FUTURE HEAVY SPACEPLANE
The vision of POLARIS for the early 2030s is the fully reusable, heavy orbital spaceplane, offering at least an order of magnitude in launch cost reduction compared to traditional rockets.
The ideal orbital spaceplane would be a fully reusable single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) vehicle – the often cited “holy grail” of space transportation. However, a fully reusable SSTO with meaningful orbital payload capability is still at the boundary, if not beyond the boundary of feasibility with today’s technology.
Therefore, our approach targets a “semi-SSTO” or “1.5-stage” concept, which can later stepwise be transformed into a full SSTO with further technology maturation.
Applications include:
- Transport of passengers/astronauts to space and to space stations and back
- Transport of cargo to space and back
- Launch of satellites and other spacecraft
- Removal of space debris
- Launching payloads to moon and into the solar system with an upper-stage
