PlanetSpace
Encyclopedia
PlanetSpace is a privately funded Chicago-based rocket
Rocket
A rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine. In all rockets, the exhaust is formed entirely from propellants carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction...

 and space travel
Spaceflight
Spaceflight is the act of travelling into or through outer space. Spaceflight can occur with spacecraft which may, or may not, have humans on board. Examples of human spaceflight include the Russian Soyuz program, the U.S. Space shuttle program, as well as the ongoing International Space Station...

 project founded by Geoff Sheerin, CEO of the Canadian Arrow
Canadian Arrow
The Canadian Arrow is a privately funded rocket and space travel project founded by London, Ontario, Canada entrepreneurs Geoff Sheerin, Dan McKibbon and Chris Corke...

 corporation and Dr. Chirinjeev Kathuria in 2005.

In February, 2007, NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

 announced plans to provide PlanetSpace with requirements and specifications to provide crew and cargo flights to the International Space Station
International Space Station
The International Space Station is a habitable, artificial satellite in low Earth orbit. The ISS follows the Salyut, Almaz, Cosmos, Skylab, and Mir space stations, as the 11th space station launched, not including the Genesis I and II prototypes...

 under the terms of the National Aeronautics and Space Act
National Aeronautics and Space Act
The National Aeronautics and Space Act is the United States federal statute that created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration . The Act, which followed close on the heels of the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik, was drafted by the United States House Select Committee on Astronautics...

. Initially PlanetSpace planned to utilize the Silver Dart for this purpose,
but on 2007-11-21 PlanetSpace announced its COTS
Commercial Orbital Transportation Services
Commercial Orbital Transportation Services is a NASA program to coordinate the delivery of crew and cargo to the International Space Station by private companies. The program was announced on January 18, 2006...

 proposal would utilize a spacecraft provided by Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin is an American global aerospace, defense, security, and advanced technology company with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, in the Washington Metropolitan Area....

. This proposal does not include use of the Silver Dart.

Background

The mission of PlanetSpace is to make space travel accessible to the general public. The company has focused its main efforts on two major projects: the Canadian Arrow
Canadian Arrow
The Canadian Arrow is a privately funded rocket and space travel project founded by London, Ontario, Canada entrepreneurs Geoff Sheerin, Dan McKibbon and Chris Corke...

, which is in development, and the Silver Dart, which is a proposed orbital spaceplane
Spaceplane
A spaceplane is a vehicle that operates as an aircraft in Earth's atmosphere, as well as a spacecraft when it is in space. It combines features of an aircraft and a spacecraft, which can be thought of as an aircraft that can endure and maneuver in the vacuum of space or likewise a spacecraft that...

.

Geoff Sheerin, President of Canadian Arrow and Dr. Chirinjeev Kathuria, two entrepreneurs with a love of space, joined forces to create PLANETSPACE in the spring of 2005. At a press conference in May 2005 in London Ontario Canada, Sheerin told the United Press International that Canadian Arrow was nearing completion and that it was missing only one important component in its plan to develop its space tourism business: money. Geoff Sheerin proudly announced, "We have found our Paul Allen". Presenting the newly formed company PlanetSpace and his new partner Dr.Chirinjeev Kathuria.

Dr. Kathuria was a founding director of MirCorp, the company that made history on April 4, 2000 when it launched the worldís first privately funded manned space program and signed up Dennis Tito to space as Earthís first space tourist or citizen explorer. MirCorp was a joint venture with RSC Energia. RSC Energia launched the first satellite (Sputnik), sent the first man to orbit the Earth (Yuri Gagarin), built the Mir Space Station, and is a major partner in the International Space Station.

Canadian Arrow

The Canadian Arrow is a 16.5 m tall two-stage rocket, where the second stage is a three-person space capsule. In a somewhat conservative approach, the design of the rocket engine and aerodynamics are based on the well proven V-2 design from WWII
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. The vehicle will launch vertically from the ground, on a sub-orbital
Sub-orbital spaceflight
A sub-orbital space flight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches space, but its trajectory intersects the atmosphere or surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched, so that it does not complete one orbital revolution....

 trajectory, and will return to Earth via parachutes and make a water landing, similar to the splashdown
Splashdown (spacecraft landing)
Splashdown is the method of landing a spacecraft by parachute in a body of water. It was used by American manned spacecraft prior to the Space Shuttle program. It is also possible for the Russian Soyuz spacecraft and Chinese Shenzhou spacecraft to land in water, though this is only a contingency...

s of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo spacecraft.

