Vaya Space is a space and defense company, founded in 2017 as Rocket Crafters, based in Cocoa, Florida. [1] [2] [3] [2] It develops and manufactures orbital launch vehicles and vortex-hybrid rocket engines. [4] In 2022, the company won the International Green Apple Environment Award and was recognised as a Green World Ambassador. [5] In 2024, it was awarded a contract by the Air Force Research Laboratory and AFWERX to develop hybrid engine technology for hypersonic missiles. [2] [6] A Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation and Missile Center (DEVCOM AvMC) was signed in 2024. [7] Its hybrid rocket has a successful launch on 29 January 2022 (Mojave, California). [4] Dauntless is a rocket with 3 stages, hybrid propulsion (HDPE Fuel/Lox), length: 19.7 m, and a payload of 1.100 kg to LEO, 600 kg SSO. [8] Its first orbital trip is planned for 2026. [9] The fuel utilised by the rocket is solid: 3D printed from recycled thermoplastics [4] [8] combined with liquid oxidizer.
A hybrid-propellant rocket is a rocket with a rocket motor that uses rocket propellants in two different phases: one solid and the other either gas or liquid. The hybrid rocket concept can be traced back to the early 1930s.
The Long March rockets are a family of expendable launch system rockets operated by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. The rockets are named after the Chinese Red Army's 1934–35 Long March military retreat during the Chinese Civil War.
The SM-65 Atlas was the first operational intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) developed by the United States and the first member of the Atlas rocket family. It was built for the U.S. Air Force by the Convair Division of General Dynamics at an assembly plant located in Kearny Mesa, San Diego.
A scramjet is a variant of a ramjet airbreathing jet engine in which combustion takes place in supersonic airflow. As in ramjets, a scramjet relies on high vehicle speed to compress the incoming air forcefully before combustion, but whereas a ramjet decelerates the air to subsonic velocities before combustion using shock cones, a scramjet has no shock cone and slows the airflow using shockwaves produced by its ignition source in place of a shock cone. This allows the scramjet to operate efficiently at extremely high speeds.
A liquid-propellant rocket or liquid rocket uses a rocket engine burning liquid propellants. (Alternate approaches use gaseous or solid propellants.) Liquids are desirable propellants because they have reasonably high density and their combustion products have high specific impulse (Isp). This allows the volume of the propellant tanks to be relatively low.
SABRE is a concept under development by Reaction Engines Limited for a hypersonic precooled hybrid air-breathing rocket engine. The engine is designed to achieve single-stage-to-orbit capability, propelling the proposed Skylon spaceplane to low Earth orbit. SABRE is an evolution of Alan Bond's series of LACE-like designs that started in the early/mid-1980s for the HOTOL project.
Titan IV was a family of heavy-lift space launch vehicles developed by Martin Marietta and operated by the United States Air Force from 1989 to 2005. Launches were conducted from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
The Pacific Spaceport Complex – Alaska (PSCA), formerly known as the Kodiak Launch Complex (KLC), is a dual-use commercial and military spaceport for sub-orbital and orbital launch vehicles. The facility is owned and operated by the Alaska Aerospace Corporation, a corporation owned by the Government of Alaska, and is located on Kodiak Island in Alaska.
This is an alphabetical list of articles pertaining specifically to aerospace engineering. For a broad overview of engineering, see List of engineering topics. For biographies, see List of engineers.
Scramjet programs refers to research and testing programs for the development of supersonic combustion ramjets, known as scramjets. This list provides a short overview of national and international collaborations, and civilian and military programs. The USA, Russia, India, and China (2014), have succeeded at developing scramjet technologies.
The Scaled Composites Model 351 Stratolaunch or Roc is an aircraft built by Scaled Composites for Stratolaunch Systems to carry air-launch-to-orbit (ALTO) rockets, and subsequently repurposed to offer air launch hypersonic flight testing after a change of ownership. It was announced in December 2011, rolled out in May 2017, and flew for the first time on April 13, 2019, shortly after the death of founder Paul Allen. The aircraft features a twin-fuselage design and the longest wingspan ever flown, at 385 feet (117 m), surpassing the Hughes H-4 Hercules "Spruce Goose" flying boat of 321 feet (98 m). The Stratolaunch is intended to carry a 550,000-pound (250 t) payload and has a 1,300,000-pound (590 t) maximum takeoff weight.
The VLM is a proposed three-stage satellite launcher being developed by the Brazilian General Command for Aerospace Technology in collaboration with Germany. The project originated in 2008 as a simplified version of the VLS-1 rocket, using only the core stages. The first launch is currently planned for no earlier than 2027.
Liquid Fly-back Booster (LFBB) was a German Aerospace Center's (DLR's) project concept to develop a liquid rocket booster capable of reuse for Ariane 1 in order to significantly reduce the high cost of space transportation and increase environmental friendliness. lrb would replace the existing liquid rocket boosters, providing main thrust during the countdown. Once separated, two winged boosters would perform an atmospheric entry, go back autonomously to the French Guiana, and land horizontally on the airport like an aeroplane.
A rotating detonation engine (RDE) uses a form of pressure gain combustion, where one or more detonations continuously travel around an annular channel. Computational simulations and experimental results have shown that the RDE has potential in transport and other applications.
Gilmour Space Technologies is a venture-funded Australian aerospace company that is developing hybrid-propellant rocket engines and associated technologies to support the deployment of a low-cost launch vehicle.
LandSpace Technology Corporation is a Chinese commercial space launch provider based in Beijing. It was founded in 2015 by Zhang Changwu.
Skyrora Ltd is a British private space company based in Edinburgh, Scotland, since 2017.
BluShift Aerospace is an employee-owned American aerospace firm based in Brunswick, Maine. Targeting the growing smallsat and cubesat launch markets, bluShift is developing suborbital sounding rockets and small-lift orbital rockets which will be launched from a proposed new spaceport in Maine. The company has received primary funding from NASAs SBIR grant program, the National Science Foundations I-Corps grant program, the Maine Technology Institute, and the Maine Space Grant Consortium. The company has active operations at the former Brunswick Naval Air Station and Loring Air Force Base.
HyImpulse is a German private space launch enterprise headquartered in Neuenstadt am Kocher and developing a small launch vehicle designed around hybrid-propellant rockets. The company is a DLR spinoff founded in 2018 out of the chemical propulsion center of the German space agency's Lampoldshausen facility. HyImpulse is bankrolled by Rudolf Schwarz, chairman of German technology company IABG.
HyPrSpace is a rocket startup, founded in 2019, from Bordeaux, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France. It develops orbital and suborbital launch vehicles and hybrid propulsion systems. In 2022 it has raised €1.1 million to develop its rocket. In 2024 as part of a consortium it has raises €35 million to develop their launcher, 60 procent of the funding from the French government. Baguette One is 7 metres tall, single-stage, with a payload capacity of 300 kilograms. The first suborbital mission is planned for 2026. Orbital Baguette-1 (OB-1) is a micro-launcher with a payload of 250 kg to LEO. The hybrid engines use solid fuels in combination with a liquid oxidizer. On 11 July 2024 it was completed with success the first hot fire test of its Terminator hybrid rocket motor.