Atlanta, December 5, 2011 - SpaceWorks Enterprises, Inc. (www.sei.aero), has made a significant contribution to the 2011 NASA/DARPA Horizontal Launch Study, released this month.
The study perfumed a comprehensive review historical and proposed air-launch space access concepts in the range of 5,000 lb to 40,000 lb of payload to low Earth orbit. The year-long study was completed in December. It was a joint effort of several technical design organizations including NASA, DARPA, SpaceWorks, ACENT Technologies, McKinney and Associates, AMA, and the National Institute of Aerospace. SpaceWorks made contributions in the areas of concept design and analysis, technology evaluation and impact assessment, development of reference near-term flight test demo concepts, technical illustrations, and artistic visualization.
An electronic copy of the final report is available for download here:
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110015353_2011016245.pdf
The report is identified as NASA SP 2011-215994 and ISBN 978-0-9798095-4-5.
The study was commissioned in late 2010 jointly by NASA's Office of the Chief Technologist and DAPRA's Tactical Technology Office. With increased emphasis on flexible basing and responsive space access for military, civil, and commercial customers, the study had the goal to explore the trade space of horizontal launch system concepts and identify potential near- and mid-term launch system concepts that are capable of delivering approximately 15,000 lbs to low Earth orbit. The study produced a set of launch system concepts that meet this criterion and identified potential near-term subsonic flight test demonstrators.
More information can be found at the SEI website: www.sei.aero.