ESA's Experimental Wingless Space Plane IXV Ready For a Test Flight 35
hypnosec writes The European Space Agency has revealed its preparedness for the launch of its experimental "space plane" dubbed Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV). ESA's car-sized, wingless vessel is being tested for re-entry and could build a platform on which design of future reusable spacecraft are based. IXV will be launched on Vega flight VV04 at 13:00 GMT (14:00 CET) for a suborbital flight to test technologies and critical systems for Europe's future automated reentry systems from Kourou, French Guiana, 11 February 2015.
X-23? (Score:2)
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X-14 - FIFY
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X-24 TWENTY FOUR (damned fat fingers)
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I guess you're not fat enough to use the "damned fat fingers" quote...
I would have accepted it if your first message looked like this :
x - 2 4
zsdccx -0p[= 21qwe343ert5...
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2. I don't think I can ever accept a Frenchie as Col. Steve Austin.
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IXV in Roman Numerals is not 24. It's not even proper Roman numeral format.
I know it's not customary to Read The Fancy Article, but to not read the very first line of the summary? Laziness.
The European Space Agency has revealed its preparedness for the launch of its experimental "space plane" dubbed Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV).
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ROMANES EUNT DOMUS !
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X-14 - FIFY
They clearly call the vehicle Experimental Wingless Space Plane IXV for that reason!
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The last X-24s flew in the mid 70s as precursors to the Space Shuttle. I'm glad to have someone working on this kind of technology, even if both known vehicles are unmanned, and even if this one is tiny - only about 1/2 the length of the X-37 which is itself very tiny... it's just a test mule.
IXV ? (Score:2, Funny)
IXV ? What sort of number is that?
XIV would be 14 in decimal
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I'm glad I wasn't the only person who ended up with a type mismatch. I did RTFS to find that it was an acronym.
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Um, 95?
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No, 115.
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Um, 95?
so you're saying it is in RNCD (Roman Numeral Coded Decimal)?
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The European Space Agency has revealed its preparedness for the launch of its experimental "space plane" dubbed Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV).
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Its a lifting body design, the entire fusalage "is" the wing.
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Yes. This was the kind of vehicle that Steve Austin crashed before he became the 6 million dollar man.
Wingless plane? (Score:2)
Wingless Space Plane
Oxymoron, innit?
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On one hand, you might consider wings to be appendages sticking out the side. So it's wingless. On the other hand you might consider a lifting body itself to be a wing. Of course if a plane is "a fixed wing aircraft" then it needs a wing in order to be a plane.
Still, we know what they mean. It's a plane that doesn't have any distinction between wing and fuselage.
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Aeroplanes fly because they have engines, not because they have wings.
Aeroplanes fly because they have both. Take one away, and no flying.
Plenty of things that don't have wings fly.
Yes, and they are not aeroplanes.
Steve Austin. Astronaut. A man barely alive. (Score:1)
How is this a 'plane'? (Score:2)
A 'rocket', sure. But a 'plane'?
Come on! Here is my wingless rock 'plane' and my wingless shoe 'plane'.
It lands via a parachute, just like a... a 'plane'!
(roll-eyes)
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All right then, let's see you do better.