British Team to Launch 3D-printed, Rocket-powered Spaceplane Into the Stratosphere

A team of amateur space enthusiasts are to launch the first 3D-printed, rocket powered spaceplane into the stratosphere in a mission called LOHAN. No, it’s got nothing to do with Lindsey – it stands for Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator. The Vulture 2 will be taken up on a massive helium balloon to an altitude of 20,000 metres – that’s three times higher than the cruising altitude of a transatlantic jet. Once there, the rocket motor will fire – thanks to a specially designed igniter – and it will continue on its journey upwards to 25,000m. Provided the Vulture hasn’t exploded, it will then glide down to earth in autopilot mode, where the team will retrieve journey footage shot on Go-Pro cameras attached to the vehicle. The idea came out of The Register’s Special Projects Bureau, which worked with Southampton university post-graduate aeronautical design students, supported by analytics company EXASOL. The team there had previously launched the world’s highest paper airplane. But the LOHAN mission marks a “huge leap upwards”, according to the Register’s Lester Haines, speaking to Mirror Tech. The biggest challenge has been getting the rocket motor to fire. “What will fire on the ground won’t necessary work as well when there’s only five percent of the oxygen at 20,000 metres,” he adds. The team has cracked that problem by developing what Haines describes as a “highly classified igniter mix”. The spaceplane has taken 30 people thousands of hours to prepare. The only stumbling block is now getting final approval from US aviation authorities to let the plane launch. Haines added: “Without doubt, this is the most complicated amateur high-altitude mission ever undertaken.”

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