New plane
space plane
Space plane, that is, space plane, is a reusable winged aircraft, which has the functions of hypersonic transport aircraft and space transportation system. It can not only take off from the airport runway, but also cross the atmosphere into space at hypersonic speed, re-enter the atmosphere after completing the space mission and land horizontally at the airport. After simple maintenance, it can return to the blue sky in a short time and can be reused for dozens to hundreds of times (Figure 6-7).
Space plane has advantages that ordinary plane and spacecraft don't have: First, compared with ordinary transport plane, it can maneuver at a higher speed in the upper atmosphere or adjacent space, which greatly shortens the long-distance transportation time. For example, the German "Sangl" space plane takes only 3 hours from Frankfurt to Tokyo via Los Angeles, 15 minutes, the American "New Oriental Express" takes only 2 hours from Washington to Beijing, and it takes only 1 hour to fly from Europe to Australia. Secondly, compared with the previous single-use spacecraft and space shuttles that have been partially reused many times, the space shuttle has significantly improved in terms of reusability, airport-level take-off and landing capability, flexibility, maintainability, go-around interval and launch operation cost. Therefore, the space plane has a very broad development prospect. It can not only carry out global hypersonic transportation, but also perform various space missions like the space shuttle.
2 1 century, the space plane will usher in a new era of world aviation and space transportation and become the pride of soaring in the atmosphere and space.
supersonic aeroplane
At the turn of the century, Lawrence of the US Department of Energy