Silver Dart

Based on the U.S. Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...

's Flight Dynamics Laboratory-7 (FDL-7) program, the Silver Dart is a lifting body
Lifting body
A lifting body is a fixed-wing aircraft 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...

 designed to glide from hypersonic
Hypersonic
In aerodynamics, a hypersonic speed is one that is highly supersonic. Since the 1970s, the term has generally been assumed to refer to speeds of Mach 5 and above...

 speeds of Mach
Mach number
Mach number is the speed of an object moving through air, or any other fluid substance, divided by the speed of sound as it is in that substance for its particular physical conditions, including those of temperature and pressure...

 22 down to landing. The goal is to develop an orbital space craft/hypersonic glider capable of carrying around eight passengers. The spacecraft is expected to launch vertically atop a two-stage-plus-boosters rocket, propelled at takeoff by 28 Canadian Arrow rocket
Rocket
A rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine. In all rockets, the exhaust is formed entirely from propellants carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction...

 engines (slightly updated replicas of the German V-2 engine) and land horizontally on an aircraft runway, in an arrangement reminiscent of the Dynasoar
X-20 Dyna-Soar
The X-20 Dyna-Soar was a United States Air Force program to develop a spaceplane that could be used for a variety of military missions, including reconnaissance, bombing, space rescue, satellite maintenance, and sabotage of enemy satellites...

 project by NASA.

NASA based its X-24B test aircraft on the FDL-7 lifting body and valued the added range and stability the sleek, sharp-nosed design. FDL-7's lifting body design would also give the Silver Dart about twice the lift coefficient of NASA's space shuttles at subsonic speeds. The design is expected to have extremely higher glide range and cross range than the Shuttle Orbiter, thus relaxing requirements on reentry windows and thermal shielding.

Athena III

In 2008,
PlanetSpace proposed the Athena III, a 2.8-million-pound-thrust shuttle
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle was a manned orbital rocket and spacecraft system operated by NASA on 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. The system combined rocket launch, orbital spacecraft, and re-entry spaceplane with modular add-ons...

-derived space station
International Space Station
The International Space Station is a habitable, artificial satellite in low Earth orbit. The ISS follows the Salyut, Almaz, Cosmos, Skylab, and Mir space stations, as the 11th space station launched, not including the Genesis I and II prototypes...

 resupply booster rocket, in a joint venture with Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin is an American global aerospace, defense, security, and advanced technology company with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, in the Washington Metropolitan Area....

 and Alliant Techsystems
Alliant Techsystems
Alliant Techsystems Inc., most commonly known by its ticker symbol, ', is one of the largest aerospace and defense companies in the United States with more than 18,000 employees in 22 states, Puerto Rico and internationally, and 2010 revenues in excess of an estimated...

 (ATK), to NASA under the rebid of the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services
Commercial Orbital Transportation Services
Commercial Orbital Transportation Services is a NASA program to coordinate the delivery of crew and cargo to the International Space Station by private companies. The program was announced on January 18, 2006...

 (COTS) program.

The PlanetSpace proposal was not accepted for NASA funding. On February 19, 2008, the second round award was made to Orbital Sciences Corporation
Orbital Sciences Corporation
Orbital Sciences Corporation is an American company which specializes in the manufacturing and launch of satellites. Its Launch Systems Group is heavily involved with missile defense launch systems...

, for the Cygnus spacecraft
Cygnus spacecraft
The Cygnus spacecraft is an unmanned resupply spacecraft being developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation and Thales Alenia Space as part of NASA's COTS project. It is designed to transport supplies to the International Space Station after the retirement of the Space Shuttle...

. NASA's selection statement showed that Orbital beat PlanetSpace on funding concerns.

, PlanetSpace, Lockheed Martin and ATK had teamed up with Boeing
Boeing
The Boeing Company is an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation, founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Boeing Corporate headquarters has been in Chicago, Illinois since 2001...

 and the State of Florida to obtain private financing for the project outside of the NASA funding they did not obtain.

See also

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