Thursday, December 01, 2005

Orbiter: Sputnik's New HL-20

HL-20 at ISS with Atlantis
"Sputnik" (Erik Anderson) continues to produce an amazing stream of high-quality add-ons for Orbiter. A search of OrbitHanger.com shows 16 add-ons by Sputnik, and I'm sure there are more. They include a number of historically proposed spacecraft that never flew, such as the X-20 DynaSoar, the amazing "World of Colliers" add-on, and the even more amazing "World of 2001" released recently (I've written about several of these in the last few weeks).

Today he released another one, the HL-20 Personal Launch System/Crew Emergency Rescue Vehicle, a small lifting-body space plane intended to transport up to 10 passengers to the ISS. This NASA Langley design was recently resurrected by SpaceDev as the basis of their proposed private-development DreamChaser vehicle. I wrote about this on November 21, saying there was not an Orbiter add-on yet. Thanks to Sputnik, now there is (more or less). It's a fun little ride.

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