Bristol Spaceplanes has been an industry leader in spaceplane design for nearly twenty years. Our clients include the European Space Agency (ESA), and our work has been used to further NASA studies on reusable launch vehicles and space tourism. BSP has also received feasibility study contracts from ESA and the UK Department of Trade and Industry. Bristol Spaceplanes (BSP) was formed in 1991 to rea
lise low-cost access to space by exploiting the decades of spaceplane design experience of its founders. Since then it has created plans for the Ascender sub-orbital spaceplane, designed in-house from off-the-shelf technology. BSP has evolved a step-by-step development strategy leading from Ascender to orbital spaceflight; this strategy includes the BSP-designed Spacecab orbital spaceplane. Spacecab has features aimed at low development cost and risk, and is a candidate to be the first fully reusable vehicle capable of reaching orbit. More importantly, Spacecab would trigger a new space age of low-cost access to space. Our internal studies show that Spacecab and follow-on vehicles would enable the cost of the first lunar base to be reduced by a factor of ten, compared with present plans using large new expendable launchers.
