 | |
| Company type | Private incorporated company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Aerospace |
| Founded | 2016 |
| Headquarters | Seattle, Washington |
| Website | radianaerospace |
Radian Aerospace is an American aerospace company based in Seattle, Washington. The company is developing a horizontal take-off/horizontal landing, single-stage-to-orbit, fully reusable spaceplane concept called Radian One.
Radian was founded in 2016. [1] In January 2022, the company closed a $27.5 million seed round led by venture capital fund Fine Structure Ventures. [2]
Radian released their latest vehicle design of Radian One to the public in April 2024. [3] Radian One is designed to carry up to five crew members to low Earth orbit, with as much as 5,000 pounds of payload going up and 10,000 pounds going down. The delta-winged plane will be launched from a rocket-powered sled. Radian claims it will be able to land on any 10,000 ft (3,000 m) runway and fly again in 48 hours. [4]
The company is focusing on research, space manufacturing, terrestrial observation, and rapid global delivery to Earth destinations. Radian has penned launch agreements with governments and commercial firms. [4]
The aerospike engine is a type of rocket engine that maintains its aerodynamic efficiency across a wide range of altitudes. It belongs to the class of altitude compensating nozzle engines. Aerospike engines were proposed for many single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) designs. They were a contender for the Space Shuttle main engine. However, as of 2023 no such engine was in commercial production, although some large-scale aerospikes were in testing phases.
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The DARPA XS-1 was an experimental spaceplane/booster with the planned capability to deliver small satellites into orbit for the U.S. Military. It was reported to be designed to be reusable as frequently as once a day, with a stated goal of doing so for 10 days straight. The XS-1 was intended to directly replace the first stage of a multistage rocket by taking off vertically and flying to hypersonic speed and high suborbital altitude, enabling one or more expendable upper stages to separate and deploy a payload into low Earth orbit. The XS-1 would then return to Earth, where it could ostensibly be serviced fast enough to repeat the process at least once every 24 hours.
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Bristol Spaceplanes (BSP) is a British aerospace company based in Bristol, England, who has designed a number of spaceplanes with sub-orbital and orbital capabilities. The company's stated goal is "to realise low-cost access to space", primarily through reusable launch vehicles, claiming the cost of human space travel has the potential to be reduced by a factor of 1,000.
Saenger or Sänger was a West German concept design for a two-stage-to-orbit spaceplane. It is named after Eugen Sänger, who had been a key figure in the development of the concept for aerospace company Junkers.
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Launcher was an American aerospace company based in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in New York City in 2017 by Max Haot.
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