the Russians there was no success, neither by Russians nor by Americans to replace the ancient Space Shuttle, still it was used since last year (remember that little 'incident' that happened at that time?). Now the ESA comes up with an alternative to that old scrap metal which is furthermore compatible to the next-generation Ariane-5 and everything I read up to now were negative comments? Start thinking optimistic! Maybe this really is the first step to the next generation of manned space flights, as the Phoenix need much less resources to be taken into orbit as everything before! Only very few tons of things can be transported with one flight into space because even rocket + shuttle alone are much to heavy... so what's the point in being conservative? Trust german engineers, maybe they know what they're doing, without their rockets even the NASA would probably still simulate their Apollo-Missions on earth instead of having a nice little flag up there ^^
  • But when the hell did Bill Gates [www.ssc.se] get a job at ESA? :-)

  • excuse me? (Score:4, Funny)

    by jpellino ( 202698 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @08:11PM (#9102679)
    from wikipedia:

    Begun in Germany and currently under development in Europe by EADS the Phoenix will be, together with the Ariane 5, the European vehicle for space conquest."

    Space conquest? Germany?

    Erm, hello?

  • From *REALLY* High Up (Score:5, Funny)

    by zx75 ( 304335 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @08:14PM (#9102700) Homepage
    The primary aim of the test was to assess the glider potential of the craft. The final version of the vehicle must be able to glide from an altitude of 80000000000000 miles.

    Is it just me, or does 80 trillion miles seem to be a bit far to be termed 'gliding'. As well, when you're that far away I don't believe you're talking about 'altitude' any longer either. I mean, Pluto is only 3.6 Billion miles away, I guess gliding from a distance of 20,000 times further than pluto for a landing on earth's surface isn't too much to ask.

  • Is there a justification proposed? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jesterzog ( 189797 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @08:32PM (#9102801) Journal

    One of the more contriversial aspects of the US space shuttle is if there's really a proper justification for the manned spaceflight that it provides. (Very expensive, arguably most of what it does could be done without people, etc.)

    I guess one of the differences is that NASA already has a lot of sunk costs in it's space shuttle programme. Whether it makes economic sense or not, part of the reason that NASA maintains it's manned space programme is probably because it already has one and doesn't want to lose it.

    The ESA doesn't have one at the moment, which (to me) makes it very interesting that they're trying to start one. Is there a big economic justification that the ESA has for putting people in space?

    Or alternatively, is it for the same contriversial and possibly political reasons that the US keeps people there? I'm not trying to imply that it's good or bad to have people in space, but I'm curious if it for some reason makes a lot of economic sense for the ESA to have a manned space programme moreso than NASA.

    Can anyone comment?

  • Place your bets, gentlemen! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Guppy06 ( 410832 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @09:56PM (#9103183)
    Which will happen first?
    1. ESA shuttle will enter service
    2. US shuttle will be retired
    3. Flying cars (driven by pigs, no doubt)

  • More info (Score:3, Informative)

    by starbuzz ( 590877 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @12:47AM (#9103974)
    An AP press release [space.com] at Space.com [space.com] has some more info on this, plus a medium-sized shiny CGI model.

    It also gives the size and range in a more universally palpable fashion:

    The EADS Phoenix, a prototype of the future European Shuttle, will be carried to an altitude of 2,400 meters (7,900 feet) by a heavy-duty helicopter and then dropped so it can glide to earth for a landing. ...

    The ship is just under seven meters (23 feet) long, weighs 1,200 kilograms (2,640 pounds) and has a wingspan of 3.9 meters (13 feet). It's one-sixth the size of the actual planned vehicle.

    The test range has been the site of European Space Agency tests because of its remote location and its vast uninhabited areas.

    The area has two restricted air spaces, Esrange and Vidsel, each measuring approximately 5,000 square kilometers (6,000 square yards *), available for the tests.

    When combined with a temporary air corridor, test vehicles can fly as far as 350 kilometers (217 miles) over land.

    * Well, that should be 6000 million sq. ft, but they probably should've said 2000 square miles.

  • Nothing about this on French radio this morning or yesterday night.
    It's a shame to have to surf on American sites to discover that the space program of my continent is not stalled or limited to Ariane and a few probes to Mars.

  • Stupid Colonials, overgrown egos and, oh my! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I find it absolutely hilarious how anything and everything is always reduced to a "us vs. them" deal by americans.

    You'd think that ONE pair of airplanes dumped in your faces would be sufficient to point out that this insular mindset makes America rather unloved by the rest of humanity. Get over it, you're humans, just like the rest of us. (only slightly heavier and less adept at mastering your own language.)

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