Auto-Plane-Go
China has shown off a reusable shuttle that it plans to use to transport cargo to and from its Tiangong space station.
If Space.com According to reports, the project – called Haolong – recently won the state-owned Chengdu Aircraft Design and Research Institute a government contract to develop a low-cost cargo spacecraft for a space station.
The country’s manned space agency selected two proposals last month as part of its efforts to regularly resupply the three-year-old space station.
And as China looks to greatly expand its space station in the coming years, the Haolong shuttle could provide the country’s space program with an important and financially viable way to keep it in orbit.
Haolong will it last?
Like NASA’s retired Space Shuttle, the winged spacecraft would launch atop a rocket and land on a runway much like an airplane. It measures 32 feet long and 26 feet wide.
“With a snub-nosed fuselage and large swept-back delta wings, it combines the features of both spacecraft and aircraft, allowing it to be launched into orbit by a launch vehicle and land like an airplane on an airport runway ” Haolong chief designer Fang Yuangpen explained in a video from the state broadcaster CCTV.
According to Space.comIt weighs less than half that of China’s Tianzhou cargo spacecraft, which it currently uses to resupply its Tiangong space station.
However, despite some renders, Haolong is still far from being up and running as the design of the project is still in sight.
Meanwhile, US contractor Sierra Space is working on a similar spacecraft called the Dream Chaser. However, the project has been delayed for years and has yet to be launched, despite being publicly announced over two decades ago. In July, the first trip was postponed from September of this year to sometime next year.
China hopes to use the Haolong spacecraft to keep its orbital outpost supplied as it expands from three to six modules in the coming years.
However, whether the cargo space plane will be able to bypass Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser and deliver it into orbit remains to be seen.
More about space planes: A realistic Star Wars-style spacecraft prepares for launch
