The HL-20 Personnel Launch System was a NASA spaceplane concept for crewed orbital missions studied by NASA's Langley Research Center around 1990. It was envisaged as a lifting body re-entry vehicle s
HL-20 Mock-Up
Wax model of the HL-20, used for Wind Tunnel Testing.
HL-20 depicted as leaving the planned Space Station Freedom
Langley volunteers, wearing flight suits and helmets, were put through a series of tests with the craft placed both vertically and horizontally to simulate launch and landing attitudes.
Space Station Freedom
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Space Station Freedom was a NASA-led multi-national project proposed in the 1980s to construct a permanently crewed space station in low Earth orbit. Despite initial approval by President Ronald Reaga
HL-20 Personnel Launch System
…being considered an addition to the crewed launch capability of the United States for three main reasons: Assured crewed access to space. In the era of Space Station Freedom and subsequent missions of the Space Exploration Initiative, it is imperative that the United States have an alternate means of getting people and…
Artist's rendition by Tom Buzbee of the proposed Space Station Freedom design as of early 1991. An annotated version of this image is also available.
Artistic rendering of "Power Tower" space station concept (1984)
Artistic rendering of Revised Baseline Configuration (1987)
Artist's conception of the completed Space Station Freedom in orbit (1991)