Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle
The Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV) is a European Space Agency (ESA) experimental suborbital re-entry vehicle. It was developed to serve as a prototype lifting body orbital return vehicle to validate the ESA's work in the field of reusable orbital return vehicles.
Artist's view of IXV reentry phase
Vega rocket
frontal view of the vehicle
Drop-test model of the IXV with the flotation balloons inflated, as displayed in ESA ESTEC. The flaps in this model cannot move.
A lifting body is a fixed-wing aircraft or spacecraft configuration in which the body itself produces lift. In contrast to a flying wing, which is a wing with minimal or no conventional fuselage, a lifting body can be thought of as a fuselage with little or no conventional wing. Whereas a flying wing seeks to maximize cruise efficiency at subsonic speeds by eliminating non-lifting surfaces, lifting bodies generally minimize the drag and structure of a wing for subsonic, supersonic and hypersonic flight, or spacecraft re-entry. All of these flight regimes pose challenges for proper flight safety.
US X-24A, M2-F3 and HL-10 lifting bodies
The Martin Aircraft Company X-24 built as part of a 1963 to 1975 experimental US military program
Burnelli General Airborne Transport XCG-16, a lifting body aircraft (1944)