Vehicle Capabilities
Quite a few commercial suborbital spacecraft are currently under development, representing a wide range of potential capabilities, flight profiles, and other characteristics.
Generally, the expected capabilities and characteristics of these vehicle include:
- Flight to altitudes of ~100 km (ranging perhaps from ~ 60–160 km);
- Launch from (initially) a small number of sites in North America;
- Landing typically at the launch site;
- One to six passengers;
- ~3–5 minutes of microgravity conditions;
- Regular, predictable, and frequent flights (perhaps up to one or more per week);
- Possibility of flying opportunistic missions in a timely manner, subject to the ease of integration of any necessary apparatus with the vehicle and the available capacity of the service providers;
- Cabin pressures of ~ 0.75–1 bar, temperatures of ~ 18–25 °C; (Some service providers may require passengers to wear pressure suits or oxygen masks; NASA may require additional safety requirements such as pressure suits for flight above 50,000 feet.);
- Hard points intended for seats, each capable of accommodating ~ 100 kg of equipment in ~ 1 m3. We anticipates the availability of racks which could be mounted to these hard points capable of accommodating Shuttle middeck or NASA DC-8/P-3 equivalent apparatus;
- Windows, the sizes and shapes of which are anticipated to vary greatly from vehicle to vehicle (from diameters of ~ 0.3 m up to windshield sized), but which are expected to be composed initially of multiple acrylic and polycarbonate panes (other materials may be available in the future);
- Vehicle pointing within ~ 1°; and
- Possible eventual accommodation of unpressurized internal or external payloads.
Power and data storage may be available on some of the vehicles, but we expect that—at least on the early flights—they will be provided by the experimental payloads.
For details about the capabilities and characteristics of a particular vehicle, please contact its developer.
