Sentences with phrase «reusable rocket plane»

Maverick aircraft designer Burt Rutan captured the Ansari X Prize in 2004 by lofting his manned, reusable rocket plane SpaceShipOne into space, but that was a suborbital flight requiring about 2 percent of the energy needed to reach and maintain orbit.

Not exact matches

In 1972, President Richard Nixon announced the development of a new reusable spacecraft that would launch like a rocket but touch down like a plane.

The European Space Agency has a packed year ahead to work on NASA's new Orion capsule, new contracts for Ariane rockets and a new reusable space plane