The Space Rider is a planned uncrewed orbital lifting body spaceplane aiming to provide the European Space Agency (ESA) with affordable and routine access to space. Contracts for construction of the vehicle and ground infrastructure were signed in December 2020. Its maiden flight is currently scheduled for the third quarter of 2025.
Artist's rendering of Space Rider spaceship
Space Rider will use a controllable parafoil for landing, as used by the NASA X-38 in 1999.
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)
